Really freaking important note about your rights during the G20

[mycrazyhair]

Okay, so you know that the usual rule is that the police can't just stop you on the street and ask you to provide identification or explain what you're doing? Well, under the Ontario Public Works Protection Act, there has always been an exception for people who go on railroads, gasworks, waterworks, electrical generation power works, or other "

Comments

[allyra]

Whoa, WTH! How did our nutty governmental processes get up there to your much saner country?! Y'all better do something about that cross-border contamination....

[halfwitted]

May I share this link publically?

[mycrazyhair]

Absolutely. I virtually always lock down my posts, but made this one public because I think it's important to share this info far and wide.

[halfwitted]

Twitter/booked.

[much_ado]

I've also signal-boosted via FB.

[thornleaf]

I just saw on the news that this was passed on June 2. Bill Blair is actually claiming that it was all done publicly and according to procedure.

Except that, y'know, nobody heard about it until AFTER the first person was detained.

Ridiculous.

[captrenault]

Declaring downtown Toronto as a temporary 'Public Works' is actually a fairly crafty move. It won't stand the first court challenge, but that's months away...

I maintain, however, that if the aim of a measure is security, and public compliance with that security measure, then it only makes sense to have the public aware of those measures and the expectations made of them.

A secret law does not have as its aim compliance with that law, but something else instead.

[captrenault]

Not to mention that the cops had these tools available to them already under the ordinary Criminal Code, and if they really needed something more than that, they could have made a declaration under the federal Emergencies Act. That's what the damn thing is for.

Makes much more sense than abusing a law intended to bust graffiti artists tagging highway overpasses or kids messing with train track signals, but whatever.

Just another shiny new toy for the cops for the conference.

[captrenault]

Actually -- 'court challenge'? What the hell am I talking about?

If they're smart, they'll drop all the charges made under the Public Works Act after this weekend, so the legality of this move is never tested, and no-one will have egg on their face for trying it.

The more serious cases they can go forward with using the Crim Code, the pesky protest minnows will have been cleared out of the way for the duration, and the organizers' aims will be satisfied anyway.

Heh.

[amazon_syren]

Putting this on facebook.
Thank you!

[littlehoudini]

One of the big issues I see with all the expense and security arrangements for this G20 summit is on Monday, when it's all over and there have been no serious issues (assuming there are no serious issues) the police/security arrangers/powers that be will declare, "See? Good thing we did all that - we scared away / quashed any problems by our show or strength. Money well spent, clearly worth the trouble.

[poeticalpanther]

Also known as the "North American Keeping The Elephants Away" dance.

[littlehoudini]

See, that's pretty much exactly what I said here:

http://community.livejournal.com/toronto/9036587.html

...but many people did not agree.

[poeticalpanther]

= why I avoid such fora, or at most watch them, rather than joining or commenting. :/

Funny that we made the very same analogy, though. I've been saying much the same thing about the "Airport Security" ritual dance, too, especially since it went barefoot.