Censoring the Net - Disguised as "Fighting Terrorism"!
All of last summer, a world-wide "fight-censorship" news group composed of cyber activists whose stated mission is the preservation of Freedom of Speech on the Internet, was abuzz with talk about a growing, politically motivated undertow by shady special interests against "net terrorists."
"Net terrorism" was supposedly the focus and topic of a Paris meeting in July of 1996. The group that met was called "G-7" and was composed of seven foreign ministers and security ministers who are said to have "struck an agreement to target terrorists using the Internet."
"Emergency!" is the cloak the tyrant likes to wear!
David Jones, Canada's leading cyber activist on behalf of Freedom of Speech on the Net, has been quoted as saying:"We don't have a lot of terrorism in Canada - in the past several decades, you can count on one hand terrorist incidents involving Canada or Canadians." (NOW On/Vol 15, No. 50, News Front/Wired World)
And he is right. Take 1995. There have been seven incidents that year in all of Canada officially classified as "terrorist acts" - two of which were directed against the publisher, broadcaster and producer, Toronto-based Ernst Zündel.
Zündel is a well-known political activist on the Right with decades' worth of activism challenging Zionist claims that the so-called "Holocaust" is what it is marketed to be. Statistically, that count of documented terrorism translates to 29% of one year's worth against one individual. Ernst Zündel of the Zundelsite - a politically dissident website based in California and known world-wide for its relentless challenge to common claims about the "Holocaust", is being targeted for governmental censorship because of its dissident content.
Says Zündel:"The G-7 Nations, under pressure from the usual clique of "do-gooders," wanted censorship of the Net because of "bomb making instructions" apparently found on some extremist websites. What does that really mean? Less than a year ago, it was "kiddie porn" that the ever-busy do-gooders wanted to 'protect' us from - by censoring even websites and bulletin boards which dealt with the breast-feeding of children!
"The danger to freedom today are not the storm troopers burning smutty books in public squares while thousands of decent people watch the spectacle and cheer on the book burners. The danger to freedom today are those well-connected, silk-tongued lobbyists in their pin-striped suits, carrying in their attache cases the computer printouts listing the donations their sponsors gave to the political campaigns of various political parties, to members of Congress, the Senate or Parliament around the world.
"The real terrorists are out there, hidden in the corridors of power, posing as mere politically interested activists with no apparent ax to grind - except, of course, to 'protect little kids from Internet pornography', or to prevent unstable minds from looking for bomb recipes on obscure websites."Canada's under-employed civilian spies are falling all over themselves, snooping and questioning people from the Right, even people remotely connected to patriotic groups, about bombs, bomb-making plans etc. They always dramatically announce that they are from the "Counter-Terrorism" unit of Canadian Security Intelligence Service, CSIS.
Yet neither the CSIS, nor the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) nor the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) nor the Metropolitan Toronto Police, their Intelligence Branch, or even its much-touted "Hate Crimes Unit" have ever been able to solve the actual bombing of the Zundel-Haus in September of 1984, even though a Jewish organization publicly took credit for that bombing in calls to local papers and TV stations.
Zündel again:"I find it particularly galling, because this outfit, CSIS, has declared me a security threat to Canada, even though I have a 38-year impeccable record of non-violent, peaceful and democratic advocacy of my viewpoint - which is that the Holocaust is World-War II Allied propaganda posing as history, and is, to put it bluntly, vicious Anti-German hate propaganda!
The militant Jewish Defense League, in 1984 amounting to approximately 25 hateful thugs, were known to Toronto Police. No arrests were ever made! On the contrary - one police sergeant told me to my face while the bomb squad was still going through the debris left by the bomb: "We consider you a prime suspect. We think you may well have planted the bomb yourself for sympathy and media attention."It is instructive to look at some definitions of just what "terrorism" means. The quotes below are taken from "Terrorism" by John Pynchon Holms with Tom Burke, Pinnacle Books, 1994:
CIA Definition of Terrorism:
"International terrorism is terrorism conducted with the support of foreign governments or organizations and/or directed against foreign nations, institutions, or governments."
