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Legal marijuana in Ontario, Canada tries courts, police
by Tim Meehan 29 Jun '03

29 Jun '03

http://www.mapinc.org/cancom/2870ddf8-d939-49a0-babb-a629a4384311 Pubdate: Sunday, June 29, 2003 Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON) Contact: letters(a)thecitizen.southam.ca Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/ Author: Jake Rupert Messy marijuana law tries courts, police Right now, there is no law against possessing marijuana for personal use in the province, due to a couple of recent court rulings. Police officers, lawyers and judges are asking what happens next. Jake Rupert The Ottawa Citizen If you're confused about whether it is legal or illegal to possess marijuana in Ontario, you're not alone. And you have some pretty good company. It seems the answer to the simple question of whether possession of marijuana is legal right now depends on who you ask. Police and federal Crown attorneys will tell you that, in their opinion, it's still illegal to possess marijuana. On the other hand, judges and defence lawyers will tell you there is no law against having marijuana for personal use. The fact is that, right now, in law and in practice, there is no law against possessing marijuana for personal use in the province, due to a couple of recent court rulings. The proof can be seen in our courts these days as judges in Ottawa and across Ontario are simply dismissing the charges against people because the charges have no legal merit. Justice Bruce MacPhee, Eastern Ontario's regional senior Ontario Court judge, said he quashed three of them in the week of June 16-20. "In my view, the charge of simple possession of marijuana, less than 30 grams, is no longer capable of finding its way onto a proper information." Barring a drastic move by the federal government -- which isn't going to happen anytime soon -- there will be no law against possession at least until the Ontario Court of Appeal rules on the case that nullified the law. There is no date for that case to be heard at the province's highest court. Brian McAllister, the Windsor lawyer who brought down the law, thinks the hearing will happen in late July or early August. A ruling will follow sometime after that. "As it stands, it looks like we were heading for a summer of unregulated marijuana use in Ontario," said Mr. McAllister. "We're actually in the middle of an interesting social experiment. It will be interesting to see what happens. Will people use marijuana more? I don't know. "Maybe we should look at the results to see what direction we will take on the issue in the future." Things got to this point because of a federal law, coupled with a series of court rulings based on the law. In the early to mid-1990s, social activists began clamouring for a law allowing people suffering from various ailments to smoke marijuana because it helped ease their pain and suffering. At the same time, doctors began writing prescriptions for marijuana. In June 1999, then-health minister Allan Rock started granting exemptions to people for medicinal use. However, these people still had to obtain the drug through illegal connections. The exemptions were also being granted at the minister's discretion. In July 2000, the Ontario Court of Appeal struck down the section of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act prohibiting possession of less than 30 grams of marijuana. In the ruling, the court agreed that the possession law violated the federal charter rights of Terry Parker, a man suffering from severe epilepsy who'd been arrested twice by Toronto police for cultivation and possession of the drug. The court found that if the government wasn't going to make a legal supply of the drug available, it couldn't make it a crime for people to grow it and possess it themselves. The appeal court gave the federal government a year to replace the possession law -- or it would cease to exist. Instead of filling the void created by the decision, the government came up with marijuana medical-access regulations. Still, this program didn't provide a legal supply of the drug to people with minister's exemptions. The bomb dropped on Jan. 2 this year when Mr. McAllister successfully argued to Ontario Court Justice Douglas Phillips that a charge of marijuana possession against a 17-year-old client in Windsor should be thrown out because the government hadn't replaced the law that was struck down by the appeals court, and, therefore, according to the July 2000 appeal court ruling, the law no longer existed. The judge agreed the law prohibiting possession was legal no more and tossed out the charge. The Crown appealed. Hard on the heels of this decision, after hearing a month of arguments last fall, Ontario Superior Court Justice Sydney Lederman declared the government's medicinal-marijuana program unconstitutional because it didn't provide a legal