Orange County has many claims to fame: Richard Nixon, the S&L scandal, subprime boiler-rooms, Disneyland, an airport honoring a cowboy named Marion, and now, the revelation that its police force secretly uses low-flying surveillance aircraft to break the encryption of thousands of cellphone users, track their movements, and intercept their communications.
The ACLU made the discovery after winning a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the Anaheim police, forcing the force to disclose its use of “Dirtboxes” – DRTs, or Digital Receiver Technologies, are Boeing’s aircraft-mounted “Stingrays on steroids,” used to break the weak crypto on cellphones to listen in on their traffic and track their owners.
It’s not clear how or when or if the Anaheim PD uses the Dirtboxes. A 2014 memo complained that the equipment hadn’t been updated by Boeing. The department has a Cessna it uses for surveillance.
The First Nations Child and Family Caring Society has refused funding from the federal government because it doesn’t accept donations from funders that harm children.
Canada didn’t pass the society’s “ethical screen” and it has declined $149,000 in funding from Indigenous Affairs said executive director Cindy Blackstock.
“We don’t accept funds from groups that are harming children or who are violating Indigenous rights,” Blackstock told APTN National News Thursday. “Their conduct falls outside of our ethical screen to receive funds from donors.”
Blackstock’s comments come on the one year anniversary of a historical ruling by the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal that found Canada guilty of discriminating against First Nations children by chronically underfunding programs and services compared to non-Indigenous children.
Since that ruling, the tribunal has issued two non-compliance orders against Indigenous Affairs for failing to meet standards set by the tribunal said Blackstock, who first launched the human rights complaint nearly 10 years ago, along with the Assembly of First Nations.
The tribunal has called for a compliance hearing to be heard in March.
“I am extremely disappointed in this government,” said Blackstock. “They’ve read the decision, so they know the answers are there. They’ve seen a half billion dollars announced for the birthday party (Canada’s 150th birthday). So they know there’s money out there somewhere. There just seems to be a lack of political and bureaucratic will to get the job done.”
The Ontario government is currently holding a consultation on Universal Basic Income Pilot in 3 communities. There are different ways to implement UBI, the best one is to give EVERY CITIZEN enough money to live on, no questions asked. People who don’t need it will make up the difference ehen they pay taxes.
UBI would eliminate means testing *and* poverty stigma. Here’s an example:
The charts in the survey contrast what people on disability get now:
ODSP amount per year (basic needs + max shelter) Single Adult $13,536 Couple with 2 Children $21,852
with what they would get in the Pilot
Estimated basic income amount per year (at 75% LIM) + $500 per month disability add-on
Single Adult $22,989 Couple with 2 Children $39,979
Sounds like expensive pie-in-the-sky stuff, right?
WRONG. UBI costs less ~ maybe 25 billion dollars less ~ than Ontario spends now.
Their idea that Waterloo Region would be a perfect place for a pilot so if you live here, feel free to suggest that WATERLOO REGION should be a Pilot Test Site when you do the survey.