FBI Definition of Terrorism:
Terrorism is "the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."
Departments of State and Defense Definition of Terrorism:
"Terrorism is premeditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against a non-combatant target by subnational groups or clandestine state agents, usually intended to influence an audience. 'International terrorism' is terrorism involving the citizens or territory of more than one country."In light of the above definition, how does Ernst Zündel fare? When a radical Leftist group sent him a threatening letter, enclosing a mouse trap with razor blades and warning him to watch his step, his back, his life, his family, his business etc., this information elicited only a bored yawn from the police.
When a second powerful pipe bomb, this time in a parcel, was delivered to him in May 1995 and detonated on May 20th, 1995 by the Toronto Bomb Squad, the Edmonton Sun devoted the whole front page showing Zündel's face and stating in huge letters: "Zündel Cheats Death!" leaving the clear impression that here was one political dissident deserving to be killed who somehow managed to cheat the grim reaper one more time! Needless to say, Canada's anti-Terrorism fighters have not solved that act of terrorism against the alleged "security threat", Ernst Zündel, either.
Holms defines the following as sub-parts of the concept "terrorism":The Nature of the Act of Terrorism:
"The concept of terrorist violence or threat of violence clearly embraces criminal, unlawful, politically subversive and anarchic acts . . . offences of a political character."
Methods of Terrorists:
"Threats and use of violence . . . are the common weapons of terrorists in spreading fear among the targeted population."
Perpetrators:
"States as well as individuals and private groups may be perpetrators."
Intended Outcomes and Motivations.
"Fear, extortion, radical political change and measures jeopardizing the fundamental human freedoms of innocent parties are most often the expected immediate results. The ultimate goal usually is the satisfaction of political demands that the group does not feel able to achieve by conventional political, economic, or military action."
Strategic and other objectives:
"State sponsorship of terrorism is often part of a campaign of geographic expansion of political control. More recently, some terrorism has had as its political objectives the furtherance of illicit business operations."Of course even a casual reader of the Zundelsite, now targeted for censorship by politically motivated factions, will soon grasp that the mission of that website is precisely that - exposing the Holocaust as an illitic operation and extortion racket, a propaganda remnant of World War II, seeking ever more victims in ever more countries - the latest being Switzerland!
Says Zündel:"Just who is responsible for terrorism in Canada? Is it Ernst Zündel who is practicing his legal right to voice his strong objections about the planet-wide extortion racket called the "Holocaust" and asks for an investigation by an impaneled gremium? Or is it someone else?
Are not the real terrorists the Anti-Racist-Action hoodlums and their fellow travelers, who put on a shrill public campaign to "Drive Zündel out!" "Die, Nazi scum!" etc. - and who brazenly postered half of Toronto with detailed instructions on how to make and use an incendiary device, namely a Molotov cocktail - thugs who still roam the city freely?
My home was the target of arson on May 7, 1995. The so-called "Anti-Terrorist Units of various police forces never solved that act of terrorism; they didn't even try. They did not even question one of the best leads who came forward in response to a Reward offer on my part. This important lead that I provided to the Toronto Police was never followed up.
Two CSIS agents, in a video-taped interrogation interview, claimed that CSIS knew that the terrorist ARA had set the fire to the Zundel-Haus. CSIS is supposed to share such information with local police. When Toronto police were asked whether they got this important information, the answer has been silence!
We are talking about a $400,000, politically motivated arson in 1995! The cost to me of the 1984 bomb explosion was also conveniently overlooked by that police investigator who, as I said, treated me as the prime suspect. As a direct result of that bombing, my insurance policies were canceled within 48 hours, and it took me years to get "war zone" insurance from Lloyds of London at ten times the normal premium.