source of marijuana for sick people. The Crown appealed. In the spring, the Crown's appeal of Judge Phillips' ruling in the Windsor case was heard, and, on May 16, was rejected by Ontario Superior Court Justice Steven Rogin. The law didn't exist anymore, Judge Rogin found. The Crown is appealing this ruling to the province's highest court. But because Judge Rogin was sitting as an appeals court judge, the ruling is binding on every other lower court in Ontario -- which means all the courts that hear cases of simple possession. "This is a binding ruling," Judge MacPhee said. "Judges have discretion, but most are following the Superior Court's direction that the law is nullified." As a last-ditch effort, the Crown applied to the Ontario Court of Appeal for an order setting aside this precedent until the appeal is heard. Earlier this month, this failed when a judge at the court ruled that she simply didn't have the authority to set aside the ruling. The situation is giving law-enforcement officials fits -- in large part because there is currently no law to enforce. Across the province, after consultation with lawyers, police chiefs have instructed their officers not to lay any new charges of simple possession of marijuana. However, in many jurisdictions, including Ottawa, officers have been instructed to continue doing investigations -- including seizing cannabis, submitting exhibits and fully documenting the investigation and seizure with an eye to laying charges later if the appeals court overturns Judge Rogin's decision or the federal government changes the law. This process has some potential legal pitfalls. First off, when embarking on any investigation including search and seizure, police officers must have reasonable and probable grounds to assume that a law has been broken. However, there is currently no law against possession to break, according to the court rulings. This means police are acting on shaky legal ground if they stop people, question them, search them, seize drugs, or even ask a person their name when they think somebody might be in possession of marijuana. "This is a very tough situation for police, and there's a potential for some pretty nasty situations," Mr. McAllister said. "I worry there will be a person who refuses to co-operate with an officer who is intent on taking marijuana from them. "It's well-established in criminal law that you have the right to resist a wrongful arrest." The second problem with police continuing to investigate marijuana possession is what will happen if the Ontario Court of Appeal upholds Judge Rogin's decision. Police will then be in a situation of having seized people's property without the authority to do so. "They're running a risk with this practice," said legal scholar David Paciocco. "They're gambling that the Court of Appeal will find Judge Rogin's decision was wrong, and the law will come back. If it doesn't, they will be in a position where they've seized people's private property, and that could have legal ramifications." In a statement, Ottawa police Chief Vince Bevan said the situation has put the police in a difficult position and is undermining public confidence in the integrity of the criminal justice system. "These are matters of law and are of great import to the police and to the community at large," he said. "I call upon the government of Canada to take immediate action to resolve this urgent matter." Recently, the federal government introduced legislation that would decriminalize marijuana possession. The legislation is being debated by the justice committee, and with Parliament not sitting until the fall, it won't be passed anytime soon. Furthermore, the legislation would only decriminalize possession -- it doesn't propose legalizing marijuana. This means people caught with the drug would be fined instead of charged with a criminal offence. However, the Ontario court rulings legalize marijuana. So even if the bill is passed sometime in the future, it falls short of remedying the situation in Ontario. And it all adds up to a messy situation for federal Crown attorneys in Ontario who prosecute drug offences. Jim Leising, the man who oversees federal criminal prosecutions in the province, says he's been instructing his assistants not to take any cases to trial until the situation is sorted out. Instead, they've been asking for adjournments or stays of proceedings. "We're trying to exercise our discretion as even-handedly as we can," he said. "In our opinion, there's a valid prohibition on the books against possession of marijuana, but in the face of that, there's a binding court decision saying it's nullified." The Ottawa-area's head of federal prosecutions went even further when he directed stays of proceedings against all people charged with the crime in his jurisdiction. Eugene Williams said it was the right thing to do because the prohibition against the crime is effectively gone.

