Works for me. Sarah Palin's scorched-earth plan for the GOP: Neil Macdonald

Sarah Palin, who now says she's definitely interested in "serving" as president next year, made a speech last weekend at a gathering of Republican White House aspirants in Iowa.

It was somewhat coarser, and certainly more bitter, than her usual bundle of platitudes and jingoism.

At one point she shouted "Screw the left in Hollywood!" And she complained about how even some Republicans are buying into "this unhealthy new obsession … about this subjective income gap that we're supposed to be so obsessed about right now."

She came close to suggesting conservative Republicans rip up their cards and register as independents in order to punish the party leadership, then seemed to abandon the idea.

She referred to the "800-pound elephant in the room of the White House that the radical left won't even name."

That would actually be a rather tiny elephant, but she was happy to name it anyway: "Any Muslim who would choose evil." And then she made a declaration so incoherent it made international news.

"Everyday-Americans are getting taken for a ride … and GOP leaders, by the way: the 'Man' can only ride ya when your back is bent, so strengthen it! Then the Man can't ride ya and Americans won't be taken for a ride."

There was also a lot about the viciousness and stupidity of political reporters.

Naturally, political reporters responded.

So over

Under the headline: "Sarah Palin slips into self-parody," Charles W. Cooke called it "the foreordained culmination of a slow and unseemly descent into farce," suggesting she stay out of the race for the good of her party.

Charles W. Cooke writes for National Review, one of this country's premier conservative publications.

Under another withering headline, "GOP faces its Sarah Palin problem," Byron York interviewed several dismayed audience members: "It was all quite petty," he concluded.

"She proceeded to blow through her time limit with a free-association ramble on Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, the energy industry, her daughter, Bristol, Margaret Thatcher … and much more. It would be hard to say (Palin) had a theme."

Byron York is one of Washington's more prominent conservative authors. And a Fox News regular.

Craig Robinson, of the Iowa Republican Blog, said Palin made Donald Trump look serious.

Clearly, Sarah Palin and perhaps a handful of vigilante militia members are the only people left who take Sarah Palin seriously. There is now serious talk of excluding her from future Republican nomination events.

But she did at one point in that speech issue an interesting challenge to the Republican hierarchy.

Let us, she said, nominate a presidential candidate who is a clear, unambiguous, social, fiscal and religious conservative, someone with "bold conservative colours, not establishment, pale pastels."

Republican bingo

Now, Palin's version of a real conservative is becoming pretty extreme. She's started referring to the liberal-bashing Fox News Channel as "a quasi, or assumed conservative outlet."

But her basic point is one that some serious Republican players have made, too.

People like Jim DeMint, head of the Heritage Foundation, and Senator Ted Cruz, the Tea Party hero from Texas, and Kentucky's Senator Rand Paul, another Tea Party hero, have all suggested it's long past time to nominate an uncompromising conservative.

A favourite of Republican donors, former presidential candidate Mitt Romney was considering another bid, until he pulled the plug on Friday. (Associated Press)

The party's problem, DeMint and his colleagues on the Republican right have suggested, is not that Americans aren't interested in conservative solutions, it's that conservatives haven't communicated their solutions with sufficient clarity.

If someone could just do that, bingo. The mission of building a truly conservative America could begin.

Testing that theory would of course be every reporter's idea of an epic story.

Consider, say, Hillary Clinton versus a red-meat conservative who wants to shut down the Federal Reserve, the Environmental Protection Agency, the federal Education Department and maybe even the Internal Revenue Service, slash taxes, put God back in the public square, privatize social security, kill Obamacare, bomb the hell out of evil regimes abroad, and stop welfare Tuesday.

I'm all for it. A contest like that, I mean.

Most Republicans, though, aren't.

The two unofficial leaders of the 2016 Republican field — which already contains more than two dozen contenders with some sort of profile or credentials — didn't bother attending the Iowa "freedom summit."

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, both among the most pale of Republican pastels, were presumably too busy competing elsewhere for the support of big-time donors.

Romney, after losing the nomination in 2008 and the election in 2012, repeatedly promised he wouldn't run again.

But then he saw another 2012-style freak show shaping up, and started reading polls suggesting that what Republicans really want is a moderate, establishment candidate, and his nostrils flared at the whiff of possible victory.

A few weeks ago, he started telling donors he wanted to run. Then, on Friday, he told supporters he "believes it's time to give other leaders in the party the opportunity to become the next nominee."

Which of course doesn't mean he's not running. Anything short of the Sherman declaration nowadays means you're still in the game.

At the moment, anyway, Romney is the big dog in the polls. And number two is George W. Bush's brother Jeb, whose views on absorbing illegal immigrants (let's get on with it) are abhorrent to the party's far right, but appeal to the huge, growing and coveted Latino demographic.

Also a big contender, at least if investigations into his administration's political shenanigans don't disqualify him, is another relative moderate, the immensely likeable Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey.

Dr. Ben Carson addresses the Republican National Committee luncheon earlier this month in San Diego. The former neurosurgeon and conservative favourite is riding high in some polls as a possible presidential candidate. (Associated Press)

But there's an outlier who's somehow consistently right behind Romney and Bush: Ben Carson, an eminent retired neurosurgeon and author. He is brilliant, black, charismatic, deeply religious and easily conservative enough for Sarah Palin.

He has compared Obamacare to slavery. He has questioned the ethics of people who believe in evolution. He has compared Democrats to Nazis. He's compared same-sex marriage to pedophaelia and bestiality. He also opposes affirmative action.

A small wrinkle: he opposed the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan. But that's in the past now, after all, and as Palin puts it, true conservatives have a political war on their hands.

Carson might just be their huckleberry. He seems a lot more popular than other far-right contenders, and he'd certainly settle the question of whether Americans want an unambiguous conservative.

You betcha he would. Let's do this.

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Proposed law aims to 'remove terrorist propaganda' from internet

The anti-terrorism bill unveiled Friday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper includes a section that gives his government the power "to order the removal of terrorist propaganda" from the internet.

That would still require a judicial order, as well as the attorney general's support to push for the removal of such web content.

If the proposed legislation becomes law, a judge could order an internet service provider, or the "custodian" of "the computer system," to remove web content the judge considers terrorist propaganda.

Government backgrounders on Bill C-51 point out that the Criminal Code already permits the removal or seizure of hate propaganda or child pornography.

The Department of Justice says the draft legislation is similar to laws that already exist in the United Kingdom and Australia.

Reporting terrorist propaganda in the U.K.

In 2010, the U.K. government set up a "Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit," which removes "terrorist material" from the internet. In November, the British government said it had taken down more than 65,000 "pieces of unlawful terrorist-related content," 80 per cent of them about jihadist groups in Iraq and Syria.

Police forces or the public can submit a report via the government website if they see terrorist material online.

The internet counterterrorism unit prioritizes websites for review, with English-language web content at the top of the list. If the unit decides a website has breached British law, it takes action.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, left, walks with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott in Canberra, in November 2014. While visiting Australia, Cameron spoke about efforts to block and remove terrorist material on the internet. (Mark Graham/Associated Press)

Last year, the U.K. government reached an agreement with internet service providers (ISPs) to voluntarily block outside material at the request of the counterterrorism unit, with no court order required. If the web content is on servers in the U.K., action can be taken against the host to remove the terrorist material.

In Australia, for locally hosted content, ISPs can be ordered to remove content, and action taken against them if they refuse. If the content is outside the country, Australia's domestic spy agency, ASIO, or the federal police, can order websites to block the content. As in the U.K., no court order is required.

Free speech advocates in both the U.K. and Australia have been critical of both governments' approaches to fighting terrorism on the internet. One concern in Britain is that there's no requirement for public disclosure about how often and what content gets blocked or taken down.

While the Canadian bill uses the phrase "computer system," Australia's new law uses "computer network," which, critics say, gives the government the authority to monitor the entire internet.

The Australian Lawyers Alliance says legislation which became law last fall would have "not just a chilling effect but a freezing effect."

More safeguards in Canada

Kim Carlson, international co-ordinator of the U.S.-based online rights group Electronic Frontier Foundation, views the Australian and U.K. governments as "racing to see which country can introduce the worst restriction as quickly as possible."

Videos from groups like Nigeria's Boko Haram could be targeted for removal from the internet by Canada's proposed anti-terrorism legislation. (Associated Press)

While also critical of Canada's draft legislation, on the issue of removing internet content, she says Canada's proposal would have more safeguards than in those two countries. But she argues it would still "have a chilling effect on speech, as people fear that their words are going to be misconstrued in some way."

