Edward Snowden, Freedom and the Media's Manufacture of Meaning

There is no doubt there is a need for fear, or at least anxiety, over our government's secret intrusion into our online personal lives.  Yes the Government of Canada too, not just the United States, is doing this.

Reassurances from those perpetuating this travesty say that the surveillance is only on foreigners, not citizens is hardly reassuring nor very genuine.  Those communications monitorings are ostensibly only on foreigners.  But foreigners connecting with whom?  American citizens is often as not the the answer.  For Homeland security that is what the US spy system is mostly interested, I expect.

This makes the sincerity  of the governments of the United States and Canada reassurances as to who is really being targeted by government invasion of privacy activities kind of, shall we say, "incredulous?" No wonder the USA is having trouble getting these "foreign" nations to cooperate with them in extraditing Snowden.  A collaboration culture is hard to create with these "foreigner" nations, when their citizens and institutions are admittedly being spied on by the America government.

If Snowden is right, and I've seen no official rebuttal yet, those nameless anonymous government operatives who are doing the online surveillance searches of email, cellphone calls etc., they only need a personal confidence rating of 51% that they are not dealing with an American citizen in order to proceed.  That puts a very low bar on standards of reasonable doubt don't you think? Since we don't know what metrics are actually being used to test what is involved in the 51% "confidence" (sic) level, it all seems to be so much manipulative Orwellian double speak.  It make the integrity of surveillance process entirely ridiculous, especially when it to making claims that only foreigners are the targets of this official invasion of privacy practice.

Yes the world is still a dangerous complex place and American soil is not sacrosanct from invasion, even by their own fundamentalists citizens as it turns out. So more than a decade after 9-11 we are still seeing our governments use fear over reason, secrecy over solutions, and, dare I say, fascism over democracy to justify further denial and erosion of personal freedoms.

Freedom!  That great American concept that motivated the G.W Bush government to take aggressive measures and to use freedom as justification for invading Iraq and Afghanistan.  He wanted to give those poor folks the gift of American freedom...through invasion.  It would appear that the great American concept of freedom is what drove Snowden to choose to jeopardize his personal freedom.  He exercised personal freedom and came to a personal judgement, as a matter of democratic principle, when he decided to expose the US government secret abuses of freedom.  He also created a space for that very necessary conversation to take place about the place of personal privacy and freedom for American citizens.  That conversation needs to be open, candid and public, especially so when it has to consider their government's role to protect personal freedoms,....or ignore personal freedoms....or worse yet, abuse them.

The American government is clearly flummoxed about what to do since being "caught" in this secret underhanded system of what appears to be an unprecedented invasions of domestic and foreign personal privacy.  They find the facts are against them.  The law, while not strictly against them, is in serious disrepute.  And so they revert to calling Snowden names like traitor and pathetic gestures like canceling his Passport.

And where is the media in all of this?  Well the Guardian in the UK is doing the job. Check out their coverage. But where is the American media?  I hope this video clip of David Gregory's alamaring questioning Glen Greenwald of the Guardian on Meet the Press is not a representative sample of where mainstream American media is positioning itself in all of this. If so then freedom of the press in the USA is also as good as gone, at least so far as its independent role of being the public's eyes, ears, and sense-makers and narrative makers is concerned.

Supreme Court Clarifies Confidential Sources & Whithers Our Democracy?

Supreme Court of Canada rules media confidentiality of sources is not absolute. I have not read the judgement yet but I will and will comment more on it later.


According to news sources the court recognized “for the first time that journalistic privilege against divulging sources can exist, but they concluded that each case must be weighed on its own merits.”

This means each time a media source wants to be confidential an evaluation will have to be made about is the protection of the secret source in the public interest and does the confidentiality protection outweigh other competing interests.

This has implications all over the place including bloggers. Some bloggers are becoming news sources and often the recipients of anonymous tips and evidence. I know that is my experience and I am not alone. Bloggers are becoming more like journalists and professional journalists are blogging. The conventional and social media norms, rules and laws and changing and traditional media ownership becomes more concentrated. The decentralized and chaotic new world of communications increases and decreases the control factor and authority of media of all kinds.

I see this Supreme Court test of what is in the greater public interest being even more interesting when we look at controlling our governments. I see the power of the state over citizens as significant as terrorism. The recent rise in the tendency of governments at the political and program levels to intimidate, bully, threaten and scapegoat people and organizations they disagree with is a very disturbing trend to a free and democratic society.