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Re: Low cost cruise missile
by Major Variola (ret) 29 Jun '03

29 Jun '03

At 03:55 PM 6/29/03 +1200, Peter Gutmann wrote: >Good grief, what a load of drivel! I'm sure Bruce will be amused to hear that >the toys he plays with in his spare time are now a threat to world security... >I wonder what his pulsejet-powered go-kart would be classed as? Its a good thing that SRL [srl.org] is concerned with art (and pissing off fire marshalls), not terrorism... The German V-2 and the US Honest John missiles were both unguided. That's 50 year old tech. ... "Terrorists are the only true avant-garde artists because they're the only ones who are still capable of really surprising people." ---Laurie Anderson

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Re: Low cost cruise missile
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 29 Jun '03

29 Jun '03

Steve Schear <schear(a)attbi.com> writes: >A New Zealand home handyman's bid to construct a cruise missile in his shed >has made global headlines, and the British media have dubbed him a threat to >world security. > >http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/05/1054700311550.html Good grief, what a load of drivel! I'm sure Bruce will be amused to hear that the toys he plays with in his spare time are now a threat to world security... I wonder what his pulsejet-powered go-kart would be classed as? The journalist obviously went to a lot of trouble phoning various agencies and people for comment, but didn't spend 10 seconds with google to see that these things are commonly available all over the world. (I think Bruce may have, to some extent, shot himself in the foot a bit by presenting it the way he has, although given his talent for self-promotion I'm sure it wasn't accidental :-). Maybe he'll get his funding now. In any case anyone can buy a standard commercially-built jet engine or build their own from one of the zillion web pages devoted to this topic and have as much of a "cruise missile" as he has. The guidance system is left as an exercise for the reader). Must have been a really slow news day... Peter.

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Low cost cruise missile
by Steve Schear 28 Jun '03

28 Jun '03

[A few years back, on this list, Lucky Green and I discussed the creation of a competition for low-cost self-guided planes. We postulated that even back then it was a practical undertaking for advanced composite general aviation kit builders and radio control hobbyists. To pass legal muster, the building and design of prototypes can be undertaken as single passenger experimental vehicles with the human payload replaced by other payloads when desired. Save the construction plan page content before its purged.]] A New Zealand home handyman's bid to construct a cruise missile in his shed has made global headlines, and the British media have dubbed him a threat to world security. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/06/05/1054700311550.html http://www.aardvark.co.nz/pjet/cruise.shtml "A Jobless Recovery is like a Breadless Sandwich." -- Steve Schear

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Attacking networks using DHCP, DNS - probably kills DNSSEC
by Bill Stewart 28 Jun '03

28 Jun '03

Somebody did an interesting attack on a cable network's customers. They cracked the cable company's DHCP server, got it to provide a "Connection-specific DNS suffic" pointing to a machine they owned, and also told it to use their DNS server. This meant that when your machine wanted to look up yahoo.com, it would look up yahoo.com.attackersdomain.com instead. This looks like it has the ability to work around DNSSEC. Somebody trying to verify that they'd correctly reached yahoo.com would instead verify that they'd correctly reached yahoo.com.attackersdomain.com, which can provide all the signatures it needs to make this convincing. So if you're depending on DNSSEC to secure your IPSEC connection, do make sure your DNS server doesn't have a suffix of echelon.nsa.gov... ------------------------------ RISKS-LIST: Risks-Forum Digest Saturday 17 June 2003 Volume 22 : Issue 78 http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/22.78.html ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 15:33:15 -0400 From: Tom Van Vleck <thvv(a)multicians.org> Subject: ISP's DHCP servers infiltrated http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/06/19/2325235&mode=thread&tid=126… "... It turns out, Charter Communications' DHCP servers were infiltrated and were providing p5115.tdko.com as the 'Connection-specific DNS suffix', causing all non-hardened Windows (whatever that means in a Windows context) machines to get lookups from a hijacked subdomain DNS server which simply responded to every query with a set of 3 addresses (66.220.17.45, 66.220.17.46, 66.220.17.47). On these IPs were some phantom services. There were proxying Web servers (presumably collecting cookies and username/password combos), as well as an ssh server where the perpetrators were most likely hoping people would simply say 'yes' to the key differences and enter in their username/password..." Hmm, my cable ISP was down this morning. Maybe coincidence. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to majordomo(a)metzdowd.com

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test mail-pls ignore
by Sarad AV 28 Jun '03