Bill C-51 also would give a judge who has reasonable grounds to believe that a website contains terrorist propaganda the power to order an ISP to "provide the information that is necessary to identify and locate the person who posted the material."

In June, the Supreme Court ruled that Canadians have the right to remain anonymous on the internet and that ISPs cannot disclose their identifying information to law enforcement unless they first obtain a warrant.

Disclosing identities

Christopher Parsons, the managing director of the Citizen Lab's Telecom Transparency Project at the Munk Centre for Global Affairs, says that given the top court's ruling, he's concerned about ISPs handing over subscriber information.

Before that happens, he says, some sort of judicial process is needed to ensure that Canadians' personal information doesn't get disclosed to government unless they get warrants.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper takes part in a roundtable discussion with law enforcement officials regarding issues related to national security on evolving threats of terrorism and extremism, in Aurora, Ont., on Jan. 29 . (Nathan Denette/Canadian Press)

Parsons also expressed worry about how expansive the  government's definition of terrorist propaganda will be, especially at what he calls the margins of political and artistic speech.

"Advocacy and promotion is the test," Justice Minister Peter MacKay explained on CBC's Power and Politics.

Given the extent online of what the government calls terrorist propaganda, there's also a question about the staffing required to find and remove that content from the internet. Parsons noted the challenge the RCMP has getting the resources to take down the vast quantity of child pornography.

Rozita Dara, a computer science professor at the University of Guelph, doubts that technology alone can identify terrorist propaganda. She says that doing subjective searches in data mining is still very tough, and even with algorithms as good as Google's, humans will still need to look at every suspect web page.

Dara raises the question about distinguishing between someone expressing an opinion and someone who's recruiting or publishing propaganda. She worries that before the distinction is clear, people expressing opinions will be put under online surveillance and their social media information checked out. For her, linking different sources of information or databases with personal content raises privacy concerns.

CBC is not responsible for 3rd party content

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Fracking called likely cause of earthquakes in northern Alberta

Alberta's provincial energy regulator says a significant earthquake in northern Alberta was likely caused by hydraulic fracturing.

If fracturing is confirmed as the cause, scientists say, it will have been the largest earthquake ever to result from an industrial operation.

Residents in the town of Fox Creek noticed the earthquake a week ago on Jan. 22. It was of 4.4 magnitude, severe enough to cause minor damage.

"It felt like a big gust of wind hit the house. The door flew open and the couch moved," said Kelli Mcphee, who was at home watching a scary movie in her living room at the time.

B.C. has a policy that requires operations to stop after an earthquake that ranks higher than 4.0 in magnitude. Alberta has no such rule. (CBC)

"My husband grabbed a bat and started walking around the house because we didn't know what it was."

Fox Creek, a town of about 2,000 people, is largely sustained by oil and gas development.

That work often uses hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," a process that injects a high-pressure mixture of water and chemicals into the earth to break through rock.

In an emailed statement to CBC, the Alberta Energy Regulator said its monitoring system picked up strong evidence that fracking caused this recent earthquake and likely triggered others too, although it is "impossible to definitively state that it was not a naturally occurring event."

The link between fracking and earthquakes is a phenomenon that several scientists are now studying.

"We have been seeing earthquakes for about the last year in that area, starting with events just above magnitude 3," said David Eaton, a professor of geophysics at the University of Calgary.

"In most cases, those earthquakes have occurred in association with industry activity such as hydraulic fracturing."

Eaton and Gail Atkinson, a scientist at Western University, said if the quake is proved to be caused by fracking it would be the largest one in the world caused by fracking. 

British Columbia has a policy that requires operations to halt if they trigger an earthquake greater than a 4.0 magnitude.

Alberta does not have a similar rule.

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Prison bus initiative helps bring inmates, family together

A prison inmate who stays connected with family and gets to see them while in jail has a better chance of turning their life around once they get out, but for some whose loved-ones are incarcerated, significant challenges stand in the way of visits.

Research has shown that getting to see family can be very beneficial for prisoners. A 2008 study published in the Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, for example, says the chances of an inmate re-offending dropped 31 per cent among those who received visits during the year prior to their release.

The number of visits also had a notable impact - each visit reduced their odds of re-offending after release by about 4 per cent.

"People outside, they probably just see us as criminals," says Nathan Trudeau, who is serving time in Ontario's Warkworth institution for armed robbery.

"They don't look at us like human beings. They think that our lives don't matter and we change as soon as the door's locked, but we're people too. We're convicts, we've done bad things, but some of us plan to change."

And while visits can help bolster that desire to change, they can also help the families of inmates in return.

'We're convicts, we've done bad things, but some of us plan to change,' says Ontario inmate Nathan Trudeau. (Nick Purdon/CBC)

​

"If a child loses a parent to divorce or to death, the community typically rallies around - but with prison that's not that case," says Jessica Reid, co-founder of Foster, Empowering and Advocating Together (FEAT), a non-profit organization dedicated to connecting inmates with their families.

"People seem to turn their backs and forget about these kids. Yet if we don't support them, they are at risk for so many bad outcomes, poor mental health, dropping out of school and then following in the footsteps. It's very important that we support them."

However, for some families, institutions are simply difficult places to get to - many inmates are incarcerated hours away from where their loved ones live. For others, the very idea of visiting a penitentiary is overwhelming.

Reid co-founded FEAT to help families and inmates deal with challenges that keep them apart.

Since 2011, more than 250 children and 400 families have climbed on the special FEAT-sponsored bus and been driven to penitentiaries across southern Ontario.

Reid says it's a simple idea, but that the stakes are high for everyone involved.

"The hardest part is knowing that they have to leave at a certain time," says Trudeau. "They can only stay her for so long, right, and after that they have to leave. And I have to stay here. It's sad letting them go."

The CBC's Nick Purdon (@cbcnickpurdon) went on a bus trip recently to the Warkworth institution in Ontario where Trudeau is serving time for armed robbery. Trudeau's sons Thian and Cash, along with his wife Eve and his mother Rose, came to visit. Watch the video of the visit, and Purdon's video documentary about FEAT and prison visits.

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Energy earnings: How bad will they get?

Suncor will report its fourth-quarter earnings on Feb. 5. (Agence France Presse)

Canadian Oil Sands surprised no one on Thursday when it reported sharply lower earnings and a massive cut to its dividend.

But as energy earnings season gets fully underway next week, the hope is that company's report won't be representative of the entire sector.

Canadian Oil Sands reported net income of $25 million, down 87 per cent from the same quarter a year ago. It cut its capital spending plans for 2015 and slashed its dividend by 86 per cent, to five cents a share, to conserve cash.

"Canadian Oil Sands is what you call a pure play," says Judith Dwarkin, director of energy research with ITG Investment Research in Calgary. The company's only asset is a nearly 37 per cent stake in Syncrude, which has been mining the oilsands since the 1970s. It's neither a diversified nor an integrated company, so there's no protection against volatility in the price of crude.

'How do you strategically position yourself to weather the storm?'— Nick Lupick, AltaCorp Capital

That's not the case for every oilsands player reporting in the coming weeks, but that doesn't mean we should expect good news.

"The general tenor is not going to vary a lot," says Dwarkin. "Capital cuts, trying to maintain the cash flow."

Suncor and Imperial

Imperial Oil and Suncor Energy report Feb. 2 and Feb 5, respectively. Both companies are fully integrated, meaning they extract the oil, refine it and sell gasoline, diesel, propane and petrochemicals. Refining margins have been under pressure in the U.S., but holding together in Canada, according to Nick Lupick, an energy analyst with AltaCorp Capital.

Lupick does not expect capital spending cuts from the two giants. There will naturally be less spending from Imperial because Kearl (oilsands mine) is in operation now." Lupick says that Suncor is not easily able cut back on its spending because development of its Fort Hill project is far enough along that it's difficult to turn back.

Cenovus and Husky

Cenovus and Husky report the following week on Feb 12. Both companies have oilsands operations that are steam-assisted instead of mined. Steam-assisted drilling operations tend to have break-even costs around the $50 US a barrel mark. The average price for West Texas Intermediate in the fourth quarter was $73.20 US.

That means the earnings pain is mostly deferred until the first-quarter numbers come out in the spring.

"That will dominate all the analyst calls next week," says Lupick. "How do you strategically position yourself to weather the storm."

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2 families chased by rabid wolf escape 'absolute disaster'

Two families had a frightening run-in with a rabid wolf while snowmobiling in Labrador.

Shortly after the confrontation on a trail between Wabush and Labrador City last Sunday, the wolf was found and killed by wildlife officers. It was later determined the animal had rabies.

The incident happened last Sunday, but wildlife officials commented only Thursday on what they say is the first case of rabies in the region since July.

