By Krystalline Kraus
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Much has been made in the Canadian media of the "bogus law" passed by the Ontario legislation under the Public Works Protection Act to provide police with sweeping extraordinary powers in and around the security perimeter of the summit. Several liberal commentators have complained that the law was passed in secret; in fact, it was passed discreetly June 2, and was only discovered by the media on the first day of the summit, June 25, three days before the temporary measure was scheduled to be revoked.
They have also complained that Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair lied about its scope until the day after the Summit and that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty did nothing to dispel the ambiguity surrounding the matter.
Blair did publicly state that the extraordinary law permitted cops to stop and search anyone within five meters of the fence, and to arrest and detain anyone who resisted or failed to comply. In fact, the temporary law only applied to the area within the security fence.
When he showed up in court on July 28, Dave Vasey, the only person who was arrested under this sham, was told that his papers had been "lost" either by the police or the Crown in what appears to be a clumsy attempt to make this embarrassing business go away.
The untold story here is that the cops were not only doing illegal searches and detentions within 5 meters of the perimeter, but throughout the entire Toronto downtown area. Thousands of incidents occurred in which people were randomly stopped on the sidewalk, asked for ID, and threatened with arrest if they did not comply.
Illegal searches and arbitrary seizures were common throughout the week preceding the summit and continued until several days after it; friends and allies who stayed behind to support detainees were constantly stopped and aggressively interrogated.
So while liberals are focusing on the bark on the tree, everybody is forgetting the jungle behind. Anarchists, at least, are honest about not believing in the legitimacy of the legal system. It is absolutely despicable for the authorities to insist on the system's legitimacy while disregarding it whenever it is convenient for them, and pathetically naïve that some liberals still believe in it despite all the evidence that they are alone in this.
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/statica/2010/09/g8g20-communiqu%C3%A9-g20-news-and-legal-fall-out