28 Jun '03

test. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month! http://sbc.yahoo.com

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Re: Senators from Utah being Southern
by pgut001＠cs.auckland.ac.nz 27 Jun '03

27 Jun '03

Tim May <timcmay(a)got.net> writes: >He was a hell of a lot more interesting than JC, that's for sure. I recommend >"The Prophecy," the wonderful movie with Christopher Walken as the angel >Gabriel. Great film, source of one of my favourite movie quotes: Have you ever noticed that in the Bible whenever God needed to punish someone, when God needed a killing, he sent an angel? Can you imagine what a creature like that must be like? Your entire existence spent praising God, but always with one wing dipped in blood. Would you ever really want to *meet* an angel?" (so much deeper than "I'll be back"). Peter.

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Re: SAVE MY LIFE PLS.
by jonathon 26 Jun '03

26 Jun '03

On Wed, 25 Jun 2003, MRS. JOY GINA BELLO wrote: Asalamu alaikum, ]>Nigeria with my children. My late husband was a May the peace and blessing of Allah( Praise to his name ) be upon your husband. ]>death, his family members insisted that I am not ]>entitled to his property (Assets and money) since I am ]>a woman and my offspring's all girls as I do not have ]>a male child for my husband. Well, according to some May Allah ( Praise be to his name ) have mercy on their souls. I cry at such an outrageous violation of Marawaith. The Qur'an commands the following: 3/27 to you. 4/27 to his mother. 4/27 to his father 19/100 to each of your lovely daughters. ]>which doesn't permit a woman to inherit a man's A sad thing, when one forsakes the writings of the Prophet. ( Peace and Blessings of Allah be upon him. ) ]>the furtherance of their education. According to the I weep at their flagrant violation of the commandments of Allah ( Praise to his name.) ]>providing us with your bank details and the enablement Alas Sister, banks involve Riba, which the Qur'an prohibits. I could, perhaps, be able to faciliate the transfer of your money, to a more secure location, and ensure that the Marawaith is adhered to, in the process of so doing. ]>email, your personal details including your contact ]>information for easy communication. Thanking you for My name Jonathon My fax number is +1-303-600-6312 May the Peace and Blessings of Allah be upon you. -- See headers for copyright and related information. ******** Finger account for book status

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[eff-austin] Wired: DoD Logging Unverified Tips (fwd)
by Jim Choate 26 Jun '03