In an interview via Skype, Michelle Sexton and Jennifer Patey said they were snowmobiling with their husbands and children when the ordeal began.

About 20 minutes into the snowmobile trip, they came upon the wolf in the middle of the trail.

'I screamed in my helmet, but no one could hear me.'- Jennifer Patey

The animal began to charge at them, and started attacking the skis on their snowmobiles.

"There was nowhere you could put your kids safe enough or get away fast enough because he was right behind you," said Sexton.

"He came directly at the Ski-Doo, right for us, showing his teeth."

She said the wolf began lunging at both snowmobiles, standing up on its hind legs near the children. 

Michelle Sexton feared for the safety of her children during Sunday's encounter with the rabid wolf while they were snowmobiling in Labrador. (Sexton family)

"I screamed in my helmet, but no one could hear me," said Patey.

When she tried to get her family away from the animal, she flipped her snowmobile.

"When I turned to look back, the wolf was right behind me.

"I put my hand out to stop it from coming to me and at the same, I hit my gas and I lost control of my snow machine again. I didn't stop, and in my head all I could think of was Gemma, Gemma, Gemma, my daughter."

Feat of strength 

Patey said she managed to find the strength to right-side the snowmobile.

Jennifer Patey said the wolf seemed to come out of nowhere, and was aggressive toward her family. (Patey family)

"On a regular day, I'd never be able to lift that machine," she said. 

"I don't know where my strength came from, but I lifted that machine up and I turned her around. When I turned to look back, the wolf was right behind me."

Once the machine was back upright, she hit the gas and didn't stop until she tracked down wildlife officers, who sprung into action after she told them about the wolf.

"Two young wildlife officers, right away, they didn't even hesitate, they took off," she said. 

"They didn't even have any weapons. They just took off after [the wolf]."

Follows officers on chase

The families eventually took shelter in a cabin, watching as the officers chased the wolf into the woods.

Patey said she jumped on one of the wildlife officer's snowmobiles and followed them.

The 25-minute hunt ended when one of the wildlife officers ran down and killed the animal with his snowmobile.

"As soon as I pulled up next to them, he had driven over the wolf with his snow machine," said Patey.

"It wasn't long after it took its last breath."

According to Patey, the wildlife officers just happened to be in the area doing routine checks of trail passes.

"It was a blessing they were on that trail that day," she said. "It could have turned into an absolute disaster."

CFIA confirms rabies

Officials with the Department of Natural Resources said in a statement Thursday that while there's no confirmation of any human or domestic animal making contact with the wolf, officials are asking the general public to report any possible contact with the animal before the Jan. 25 incident.

Samples from the animal were sent to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency lab in Ottawa to confirm it had rabies.

Officials said residents should:

• Keep domestic animals under observation.
• Avoid wild animals.
• Ensure pets are up to date on vaccinations.

Wildlife officials are also urging anyone in Western Labrador who has seen any wild animals acting strangely to contact them.

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CSIS to be given 'power to disrupt,' not arrest, jihadists in new terror bill: Chris Hall

Canada's spy agency is expected to be given new powers to stop would-be Canadian jihadists before they leave the country as part of sweeping new anti-terrorism measures being unveiled Friday.

Sources familiar with the proposed legislation tell CBC News the goal is to give the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service the kinds of legal tools that are available to intelligence services in other Western countries.

The expected new powers would allow CSIS agents to obtain court orders to:

• cancel plane or other travel reservations made by Canadians suspected of wanting to join the Islamic State or other extremists groups overseas;
• block any financial transactions linked to suspected terrorist activity;
• intercept shipments of Canadian-made equipment or material to Canadian individuals or groups that could be used in an attack;
• switch, or make suspect equipment being shipped unusable as part of an on-going investigation.

Under existing law, CSIS must  rely on the RCMP to do these things, and government officials say that can lead to costly delays and, in some cases, an inability to act because the RCMP requires a higher standard of proof to arrest or detain suspects.

Work on the bill began immediately after the Oct. 22 attack on Parliament Hill by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau.

The lone gunman stormed Parliament Hill after shooting Cpl. Nathan Cirillo as he stood guard at the National War Memorial.

Just two days earlier, Martin Couture-Rouleau used his car to run down Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que.

CBC News reported earlier this month that the RCMP had tried to obtain a peace bond against Couture-Rouleau a few weeks earlier but weren't able to muster sufficient evidence. 

Power to disrupt

"The goal is for CSIS to move from an intelligence-gathering service to an agency that will have the power to disrupt or diminish potential terrorist threats under appropriate judicial oversight,'' a source told CBC News.

But CSIS agents will not be given the power to arrest or detain Canadians. That power will continue to reside with the RCMP and other police forces.

Expanding the mandate given CSIS is just one of many changes expected in the massive bill, which will have five distinct sections, to be tabled in the Commons on Friday. Prime Minister Stephen Harper will hold a news conference to discuss the measures later in the day.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and York Regional Police Chief Eric Jolliffe take part in a discussion with law enforcement officials regarding issues related to national security in Aurora, Ont., on Thursday. New legislation is coming. (The Canadian Press)

"We are not under any illusion of the evolving multiple threats that we face," Harper said Thursday in Aurora, north of Toronto.

"It's difficult to predict them all, but we must continually evolve and improve our tools to do everything we can in what are obviously dangerous situations for the Canadian public, situations that we are seeing more and more frequently all over the world."

CBC News has already reported that the government intends to amend a number of laws to provide national security agencies with explicit authority to obtain and share information that is now subject to privacy limits.

Sources also confirm that the proposed legislation is expected to create a number of new criminal offences. Key among those is to make it an offence for anyone to "advocate or promote" terrorism online or through social media.

The law now makes it illegal for anyone to "counsel" someone to commit a terrorist act.

And the new bill is expected to extend the length of time police can detain a person without charge if they are suspected of being involved in a possible terrorist act.

Freedom of speech

Britain already allows anyone suspected of terrorism links to be detained for up to 14 days. Britain and France, in the wake of the massacre at the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, earlier this month, are also looking at laws to make it easier to trace the identities of anyone promoting terrorist activities online.

Canadian civil rights experts have warned these kinds of powers may violate the Charter of Rights guarantees to security of person and freedom of speech.

But government officials say they're confident the proposed measures are consistent with Canadian law.

Even so, sources tell CBC News that work on the proposed bill continued into this week, as government lawyers wrestled with the Charter implications of the new powers.

Several investigations into the October attacks are still ongoing.

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson has told reporters that investigators recovered a video Zehaf-Bibeau made the day before the Ottawa attack which includes statements that show he was driven by ideological and political motives.

That video has not been released.

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Could Colombia's outdoor escalators solve Canada's transit woes?

The effectiveness of a city's transit system does not have to be connected to the dollars spent — at least not in the example set by Medellin, Colombia.

Brent Toderian, a former Vancouver city planner, considers Medellin a model for urban creativity. Although it was once torn apart by violence and poverty, Medellin has managed to build an extensive transportation system at a fraction of the costs often seen in Canadian cities.

"It's about repurposing technologies that are used elsewhere and realizing they can be helpful to a modern city," Toderian told Chris Brown of CBC News in Medellin.

Faced with the problem of moving thousands of people around the city's mountainous terrain without racking up an insurmountable bill, Medellin architect Carlos Escobar was forced to think outside the box.

His solution — a network of outdoor escalators — replaced a warren-like network of dirt trails and exhausting stairs, and is now embraced by 20,000 people a day.

The interconnected system, which includes public spaces at every level, cost Medellin $6 million — very little in transit terms.

"This shows you can't underestimate the kind of transformation you can have in just 10 years," Toderian says.

The key, he says, is how a city views its transit plan.

Former Vancouver city planner Brent Toderian thinks Canadian cities need to be more creative about transit issues. (CBC)

Every city, he says, has urgent needs, but Medellin worked on an immediate solution.

"In Vancouver,  we've debated a gondola up to the top of Burnaby Mountain for years now. In Medellin they just
did it."

The Gondola Project in Medellin is a fully integrated urban cable system, linking other modes of transit to neighbourhoods in the surrounding foothills. It was built at around half the price of light rail.

 Vancouver is about to hold a referendum on several new, expensive transit projects. Toderian, now an international consultant on urban issues, believes Canadian cities should aspire to be as creative as Medellin.

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'I felt a calling': Doctor's busy truck-stop clinic fills health-care void in U.S.

Robert Day is in rough shape, slumped over in a chair in one of Dr. Rob Marsh's exam rooms.

For nine days, the truck driver from Fort Worth, Texas, has had trouble breathing, and has been delirious and coughing up phlegm.