The role of dissent is crucial to free speech and a vibrant democracy. When citizens and organizations acting on behalf of the state, helping the state in decision support roles or advocating for change to improve our society can be marginalized by Big Brother hostile attitudes from the politically powerful, we run the risk of destroying our democracy through disengagement.

At Reboot 2.0 we heard from lots of Alberta not-for-profit organizations that were being threatened by our provincial government with funding cuts and career limitations if they spoke publicly about provincial government policy decisions. Many of those social program funding cuts were being made for selective political purposes, not good governance objectives. Fortunately these groups are banding together and finding strength in numbers and standing up to such Big Government harassment.

When a Senator can advise women’s groups to “Shut the fuck up” about the Harper government’s ridiculous stand to deny abortion funding in its maternal care (sic) foreign aid fiasco we need to worry. Senator Nancy Ruth warned that there would be government push back and repercussions if there was vocal opposition to the anti-abortion ideology of the Harper government. This politically motivated hypocritical farce has been vigorously opposed by some activist women’s groups.  Many of them found their funding cut by the Harper government the very next day.

We see Prime Minister Harper Proroguing Parliament just to hide information on torture of Afghan detainees from the Canadian public as a further erosion of democracy for purposes of retaining personal political power. We see some political theatre of the absurd as Premier Stelmach presumptuously and unilaterally extends of the term of current Senators-in-Waiting rather than face the legislated election of replacements.  This inept political posturing is motivated by fear of a potential electoral embarrassment in elections this fall in the face of rise of the Wildrose Alliance .

In such a climate of fear the state can stifle discussion and derail debate and, the process, destroy an effective democracy. Now if you are brave enough to leak confidential information to the media you need to be pretty sure you know what you are doing and be prepared to face the consequences. With the recent Supreme Court decision you can rest assured Big Brother government like Steve Harper’s will come after you, one way or another. We have seen how they handle their friends like Mulroney and Jaffer. Imagine how they will handle a little guy!

Citizens have to regain control of the politics and governance processes of oir democracy.  I think government is an important agent for change but with the wrong people in power the change is never good.  Be careful who you trust to govern us and get serious about understanding your power and options as citizens.  If you want to learn more join the Reboot Alberta citizens movement and be part of the solution

Alberta School Trustees Seething Mad About Bill 44

I spent yesterday with over 250 Alberta School Trustees discussing matters of governance in public education. It was more than a might ironic given the government of Alberta imposed closure the night before on Bill 44 in the face of enormous opposition from teachers, trustees, superintendents, parents and students.


My message to Schools Trustees was that they lost political power a long time ago. What they have now is political influence, just like the rest of us. Since they are still elected they have more political authority than the rest of us. The role they play in promoting, protecting and preserving our public education system gives school trustees a real reason and a duty to reach out to the disengaged and cynical citizenry on public education issues. It is hard not to see how public education does not have a connection to just about any issue in society today.


School Trustees are the lowest order of elected governance we have. They are the Rodney Dangerfields of Alberta democracy. They are also persons elected by local communities and we entrust the education of our kids and future generations to their care. They are elected as individuals and not hampered by partisanship. People can relate to them easier and more openly but the problem is nobody knows who they are.


We have a serious and growing democratic deficit in Alberta. It will only get worse unless citizens take back their responsibility to participate in the political life of our province. My message to School Trustees was they are the closest to the people in their communities BUT they have to reach out and join the communities, not wait for them to come or expect them to come to the school system.

As a practical example of what I am talking about, here is a link to one of Sue Huff's blog posts on the passing of Bill 44. Sue is a first term Trustee in the Edmonton Public School Board. She was not in Red Deer this week but I will be sure she get a copy of my remarks.

The way to do this is by engaging in conversations in real life and on the Internet, using social media. I showed them some social media sites and put them in some context about how to use them to create and participate in personal and group conversations about meaningful issues to citizens. This it their role to help get Albertans to return and take up the role of citizen at the centre of our "democratic" society.

Bill 44 is the catalyst to regain the energy for public policy and political participation in Alberta. School Trustees are the best positioned to help influence individuals and communities to re-engage in civic life and to take back the political power that is at the core of our democratic system. I hope they earn the respect of their constituents, friends and neighbours. They deserve it but it will not come to them. They have to go out and get it and show the rest of us what a responsible, resilient and respectful democracy is again.

As Red Green would say "Get your stick on the ice. I am pulling for you."