26 Jun '03

---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Thu, 26 Jun 2003 02:14:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Carl Webb <webbcarl(a)hotmail.com> To: austinagainstwar(a)yahoogroups.com, eff-austin(a)effaustin.org, tlc-discuss(a)lists.cwrl.utexas.edu Subject: [eff-austin] Wired: DoD Logging Unverified Tips ------------------------------------------------------------------------ DoD Logging Unverified Tips http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,59365,00.html By Brian McWilliams To track domestic terrorist threats against the military, the Pentagon is creating a new database that will contain "raw, non-validated" reports of "anomalous activities" within the United States. According to a Department of Defense memorandum, the system, known as Talon, will provide a mechanism to collect and rapidly share reports "by concerned citizens and military members regarding suspicious incidents." Talon was described in a May 2 memorandum to top Pentagon brass from Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. In the memo, Wolfowitz directed the heads of military departments and agencies to begin producing Talon reports immediately. A similar reporting system proposed by Attorney General John Ashcroft was shelved last year following opposition from privacy groups and others. Known as Operation TIPS, the Department of Justice system was intended to enlist civilian workers nationwide to report possible terrorist activity. The Talon antiterrorism database was first reported by Kitetoa, a French security site. An anonymous source, who said he obtained a copy of the Talon memo from a website operated by the Department of Defense, provided Wired News with access to a copy marked "official use only." Ken McLellan, a Department of Defense spokesman, said the document "certainly looked authentic," but he declined to discuss the contents of the memo or the potential intrusion into DoD's network. McLellan said the agency was investigating the matter. According to Peter S. Probst, a former Pentagon terrorism expert, the Talon program is necessary to protect DoD property and personnel. "It would be derelict not to keep track of anomalous incidents. This is just common sense," said Probst, currently a Virginia-based terrorism consultant and program director for the Institute for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence. In the memo, Wolfowitz instructs DoD personnel to report -- "in accordance with existing policy and law" -- suspicious activities, including surveillance of DoD facilities, tests of security and "elicitation" attempts that suggest intelligence gathering. The memo acknowledged that Talon reports may be "fragmented and incomplete," but that "rapid reporting" is the goal of the system, which is not designed to replace the DoD's formal intelligence reporting process. Lee Tien, staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, an online rights group, said Talon raises many of the same questions as those that plagued the unsuccessful Operation TIPs. "What is the value in accelerating the speed of the rumor mill?" said Tien. "You have a wealth of really weak data that ends up percolating its way through the system. How will they ensure that there's no opportunity for people's dossiers to become tainted?" It was not clear from the memo whether Talon reports would become part of the Pentagon's controversial Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program, or whether the data would be shared with other government agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security. According to the Wolfowitz memo, reports of potential threats are to be sent to the DoD's Counterintelligence Field Activity office using "automated information systems or via e-mail attachment." The CIFA will be responsible for incorporating the information into a database that will be accessed by DoD organizations, including the Defense Intelligence Agency and Joint Intelligence Task Force Combating Terrorism, according to the report. The Talon system appears to have grown out of Eagle Eyes, an antiterrorism project developed by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations. Launched in April 2002, Eagle Eyes is a neighborhood watch-type program that "enlists the eyes and ears of Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror," according to the OSI website. Since hijackers crashed an American Airlines jet into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001, no reports have been published of terrorist attacks within the United States on military personnel or facilities. However, the DoD regularly experiences "a high volume of probes, casing, and surveillance" from potential terrorists in the United States, according to Probst.

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THESE ARE YOUR DEAD CHILDREN, PRIMEMINISTER -- Denmark/Iraq-war/debate
by Bo Elkjaer 25 Jun '03