The pungent odour from his body and the black grime on his hands suggest he hasn't showered in days. He's barely had anything to eat — a few bites of a hamburger and fries — and his two-packs-a-day smoking habit has been put on hold.

"Put me in the hospital, I don't care," Day tells Marsh as the doctor puts a stethoscope to his chest. "Anything to get rid of this."

He thinks he is sick from inhaling fumes from his truck, but he's not sure.

Dr. Rob Marsh examines truck driver Robert Day at Marsh's clinic in Raphine, Va. Day said he used to be healthy. but now smokes two packs of cigarettes a day and doesn't get enough exercise. (Meagan Fitzpatrick/CBC News)

'I want drivers to feel we're here for the long term.'- Dr. Rob Marsh

After the examination and some tests, Marsh indeed sends Day to the closest hospital, about 30 minutes away. He doesn't have insurance and one night's stay would cost him about $1,000 US.

Day, though, is grateful that Marsh was able to see him. This is truck-stop health care in action.

Marsh's medical clinic is part of the Petro truck stop in Raphine, Va., a dot on a map of the Shenandoah Valley, a beautiful area about three hours southwest of Washington, D.C. Interstate 81 carries a steady stream of trucks through the valley, which features little more than farms and places for drivers to eat, rest and fill their vehicles with gas.

Doctor felt 'a calling'

It's tranquil. It's nothing like Somalia and the other dangerous places Marsh was deployed to when he served in the U.S. military with the elite Delta Force unit. He was in Mogadishu in 1993 for the battle that Hollywood dramatized in Black Hawk Down. Marsh was seriously injured by shrapnel from a mortar round that killed the person standing next to him.

The blast to his right hip and the massive bleeding that followed could have killed him, but Marsh made it out alive. After a few more years serving, he retired and returned to his Virginia roots to practise family medicine.

Dr. Rob Marsh's clinic on the grounds of the Petro truck stop in Raphine, Va., has a sign on the door that says walk-ins from truck drivers are welcome. (Meagan Fitzpatrick/CBC News)

"I felt a calling to come back here," he said between bites of fried chicken that had been brought in for lunch for the staff on Tuesday.

He opened his first clinic nearly 20 years ago in Middlebrook, about 20 minutes from Raphine.

The truck-stop clinic, a building on the far side of the sprawling complex, started about a year ago and at the urging of Petro's owner, who wants to provide plenty of services and amenities for drivers.

Other truck stops in the U.S. sometimes have doctors on site, but they mostly set up in a trailer and rotate staff.

"Doc in a box," Marsh calls them, and that's not his style of practising medicine.

"I want drivers to feel we're here for the long term," he added. "I want them to feel like I am going to take responsibility for their health care, if they want me to, just like I do for the local people."

Busy clinic has 'too many patients'

The truck-stop clinic serves both locals and drivers, and fills a void for both populations. Marsh has about 3,500 patients between his two clinics. Then there are the walk-ins.

"Yes sir, we'll work you in," a man with no appointment is told when he inquired about seeing Marsh. The North Carolina resident is working on a construction project at the truck stop and has run out of diabetes medication.

"It's a good problem, but I've got too many patients," Marsh said.

Some of the truckers he treats come in with acute problems, but others get their department of transportation-mandated physicals or their company-required drug tests.

'He is tireless, totally selfless, totally dedicated to what he loves to do.'- Barry Perkins, former military colleague, now physician assistant to Dr. Rob Marsh

There is a big push lately by both government and trucking companies to ensure healthy drivers are on the road, for their own benefit and the safety of other drivers.

Marsh's clinic makes it convenient for tests to be conducted and for truckers to pay some attention to their health.

"It's tough for them," Marsh said, describing the lifestyle of long-haul drivers. Truckers are away from home for long stretches. They are also very independent and self-reliant, they often don't seek help until they feel really, really bad. When they're home after a week or more away, they have other things to take care of and family to see.

The stereotypical truck driver is overweight, eats junk food and never exercises, said Marsh, but that is starting to change thanks in part to the recent focus on truck driver health and safety. Truck centres are starting to build gyms and offer healthier options in their restaurants to encourage better lifestyles, he noted.

But the homemade fudge and fried peach pies, not to mention the Krispy Kreme donuts, offered next to the cashier at the Petro truck stop must still be a challenge for some to resist.

Marsh is committed to taking good care of whoever walks through his door, whether it's a scruffy trucker like Day or the 10-month-old baby he saw right after him. He patiently answers all of the questions the young mother had written on a scrap of paper.

Later in the day, Marsh will be making a house call to check in on a newborn. That's right, a house call. It sounds old-fashioned, and it is. It's rare to find a doctor who does that anymore, but rare is exactly how people describe Marsh.

"He is tireless, totally selfless, totally dedicated to what he loves to do. There are not a lot of people in this world who are like that," according to Barry Perkins, a physician assistant at the clinic who goes way back with Marsh, to their military days at Fort Bragg. "He is very special."

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Just 4 credit card purchases can reveal who you are

Credit card data isn't quite as anonymous as promised, a new study says.

Scientists showed they can identify you with more than 90 per cent accuracy by looking at just four purchases, three if the price is included — and this is after companies "anonymized" the transaction records, saying they wiped away names and other personal details. The study out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published Thursday in the journal Science, examined three months of credit card records for 1.1 million people.

'We are showing that the privacy we are told that we have isn't real.'- Alex 'Sandy' Pentland, MIT

"We are showing that the privacy we are told that we have isn't real," study co-author Alex "Sandy" Pentland of MIT said in an email. His research found that adding just a glimmer of information about a person from an outside source was enough to identify him or her in the trove of financial transactions they studied.

Companies routinely strip away personal identifiers from credit card data when they share information with outsiders, saying the data is now safe because it is "anonymized." But the MIT researchers showed that anonymized isn't quite the same as anonymous.

Companies routinely strip away personal identifiers from credit card data when they share information with outsiders, saying the data is now safe because it is 'anonymized.' But the MIT researchers showed that anonymized isn't quite the same as anonymous. (Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press)

Drawing upon a sea of data in an unnamed developed country, the researchers pieced together available information to see how easily they could identify somebody. They looked at information from 10,000 shops, with each data piece time-stamped to calculate how many pieces of data it would take on average to find somebody, said study lead author Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye, also of MIT.

In this case the experts needed only four pieces, three if price is involved.

As an example, the researchers wrote about looking at data from September 23 and 24 and who went to a bakery one day and a restaurant the other. Searching through the data set, they found there could be only person who fits the bill — they called him Scott. The study said, "and we now know all of his other transactions, such as the fact that he went shopping for shoes and groceries on 23 September, and how much he spent."

Women easier to identify

It's easier to identify women, but the research couldn't explain why, de Montjoye said.

The study shows that when we think we have privacy when our data is collected, it's really just an "illusion," said Eugene Spafford, director of Purdue University's Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security. Spafford, who wasn't part of the study, said it makes "one wonder what our expectation of privacy should be anymore."

It's easier to identify women, but the research couldn't explain why, said the study's lead author Yves-Alexandre de Montjoye. (Bryce Vickmark/MIT)

"It is not surprising to those of us who spend our time doing privacy research," said outside expert Lorrie Faith Cranor, director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University. "But I expect it would be surprising to most people, including companies who may be routinely releasing de-identified transaction data, thinking it is safe to do so."

Credit card companies and industry officials either declined comment or did not respond to requests for comment.

The once-obscure concept of metadata — or basic transactional information — grew mainstream in recent years following revelations by former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden. Those disclosures from once-top secret U.S. government documents revealed that the NSA was collecting the records of digital communications from millions of Americans not suspected of a crime.

Lucrative big data

The use of so-called "big data" has been a lucrative prospect for private companies aiming to cash in on the trove of personal information about their consumers. Retail purchases, online web browsing activity and a host of other digital breadcrumbs can provide firms with a wealth of data about you — which is then used in sophisticated advertising and marketing campaigns. And big data-mining was used extensively in the 2012 president election to win over voters or seek out prospective donors.

"While government surveillance has been getting a lot of press, and certainly the revelations warrant such scrutiny, a large number of corporations have been quietly expanding their use of data," said privacy consultant and author Rebecca Herold. Studies like this show "how metadata can be used to pinpoint specific individuals. This also raises the question of how such data would be used within insurance actuarial calculations, insurance claims and adjustments, loan and mortgage application considerations, divorce proceedings."

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Tim Hortons layoffs blindsided workers, manager says

They didn't see it coming. That's what a laid-off Tim Hortons manager tells CBC News.

Instead, she says, just days before job cuts were announced, the company played down media speculation about mass layoffs and gave employees the impression they shouldn't worry.