That still-unsolved act of terrorism has cost me in the last 12 years in increased property insurance premiums alone - plus car insurance etc. - more than $120,000."He continues:
"Yet CSIS, their spy and supposed 'counter-terrorism' experts have been a failure in every one of these cases involving terrorism against me, having an annual budget of $200 million at their disposal. And they have the gall to declare me a "security threat" to Canada? Spouting platitudes about having to "control the Internet" - while the so-called forces of law and order that have been unwilling or unable to solve serious acts of real terrorism against me, my lawful business and my family, are left to their own devices?
Not only that - they seem to be engaged in manufacturing a 'terrorist' at taxpayers' expense - by labeling me a 'security threat'! I was left holding the bag for their incompetence or negligence and was forced to invest in costly equipment, body guards, etc. How grotesque can it get in Canada?
And there's no end in sight! On October 25th, 1996 - and, not-too-incidentally, the 79th Anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution! - two dozen uniformed Toronto police and another dozen plain-clothes officers just stood there, calmly watching 25 Anti-Racist-Action terrorists! The very ones who had been threatening for years to "Drive Zundel Out!" "Die, Nazi Pig!" "Die, Nazi Scum!" etc. and who had previously postered half of Toronto with the incendiary posters that led to the devastating fire!
These hooded and masked hooligans were left alone to threaten me, my staff and my family with slogans like "Burn Zündel down!" and "Lock the Nazis in! Burn the House Down!" while not a single one was questioned, much less arrested and detained.
All this shows a level of callousness, if not collusion, by Canada's various "Anti-Terrorism fighters" who dare to allow Marxist/terrorists to break the law in broad daylight, in full view of the public, press and police, by spouting threats and terrorism against political dissidents like Ernst Zündel, the German who disbelieves Jewish/Canadian hate propaganda about the Holocaust? This is not merely tolerance of what is wrong. It can only be called collusion by those in authority - the ones who give the orders!
Yet is that a surprise? Little wonder that the police acted as they did. After all, the elected Toronto Metro Councillors had voted 22 to 8 to finance that Marxist street gang with a grant of $8,000 for what was called their 'useful work' on the day of the demonstration by Councillor Jack Layton, a 1960s-type Leftist."There is something seriously wrong, even criminally wrong, if anonymous bureaucrats, hiding behind the security granted to them and working for the Intelligence Agency, declare a perfectly peaceful, law-abiding dissident, who in 38 years of residence in Canada has managed to maintain a spotless record, a ". . . security threat to Canada" -- while governmental agencies and law enforcement outfits will tolerate real terrorists to commit their crimes unpunished against him. That is simply sick and sickening!
Says Zündel:"This is to establish a baseline and to draw my line in the sand. I have been the victim of pre-meditated, politically motivated violence perpetrated against a non-combatant target by a subnational group or even clandestine state agents. There is no way around that fact. And I will use that fact to bury my opponents with the truth.
Did not CSIS "Right Wing" agent, Grant Bristow, engage in terror tactics against leftist activists, women etc. while employed, directed and paid as a spy to act inside the Right Wing Heritage Front, ostensibly a member of the Right ? Who is to say that there is not some Left Wing Grant Bristow in the employ of CSIS handlers, directed to harass people of the "Right" like myself?"When lawful citizens are forced to deal with people who think they are the law unto themselves, supposedly watched by a "Review Committee" which is so ideologically driven and arrogant that even members of Parliament have called it "evasive", "contemptuous of Parliament", "practicing mental evasion", and "having consistently refused to cooperate" (exempting only one, staff member Ms. Pauline Gauthier, a lone and forthright person, from blanket condemnation) there is something seriously wrong with the way security matters are handled in Canada. To mind comes C.S. Lewis's well-known passage:
"The greatest evil is not done in those 'sordid dens of crime' that Dickens loved to paint . . . it is conceived . . . moved, seconded, carried and minuted in clean, carpeted, warmed and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices."
Ý Ernst Zundel's persecution is not unique. What is unique is that it's happening so blatantly and brazenly in Canada. Clever spin doctors, in and outside of government, in the media and in the intelligence community, have openly resorted to the age-old tactic of every dictatorship throughout the ages - the tactic of blaming the victim.