25 Jun '03

List It's not only in USA and UK that pressure is mounting after the war. As you may know, Denmark participated in the war against Iraq. This has lead to an increasing pressure on the danish government as the evidence of WMDs - and thus the reason to go to war - evaporates. Now there's talk of public inquiries into the war. The following articles were printed in Ekstra Bladet, the second largest daily newspaper thursday, june 19, 2003. The pictures of dead children mentioned in the articles can be found at thememoryhole.org. (http://www.thememoryhole.org/war/gulfwar2/) Yours Bo Elkjaer, Denmark THESE ARE YOUR DEAD CHILDREN, PRIME MINISTER Shaken primeminister tries to evade weapons lies and bombed children: 'The war is justified' Ekstra Bladet does what apparantly no one else dares: We confront prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen with the direct result of his, Bushs and Blairs war on Iraq: Dead children. One of the pictures show a boy that has been horribly burned by coalition bombs. Another picture is a close up of a boy who's head has been blown to pieces. Two innocent children. Killed in a war based on a lie about weapons of mass destruction. Conservative estimates say that at leas 5.500 civilians died in the war. Others speak of up to 10.000 killed civilian iraqis. After a long, heated debate in the foreign policy select comittee, where primeminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and foreignminister Per Stig Moeller tried to justify the reasons for danish participation in the war and talked about UN-mandate and international law, Ekstra Bladet asked the primeminister: -- What is your opinion about the picture of the boy, who's head has been blown of? 'War is terrible', said primeminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen, visibly shaken by the horror of the brutally killed iraqi boy. -- How do you feel about how the reason for war is obviously very thin, yet it ended with little children like this boy having their brains blown away? 'I think, that if your paper is going to bring pictures like these, then it should bring other pictures too, the pictures of mass graves, showing how Saddam Husseins regime murdered thousands of people. You should bring those pictures too.' -- But these are YOUR dead children? 'Yes, but now its interesting to see if you're going to show the pictures of mass graves at the same time so the readers can have a fair and balanced picture of, how horrible it is.' THE WEAPONS ARE THERE In spite of the large civilian losses, in spite of how no weapons of mass destruction has been uncovered in Iraq and in spite of how inquiries have been launched both in the US and in UK, prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen still has no doubts about the war. -- What you're discussing today is that you - both you and the foreign minister - on several occasions, both in public and in the parliament has declared with great certainty, that there were weapons of mass destruction. Have you deceived the people and the parliament? 'But listen! No! Certainly not! And I'd like to say, that it hasn't been proved that they're not there. They just haven't been found yet.' 'Everything shows that of course he had those weapons. They must be some where.' -- You have no doubts about that? 'Where in the world should they be, if he hasn't declared them?', says the danish prime minister before he ends the interview and hurriedly leaves the scene. FOREIGN MINISTER ON SLIPPERY ICE 'The evidence should be able to stand in court', the danish foreign minister Per Stig Moeller said on september 6 last year. Today his demands of legally solid evidence against Iraq is completely gone. 'At no time did we say that we with certainty knew that he had those weapons. What we said was that he had the threat of having the weapons. He has used that threat to destabilize the entire region', says foreign minister Per Stig Moeller today. -- But you said that the government was sure that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction? 'Not me. I haven't said that. I'm pretty sure I have said 'alleged weapons of mass destruction'...' -- But Fogh said last september he had no doubts that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? 'Well, yes. But you should talk to primeminister Anders Fogh Rasmussen about that.' -- Are you rejecting what the prime minister said? 'No! But you're interrupting me. See, now you interrupted me.' -- But today it suddently does'nt matter to you at all, whether Saddam had those weapons of mass destruction? 'Yes, you might say that. The important thing is that he used it as a threat to the international society. And that he couldn't declare that he had destroyed it. It was Saddam who needed to prove that he didn't have it. That's what UN said all along.' WHAT THEY SAID BEFORE THE WAR Eight times in the same speach the foreign minister Per Stig Moeller on march 21 said that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. This is what he said: 'You have to go in with military force to remove Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass desctruction.' 'He has hidden those weapons of mass destruction.' 'You have to take the consequences and remove his weapons of mass destruction.' 'All aspects of the weapons of mass destruction programs should be laid clear and the weapons destroyed. The same thing goes for the missiles.' 'Then Saddam Hussein will sit there with his weapons of massdestruction.' 'This is a fight with Saddam Hussein because of his weapons.' 'We all want to disarm him of his weapons of mass destruction.' 'I'd like to thank for two days of long debates, where we have discussed every element in connection with participation in the fight with Saddam Hussein and his weapons of mass destruction.' September 6 the danish foreign minister Per Stig Moeller said: 'The evidence should be able to stand in court.' The same month the danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said: 'I hold no doubt at all that he has weapons of mass destruction and that he wants to produce them.' THEY DECEIVED BOTH PEOPLE AND PARLIAMENT In the middle of the long and heated debate about the Iraq war, MP Keld Albrechtsen left the meeting to relieve himself. He was so shaken that he completely forgot to go to the bathroom. 'I can't get prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen and foreign minister Per Stig Moeller to understand that they have deceived both the parliament and the people', Keld Albrechtsen told the press outside the meeting room. 'They simply don't understand. But then we'll have to work for getting a thorough inquiry which has to find out whether the government has misguided or deceived the people. Something along the lines of what's starting in the US.' 'It has to be with the possibility of interrogating civil servants so we can find out whether they knowingly deceived us and what stake the intelligence services has in this', Keld Albrechtsen of the Unity Party said before hastening in to the meeting again. MP Villy Soevndahl of the Socialist Peoples Party also wants an independent inquiry while the socialdemocratic MP Jeppe Kofod talked about a declaration from the government while keeping an eye on the revelations in USA and UK. 'Lets see what happens, then we can find out what to do about it here', Kofod said. By Bo Elkjaer and Kenan Seeberg, Ekstra Bladet, Denmark. (www.ekstrabladet.dk)

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