So when Tim Hortons started doling out pink slips at its headquarters and regional offices across the country on Monday and Tuesday, she says, "it was really shocking."

"We all anticipated something happening. I don't think any of us assumed it was going to happen so fast. There was just no transition time and it was pretty much, these guys came in, your job is gone."

"It was just really sour, really ominous,"  continues Jane. "You could just see a steady flow of people being escorted from the building."

Jane is not her real name. She wants that withheld for fear she will face repercussions from the company if it discovers she's speaking out.

'It was just really sour, really ominous'- Jane, laid-off Tim Hortons manager

Holding it close

U.S.-based Burger King bought Tim Hortons last year. The company has remained tight-lipped about the layoffs, refusing to make public how many jobs were cut. Until the axe fell, more than 2,000 people worked at Tim Hortons corporate offices and distribution centres in Canada.

Jane estimates 40 per cent of staff may have been laid off from head office in Oakville, Ont. She had worked in middle management. In her department, she says 60 per cent of employees were cut. She also believes some other departments were entirely gutted.

Late yesterday an official in the office of Industry Minister James Moore told CBC News that Burger King had committed to cutting no more than 20 per cent of Tim Hortons corporate staff at its headquarters or regional offices. The official said that commitment was legally binding.

Don't worry about it

Jane says when Burger King took over, it gave no indication there would be big layoffs. Instead, she says the company told Tim Hortons head office staff, "'We're here for you guys. We're here to respect you as employees, empower you,' and pretty much tried to give us the impression that everything's going to be fine."

She admits staff were told there would be "minimal" job cuts but adds that the company also stated there would be "great opportunities" for other employees.

Jane learned about the looming cuts from the media. News reports this past Friday speculated about significant job losses at Tim Hortons offices. But then, she says the company downplayed the trouble ahead.

She showed CBC an email from Burger King head office, sent that Friday night shortly after 9 p.m. It stated that "Much of the information that was reported today [in the media]...is simply incorrect."

The email admits that "Yes, we will be changing our structure." But the letter also states that the company will treat employees respectfully.

It concludes by stating, "We have nothing to announce at this time, however we are committed to communicating with you as soon as we are in a position to do so."

Surprise! You've lost your job

Jane says the big layoffs that were announced the following Monday and Tuesday hardly showed respect for employees.

She explains that on Monday, some of the more senior vice-presidents were let go. She also says a team from an external outplacement agency arrived "to essentially perform all the dirty work."

She says the team set up shop in offices left vacant by the laid-off executives "and called us in one at a time, letting us know that this is your package, you're on your way out and we'll escort you to the door."

"It was just really poorly executed," says Jane, because employees got no adequate warning. "There was a lot of crying, just emotion running high in the office."

Sign of the times

While employees may be feeling blindsided by the news, it comes as no surprise to Carleton University business professor Ian Lee. "This goes on in almost every merger today."

He explains that when a big company takes over another, it identifies overlapping jobs and lays off people to cut the fat.

"So if you have a marketing department at Burger King and a marketing department at Tim Hortons, you look for anywhere you can get rid of people."

More than one side

Not everyone connected with the company sees the layoffs as bad news. Archibald Jollymore is a former Tim Hortons executive and franchise owner. His wife Anne still owns a Tim Hortons franchise in which he is actively involved.

About the layoffs, Jollymore says, "I'm certainly not surprised at them organizing or reorganizing and trying to streamline the company. That's totally understandable." He adds that the restructuring "could be a good thing."

He also doesn't fear the layoffs will hurt business. "If at the store level, the customer doesn't see a change, I don't think it's going to [have an] impact."

But for Jane, the cuts have permanently sullied her view of Tim Hortons. "I was proud to be part of a company that I thought was part of our culture and national identity."

"But then being part of it and being shown behind the curtains, that whole illusion got quickly swept away. It's just a corporation like any other corporation."

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Falling loonie part of new race to the bottom: Don Pittis

In the Cold War it was called nuclear escalation.

Each time one side upped its missile count, the other would up it more. Soon both sides were so bristling with missiles that the only possible strategy was mutually assured destruction, or MAD, which threatened to send much of Europe and North America back to the Stone Age.

Fortunately, a currency war does not have the same destructive capacity. But the principle of escalation is the same. And just as in the nuclear example, despite repeated talks to get it under control, new outbreaks of escalation keep happening.

In a currency war each round of escalation is the process of making your currency worth less. And in this war, Canada is a full participant. 

As economists repeatedly tell us, the falling loonie is bad for Canadians who want to travel abroad. It also makes life more expensive for people who want to buy foreign goods, from European cars to South Korean washing machines.

Boost to exports

Central banks around the world, including China, have been cutting interest rates, pushing down the value of their currencies. (Associated Press)

But on the bright side, they tell us, it will be good for the Canadian economy.

Our products will become cheaper in foreign markets, boosting our industrial economy as we export more to the thriving U.S. economy.

And while working to encourage Canadians to holiday at home and shop at home, it will make people with higher currencies want to shop and travel in Canada.

Of course that only works if everyone else's currency stays high. And in currency wars that's not what happens.

The ruble is down by half. The euro has hit 11-year lows after countries using it began printing money. Japan has been printing money, too. Denmark has cut interest rates to keep the krone from surging against the falling euro.

India and China have cut. Yesterday, Singapore joined the pack, saying it was worried about deflation. 

We've seen it all before. I first noted it in 2009 when world leaders and bankers were all trying to talk down the value of their money. About a year later Brazil's finance minister officially complained, coining the term currency war. After each  new complaint, countries meet to try to hammer out friendly agreements to keep their currencies in balance.

One of the reasons thoughtful economists don't like currency wars is that manipulating your currency is a well accepted barrier to trade of the kind that seized up global commerce in the 1930s. Pushing your currency down has a similar effect to putting a restrictive tariff on imports. 

This means war

Since the Brazilian minister coined it, the term currency war has been adopted by an odd conspiracy theory that warns of inflation and a run on gold. But instead, as U.S. Fed Chair Janet Yellen said yesterday, she is more worried about deflation as the prices of U.S. imports fall.

This is only one example of how economic contagions spread across international borders. There are others. U.S. corporate results have not been as good as expected because when companies bring their profits home they are worth less in dollars. Companies are also worried about future sales as U.S. goods become more expensive. U.S. car makers will face stiffer competition from Japanese and European imports.

Much of the world, including Canada, has been counting on a strong U.S. recovery. But the United States can't buy everyone's exports if theirs collapse.

Oil effect

It is reasonable that currencies of countries like Canada and Russia that depend on oil exports will fall with the price of petroleum. That's the way currencies are supposed to work. But Canada has gone beyond that, cutting rates once and hinting it will cut again.

No central bank says it is cutting interest rates or printing money as a trade barrier. There is always another good reason. But the result may be that when everyone pushes their currency down it will force places with strong currencies to put up subtle trade barriers of their own.

And rather than helping the world economy, that would be a matter of mutually assured destruction.

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Spy agencies 'drowning in data' and unable to follow leads: security expert

Mass trolling of internet data — as done by Canada's electronic spy agency in a project dubbed Levitation — can impede cyber spies in the hunt for extremists more than it helps, some security experts argue.

"We've focused too much on bulk collection just because there's a capacity to survey broad swaths of digital communication and collect it and store it, potentially indefinitely," says Adam Molnar, a Canadian security expert teaching at an Australian university.

But that collection may not only be harmful to privacy and civil liberties concerns, but ineffective as well, the Deakin University lecturer argues.

"Even in instances where we see an attack occur, these agencies are drowning in data and they're not even able to follow up on specific leads."

Molnar cites the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the recent Paris attacks as cases where information was gathered on suspects, "but it made very little difference."

In light of Canada's own attacks on soldiers, U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald said Canadians should be asking tough questions.

"It raises a real question about why these Western intelligence agencies that are spending so much money on these very sophisticated means of surveillance can't find individuals who are planning attacks like that?" asks Greenwald.

The constitutional lawyer and author is famous for helping publish a trove of top-secret documents obtained by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden over the past two years. Revelations from the Snowden files have prompted debates about privacy and security around the world.

Greenwald was part of a team from the U.S.-based news site The Intercept who worked in collaboration with CBC News to analyze Canada-related Snowden files.

Those files included a 2012 presentation by a team at Canada's Communications Security Establishment (CSE), which is taxed with electronically monitoring security threats abroad. The presentation revealed CSE's sweeping access to videos, music and documents shared on free file-hosting websites through a project it codenamed Levitation.

Under Levitation, the electronic spy agency was sifting through up to 15 million uploads or downloads each day from around the world as part of a counterterrorism effort. But, according to the presentation, only 350 downloads each month triggered any kind of follow-up — an extremely small portion of the indiscriminately collected data.

The way the program worked was that the CSE tapped into collected metadata on those downloads. It then used the  computer's IP addresses to cross-reference that through at least two wide-reaching databases of metadata held by Canada's spying partners to try to figure out a suspect's identity and to further monitor that person's online activity.

New legislation coming

Questions about the effectiveness of mass surveillance are being raised as the Canadian government plans to introduce new legislation Friday to give security agencies broader powers. The new rules come in the wake of two attacks on Canadian soldiers last year as well as a growing number of extremist incidents around the world.

Wesley Wark, a national security expert, says that no matter how many "interesting needles" come out of the haystack of online data, spy agencies still need to translate that to "usable intelligence" – meaning something they can act on.

"At the end of the day, one piece of good intelligence might be worth it all," says Wark, who is currently at the University of Ottawa.

In its 2012 presentation to its "Five Eyes" spying partners — the group that includes the U.S., U.K., New Zealand and Australia — the CSE mentioned two important successes from the Levitation project.

The first involved the discovery of an uploaded document that outlined the hostage strategy of AQIM, the North African branch of al-Qaeda. That strategy was "disseminated widely," including by the CIA to its overseas counterparts, the CSE presentation says.

U.S. journalist Glenn Greenwald says Canadians need to ask tough questions about how effective mass surveillance is in light of two attacks on soldiers. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

Cyber analysts also unearthed a video of a German hostage from a previously unknown target. That hostage died in late May 2012, months after spies came across the video.

Edgar Fritz Raupach, an engineer working in Nigeria, was killed by his hostage-takers when local soldiers — who were unaware of Raupach's presence — attacked the captors' hideout in an unrelated operation.

Wark cautions that the document — as a presentation by CSE to its spying partners — is inevitably biased toward touting the most favourable results. Ultimately, he says, success in this business depends on whether the findings were timely, didn't consume too many resources and were useful.

"These Canadian documents suggest it can pay off," says Wark. "So, does it pay off? Is it proportionate to the resources we're putting into it? Are there different ways to do it?"

Vital role

It is not known whether the Levitation project is still ongoing. CSE says it can't comment on details of the program, citing the Security of Information Act.

Julian Fantino, the associate minister of national defence, told CBC News in a statement that CSE's foreign signals intelligence have "played a vital role in uncovering foreign-based extremists' efforts to attract, radicalize and train individuals to carry out attacks in Canada and abroad."

"Our government will not sit idly by while terrorists use websites to attract, radicalize and train individuals who threaten our values and freedom."

Julian Fantino, the associate minister of national defence, says the government will "not sit idly by while terrorists use websites to attract, radicalize and train individuals who threaten our values and freedom." (Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press)

As for the new bill coming Friday, Employment Minister Jason Kenney said the objective is to stop attacks before they happen by targeting what's being called incitement to terrorism.

Sources told CBC News that the legislation will give security agencies the ability to obtain and share information now subject to privacy limits, and make it easier for police to detain suspected extremists.

However, Liberal MP Joyce Murray says while there's been calls for the government to tighten up security, privacy concerns must not be forgotten.

"They need to also look at the provisions to protect individual privacy," said Murray. "And the government has failed to do that."

Murray says laws governing the CSE are 14 years out of date and don't touch on metadata.

The so-called data about data — which for email can include information such as recipients, subject lines and dates — falls outside the old laws because it isn't considered "private communication." Only the contents of an email or a conversation during a phone call are considered a communication.

Big topic in U.S.

While there has been relatively little debate in Canada weighing privacy concerns in the face of security fears, it's been a hot topic in the U.S. since most of the Snowden revelations involve CSE's counterpart, the National Security Agency.

Last year, a Washington-based non-profit analyzed 225 terrorism cases inside the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and found that bulk collection of phone records by NSA had "no discernible impact" on preventing acts of terrorism.

The non-profit New America Foundation said the bulk collection of phone metadata — which includes phones called and call duration — had, in its view, only marginal impacts on preventing terrorist-related activities.

The organization said in most cases it was traditional law enforcement and investigative methods involving a tip or evidence that resulted in initiating action against an individual or group.

That finding came on the heels of a White House-appointed review committee that drew a similar conclusion. It said that much of the evidence that NSA turned up from tracking phone calls could have "readily been obtained" using standard court orders. It found that the phone metadata collection program was "not essential to preventing attacks."

For Molnar, the lessons from the U.S. are clear. "It tells us that [bulk collection] actually does very little in terms of identifying unknown suspects or actually detecting and preventing attacks before they occur."

Similar analyses on the effectiveness of gathering so much online metadata haven't been done since much less is known about the programs collecting them, says Tamir Israel, a lawyer with the University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.

Ultimately, the invasion of privacy is disproportionate to the benefit, he says.

Earlier this week, a report by Europe's top rights body said that mass surveillance programs are endangering fundamental human rights, including the rights to privacy, freedom of expression and freedom of religion.

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe said it is"deeply worried" about the use of secrecy laws and secrecy courts — all of which is "very poorly scrutinized."

"In the long term, this type of unfettered surveillance is a really insidious thing that can really have very serious negative impacts on the way democratic institutions work," says Israel.

On mobile? Click here for a look at the step-by-step Levitation process

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New anti-terror bill could put chill on freedom of speech

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said last weekend that new anti-terror legislation to be introduced on Friday will, among other things, "criminalize the promotion of terrorism."

Such a move, however, could have a chilling effect on freedom of expression in Canada and would not necessarily contribute to effectively fighting domestic extremism, according to legal experts.

The new bill aimed at combating domestic threats was promised by the federal government in the weeks following the October attacks in Quebec and Ottawa that left two members of the Canadian Forces dead.

Justice Minister Peter MacKay suggested that the measures would, among a host of other consequences, allow authorities to target materials that may be contributing to the radicalization of Canadians, particularly online.

The new bill, however, is largely a knee-jerk response to October's attacks and Canada already has the necessary laws on the books to pursue and prosecute people promoting hatred or inciting violence, says Kent Roach, a professor at the University of Toronto who specializes in constitutional and terrorism law.

"The government has the burden before they introduce new laws to demonstrate why it's not possible to prosecute these kinds of offences under existing Canadian law," he says.

"There's a real danger when we make laws in reaction to events with the assumption that those laws will help prevent tragedies from happening again."

Government officials have repeatedly stated that any new legislation would be drafted in accordance with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and will not infringe on freedom of expression and religion.

'Glorification' offences

Similar legislation criminalizing the "glorification" of terrorist acts exists in several European countries, and MacKay said last year that the government was reviewing specific laws in the U.K. as a possible template.

Earlier this month, Roach co-authored a working paper with Craig Forcese, an associate professor of law at the University of Ottawa, that analyzed the prospect of a Canadian law targeting glorification of terrorism offences.

'Sometimes these things can become wins for extremists and terrorists. They are trying to provoke further attacks and if the response reinforces their perspective on the state of the world, then it ends up helping their cause. '- Scott Stewart, VP of tactical analysis at Stratfor

Pushing the limits on what kinds of speech are considered criminal may put a "chill" on the dialogue around terrorism, they wrote, particularly in communities where discussing the issues around radicalization and extremism is most critical.

"There are at least two concerns about speech chill: will people not talk about controversial topics because they're worried about being charged under a new offence? And second, will it drive potentially radicalized individuals further underground?" says Roach.

When people don't feel free to talk about the political, religious and ideological elements of extremism, Canadian society won't be able to address the underlying forces that drive people toward radicalization and, in some cases, to acts of violence, says University of Waterloo sociology and legal studies professor Lorne Dawson.

'It's silencing'

Dawson does extensive research within communities dealing with radicalization. He says many people are already reluctant to speak openly about the subject.

"If we expand our laws, it will stoke the fear that people are susceptible to prosecution just by the suggestion that that they may empathize in part with the world view of people that are considered terrorists, but they themselves would never do anything violent or hateful," says Dawson.

"There is already an increasing sense that it is a forbidden topic — it's too potentially dangerous and words could be misconstrued or misunderstood. It's silencing."

While there is no question that extremist networks use the internet to communicate and promote their causes, mounting evidence has shown online activity is not always a driving force on the path to radicalization.

RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson in October outlined his force's plan to lead an anti-radicalization program in communities nationwide. These kinds of preventive measures are more effective than clamping down on speech, legal experts say. (Blair Gable/Reuters)

"The internet might be a facilitator, but it's not the cause," says Forcese, who argued in his paper with Roach that contact with a charismatic thought leader is almost certainly the strongest influence on those moving toward extreme viewpoints.

The RCMP has already begun developing an anti-radicalization program in conjunction with local police forces, and if a community leader was inciting people to join extremist movements, their actions are already illegal under the Criminal Code.

Making 'martyrs' of ideas

Similarly, stifling speech plays into the narrative promoted by many extremist groups that Western societies are hypocritical to espouse free speech values while repressing contradictory views. In essence, says Forcese, these kinds of laws can make "martyrs of ideas" and speech that lie within the definition of protected speech. 

The ultimate result is to provide propagandists and recruiters in foreign groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda, which are far out of reach of Canadian law, another weapon in their arsenal. 

"Sometimes these things can become wins for extremists and terrorists," says Scott Stewart, vice-president of tactical analysis at Stratfor, a U.S.-based private intelligence and consulting firm.

'It seems to me that Canada's legal house is pretty much in order. The problem in Canada is not that the laws aren't on the books, but rather the enforcement of those laws. '- Kent Roach, U of T law professor

"They are trying to provoke further attacks and if the response reinforces their perspective on the state of the world, then it ends up helping their cause."

On the other hand, it can be helpful to provide resource-strapped counterterrorism forces with additional tools in the uphill battle against homegrown threats. That was the fundamental basis for the laws that were passed in the U.K., and Stewart says Canada's new legislation could be sculpted in the image of those laws.

While critics of the U.K.'s approach to glorification offences argue there is room for abuses, particularly when it comes to the expression of political and religious ideologies, "the British have addressed the possibility of overstepping by surgically applying the laws," says Stewart.

Enforcement of existing laws

While the U.K.'s efforts have arguably been effective, "Canada can already accomplish what the U.K. has done in terms of most prosecutions" under laws already in place, Roach and Forcese wrote.

"It seems to me that Canada's legal house is pretty much in order," says Roach. "The problem in Canada is not that the laws aren't on the books, but rather the enforcement of those laws."

The U.K. enacted a series of laws that criminalized the "glorification" of terrorism following the 2005 attacks on London's public transit system that killed 52 people. (Dylan Martinez/Reuters)

For example, Canadian legislation allows for a judge to issue a warrant that would force internet service providers or individual websites to take down material if it can be shown that it falls outside of constitutionally protected speech.

The kinds of terrorist propaganda targeted by U.K. law could largely fall under this category in Canada, according to Roach.

Interestingly, there's no publicly available evidence that the provision has ever been used by Canadian law enforcement since being enacted shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.  

He points to a history of co-operation between MI-5, the U.K.'s domestic intelligence agency, and police forces throughout the country as the primary reason for the U.K.'s ability to keep tabs on homegrown extremism.

'Political posturing'

CBC News reported earlier this month that the new anti-terror legislation will likely include provisions to allow increased information-sharing between federal agencies, currently limited by privacy laws.

Ultimately, pushing the limits of criminalized speech in the digital age "is not going to stop the spread of information and it's not going to reduce the flow of propaganda," asserts Dawson.

Rather, it is intended to convey the message that Canada as a nation is trying to do something to combat domestic threats.

"It's really more political posturing than sound counterterrorism policy."

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Target's $8K cheque for student contest bounces - and organizer pays $5 penalty

Adam Normand was pleased when Target put up an $8,000 sponsorship for the student business competition he was organizing.

Target had given the Canadian Association of Business Students some money before to sponsor its central case competition, a venue for students to put their business skills to the test and make valuable connections with more established people in their fields.

So Normand, who manages CABS from Montreal, was disappointed when Target's $8,000 cheque bounced, even if he wasn't entirely surprised.

After all, organizers had tried to cash it on Jan. 15 — the same day the news broke that Target was pulling out of Canada.

"Their accounts were frozen," Normand said.

He also had to pay a $5 penalty for the bounced cheque.

Normand said the lost sponsorship money meant a lot of last-minute scrambling to shed expenses from the budget for the case competition, which is underway in Toronto.

He said the loss would mean less money for audiovisuals and online streaming, as well as less money for food, but that the conference would go on as scheduled.

Target would not answer CBC Daybreak's questions about the failed attempt at sponsorship.

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PayPal Canada freezes gardener’s account over Cuba connection

Two avid gardeners from Alberta have run afoul of Washington's Cold War sanctions against Cuba.

Brian and Jan Ficht, who live near Edson, had their PayPal Canada account frozen after they used it to pay for a three-week educational tour of Cuba's urban agriculture practices.

'I thought these were pretty simple processes. To me it was funny this little hiccup could come into a gardening course.'- Jan Ficht, gardener

Ficht said he had no idea he was conducting a transaction with an American company and would be subject to American laws.

"I'm one Canadian, dealing with another Canadian, through what I believe is a Canadian organization – PayPal.ca," he said.

"But in fact it's falling under the shadow of U.S. foreign policy."

Ficht and the tour operator he was trying to pay have both cancelled their PayPal accounts because of the experience, which Ficht describes as "economic imperialism."

Ficht said he wasn't sure what PayPal meant at first when it told him it was holding, then reversing his payment, because of its "acceptable use policy."

"If you try and call on the telephone, it's one of these half-hour phone queues where you wait and wait and wait. And when someone finally does pick up the line, they don't have anything to offer. It was quite frustrating," Ficht said.

Brian Ficht said he was unaware that PayPal was a U.S. company, as its website uses a .ca domain. (CBC)

PayPal Canada eventually responded by email telling Ficht it was restricting his account because of "activity that may be in violation of United States regulations administered by the Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC)."

The company said while screening his account, it found that he "may be buying or selling goods or services that are regulated or prohibited by the U.S. government."

PayPal told Ficht that before reinstating his account he had to "agree to no longer undertake activities in violation of laws, regulations, and rules outlined in PayPal's user agreement."

Jan Ficht said she was surprised her interest in organic and sustainable vegetable growing would be red-flagged by the American government. Canada has always maintained trade relations with Cuba.

"It certainly made me feel like a bumpkin all of a sudden," she said.

"I thought these were pretty simple processes. To me it was funny this little hiccup could come into a gardening course."

Her husband tried reasoning with PayPal but all he got was a series of boilerplate emails, each of which began with, "As part of our security measures we regularly screen activity in the PayPal system," he said.

"Their response is totally unswerving. They're maintaining that I have contravened U.S. foreign policy and as such my account is frozen now," he said.

PayPal Canada subject to U.S. laws

In a statement, PayPal Canada spokeswoman Malini Mitra said the company is bound by American law.

"As a U.S. company, PayPal and all its foreign subsidiaries have to comply with the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions regulations. With respect to Cuba, payments involving non­-U.S. customers have to be declined as per OFAC regulations."

Despite recent signs of a thaw in U.S.-Cuba relations, Washington continues to enforce a near-total embargo on trade with the Caribbean nation using a range of laws – including the Trading with the Enemy Act.

Ficht said he had used PayPal about 20 times previously and always assumed he was dealing with a Canadian company because he was using their Canadian website.

"It almost seems to be slightly deceptive," he said.

PayPal is one of many major companies, including Amazon and Google, which use the .ca internet domain name to "masquerade" as Canadian companies, according to Tom Keenan, a research fellow at the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute.

Despite a recent thaw in relations, America still maintains a trade embargo with Cuba. (CBC)

Despite being an American company, PayPal Canada is allowed to use .ca because it has registered its trademark in Canada and maintains an address in Toronto.

Keenan said such companies should be required to declare that transactions are being processed in the U.S. and will be subject to its laws.

"They don't have to go into all the details of the Patriot Act, [but] at least tell us that this transaction is going to be processed in another country. That seems only fair," said Keenan, the author of the book Technocreep: The Surrender of Privacy and the Capitalization of Intimacy.

Customer, tour operator cancel accounts

Both Ficht and the tour company say they are through with PayPal.

"I will never use PayPal again until that has changed," said Ron Berezan, owner of the Urban Farmer in Powell River, B.C.

"To tell me this is unacceptable is an infringement on my own personal freedoms and the values of Canada, which of course vis-a-vis Cuba, are very different," Berezan said.

"It was a fairly easy conclusion on my part," Ficht said.

"I don't really need [PayPal] that badly that I have to be further involved in something that doesn't apply."

Jan Ficht will still get to go on the Cuban garden tour – the Fichts paid Berezan the old-fashioned way, with a cheque.

Statement from PayPal Canada spokeswoman Malini Mitra

"As a U.S. company, PayPal and all its foreign subsidiaries have to comply with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctions regulations. With respect to Cuba, payments involving non­-US customers, have to be declined as per OFAC regulations.

We have taken steps to improve the way we handle payments that may potentially violate U.S. sanction rules by placing them under review for a 72­-hour period instead of automatically declining these payments. Our goal is to deliver a seamless payment experience for all our customers. As part of the review process, we sometimes ask questions related to a customer's business and recent transaction history. The intent there is to clarify and help process the payment rather than decline it, in the event that it does not fall under U.S. sanction rules.

We are sorry for upsetting this customer. We will take your feedback into serious consideration as we take a closer look at our payment review process for Cuba-­related transactions."

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Canadian spies track millions of downloads daily: Snowden files

Canada's electronic spy agency sifts through millions of videos and documents downloaded online every day by people around the world, as part of a sweeping bid to find extremist plots and suspects, CBC News has learned.

Details of the Communications Security Establishment project dubbed "Levitation" are revealed in a document obtained by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden and recently released to CBC News.

Rapidshare was one of three file-sharing websites targeted in the spy agency's surveillance. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)

​

Under Levitation, analysts with the electronic eavesdropping service can access information on about 10 to 15 million uploads and downloads of files from free websites each day, the document says.

"Every single thing that you do — in this case uploading/downloading files to these sites — that act is being archived, collected and analyzed," says Ron Deibert, director of the University of Toronto-based internet security think-tank Citizen Lab, who reviewed the document.

In the document, a PowerPoint presentation written in 2012, the CSE analyst who wrote it jokes about being overloaded with innocuous files such as episodes of the musical TV series Glee in their hunt for terrorists.

CBC analyzed the document in collaboration with the U.S. news website The Intercept, which obtained it from Snowden.

The presentation provides a rare glimpse into Canada's cyber-sleuthing capabilities and its use of its spy partners' immense databases to track the online traffic of millions of people around the world, including Canadians.

That glimpse may be of even greater interest now that the Harper government plans to introduce new legislation increasing the powers of Canada's security agencies. 

Though Canada's always been described as a junior partner in the Five Eyes spying partnership, which includes the U.S., Britain, New Zealand and Australia, this document shows it led the way in developing this new extremist-tracking tool.

"It's really the first time that a story has been reported that involves [CSE] as the lead agency in a program of pure mass surveillance," said Glenn Greenwald, a constitutional lawyer and journalist with The Intercept, and who has been instrumental in bringing Snowden's information to public attention.

Canada's electronic surveillance service said it cannot comment on the specific program, but added that some of its metadata analysis is designed to identify foreign terrorists who use the internet for activities threatening the security of Canada and Canadians.

On mobile? Click here for Levitation file

"CSE is clearly mandated to collect foreign signals intelligence to protect Canada and Canadians from a variety of threats to our national security, including terrorism," agency spokesman Andrew McLaughlin wrote in an email to CBC.

Deibert, at the Citizen Lab, says that on the surface the Levitation program is reassuring, indicating Canada's spies are doing their job, but he adds that the mass surveillance nature of it raises questions.

'A giant X-ray machine'

According to the document, Canada can access data from 102 free file upload sites, though only three file-host companies are named: Sendspace, Rapidshare and the now-defunct Megaupload.

Sendspace told CBC News that "no organization has the ability/permission to trawl/search Sendspace for data," and its policy states it won't disclose user identities unless legally required.

Tamir Israel, an internet policy lawyer, says the program raises questions because it's "completely at the discretion of CSE essentially what documents to pick." (Amber Hildebrandt/CBC News)

​

No other file-sharing company responded to CBC requests for comment.

However, the Levitation document says that access to the data comes from unnamed "special sources," a term that in previous Snowden documents seemed to refer to telecommunications companies or cable operators.

It is also unclear which, or how many, of the Five Eyes access information on these uploaded files and whether the companies involved know the spy agencies have this access.

Many people use file-sharing websites to share photos, videos, music and documents, but these cyber-lockers have also been accused of being havens for illegally sharing copyrighted content.

Not surprisingly, extremists also use the online storage hubs to share propaganda and training materials.

To find those files, the document says Canada's spy agency must first weed out the so-called Glee episodes as well as pictures of cars on fire and vast amounts of other content unrelated to terrorism.

Analysts find 350 "interesting download events" each month, less than 0.0001 per cent of the total collected traffic, according to the top-secret presentation.

Surveillance specialists can then retrieve the metadata on a suspicious file, and use it to map out a day's worth of that file user's online activity.

By inputting other bits of information into at least two databases created by the spying partners, analysts can discover the identity and online behaviour of those uploading or downloading these files, as well as, potentially, new suspicious documents.

The Levitation project illustrates the "giant X-ray machine over all our digital lives," says Deibert.

From IP to ID

Once a suspicious file-downloader is identified, analysts can plug that IP address into Mutant Broth, a database run by the British electronic spy agency Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), to see five hours of that computer's online traffic before and after the download occurred.

On mobile? Click here for CSE response

That can sometimes lead them to a Facebook profile page and to a string of Google and other cookies used to track online users' activities for advertising purposes. This can help identify an individual.

In one example in the top-secret document, analysts also used the U.S. National Security Agency's powerful Marina database, which keeps online metadata on people for up to a year, to search for further information about a target's Facebook profile. It helped them find an email address.

After doing its research, the Levitation team then passes on a list of suspects to CSE's Office of Counter Terrorism.

The agency cites two successes as of 2012: the discovery of a German hostage video through a previously unknown target, and an uploaded document that gave it the hostage strategy of a terrorist organization.

It's unclear from the leaked document how long Levitation was operational and whether it is still in use.

CSE says its foreign signals intelligence has "played a vital role in uncovering foreign-based extremists' efforts to attract, radicalize and train individuals to carry out attacks in Canada and abroad." But it offered no specifics about Levitation.

'What else can they do?'

Back in 2012, the spy agency appeared to be assessing the power and accuracy of the Levitation project as compared to other tools in its counterterrorism arsenal.

'The specific uses that they talk about in this context may not be the problem, but it's what else they can do.'- Tech lawyer Tamir Israel

Though the presentation jokes about filtering out Glee episodes, the issue underscores an increasing problem for spy agencies around the world: how the massive haystack of internet traffic they are collecting is straining spy agency resources.

Projects like Levitation aim to automate part of the process.

But it also causes some people to worry about what these powerful and secretive agencies can do with such an immense store of data at their fingertips.

"The specific uses that they talk about in this context may not be the problem, but it's what else they can do," says Tamir Israel, a lawyer with the University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic.

National security expert Wesley Wark says the Levitation documents clearly demonstrate the CSE's abilities. But he also warns the tool has the potential to be "hugely intrusive."

A recent story by The Guardian illustrates that potential. The British newspaper revealed that that the GCHQ scooped up emails to and from journalists working for some of the largest American and British media outlets, as part of a test exercise.

The story, based on Snowden documents, says GCHQ has also listed investigative journalists as a "threat" who rank somewhere between terrorists and hackers.

A similar issue could arise here, with the eavesdropping service choosing targets outside the terrorism realm, says Israel.

Academics, lawyers, journalists, activists and business people commonly use file-hosting sites as part of their jobs.

"It's completely at the discretion of CSE essentially what documents to pick," Israel says.

The mass surveillance by Canada's signals intelligence agency also raises questions about the number of Canadians inadvertently caught up in it.

In the Levitation presentation, two anonymous Canadian IP addresses from a Montreal-based data server appear on a list of suspicious downloads around the world. The list also included several from allies and trading partners, including the U.K., U.S., Spain, Brazil, Germany and Portugal.

By law, CSE isn't allowed to target Canadians. Canada's commissioner charged with reviewing the secretive group found it unintentionally swept up private communications of 66 Canadians while monitoring signals intelligence abroad, but concluded there was no sign of unlawful practice.

Canada is supposed to mask the identities of untargeted Canadians scooped up in its surveillance before passing information to its Five Eyes partners and law enforcement agencies.

Deibert says there are "all sorts of grey areas" in how CSE operates, including how long they can retain the data they collect, the volume of the mass collection, the rules around metadata and how this data is shared with spying partners.

"The mission is appropriate," he says. "But is engaging in wholesale mass surveillance the appropriate means to that end? Especially in the context where, in this country, you have very little oversight in any meaningful sense."

On mobile? Click here to see how spies track file downloads

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CBC is working with U.S. news site The Intercept to shed light on Canada-related files in the cache of documents obtained by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden. The CBC News team — Dave Seglins, Amber Hildebrandt and Michael Pereira — collaborated with The Intercept's Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher to analyze the documents. For a complete list of the past stories done by CBC on the Snowden revelations, see our topics page. Contact us by email by clicking on our respective names or search for our PGP keys here.

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