Ontario Provincial Police has turned to the thought police

The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a bill of rights entrenched in the Constitution of Canada. The Charter guarantees certain political rights to Canadian citizens and civil rights of everyone in Canada from the policies and actions of all areas and levels of government. It is designed to unify Canadians around a set of principles that embody those rights.

Ontario Provincial Police has turned to the thought police

Postby Thomas » Sat Apr 02, 2016 2:57 pm

The OPP short for Ontario Provincial Police has launched a rather scary campaigned focused on social media. In essence the Ontario Police is trying to tell you what to think before you send that text message or post something on your Twitter account.

T.H.I.N.K. b4 u post
T - is it True
H - is it hurtful
I - is it illegal
N - is it necessary
K - is it kind

This sounds pretty close to what totalitarianism was during the Soviet Union.

The OPP who continue to drag their feet in charging the Wynne government for corruption has no problems telling you what to think.

http://www.canadabuster.com/ontario-pro ... ht-police/
Thomas, Administrator

User avatar
Thomas
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2562
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Location: Canada

Canadian police: 'Unnecessary' social media posts may be ill

Postby Thomas » Sun Apr 03, 2016 1:03 pm

Well, it appears that whatever freedoms of speech remained in Canada's largest province are dead – at least if the provincial police have their way.

The Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) sent out the following tweet on February 9, 2016: "T.H.I.N.K. b4 u post ... T - is it True ... H - is it hurtful ... I - is it illegal ... N - is it necessary ... K - is it kind #SID2016" with a poster attached:

The tweet largely went unnoticed in Canada until picked up very recently by Ezra Levant and Lauren Southern at TheRebel.Media.

The THINK acronym must be catching on at the international level with quasi-authoritarian police forces, since the Glasgow, Scotland police force sent out the same message via its Twitter account yesterday.

Of course, the only letter that should be of relevance is "I" for illegal.

And what is illegal is for the police force anywhere in Canada to intentionally or negligently misrepresent the state of the law to the public. That is exactly what the OPP did with this poster that was sent out via the force's official Twitter feed, which attached a professionally made poster that includes the official OPP logo. It's a classic case of bringing the administration of justice into disrepute if there ever was one.

Referring to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms within the Canadian constitution, section 2 unequivocally states that "[e]veryone has the following fundamental freedoms: ... (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication." Under no condition has whether or not "opinion and expression" is "necessary" been construed in any form by any court in the land as a criteria for limiting the freedom of opinion and expression under the Canadian constitution.

If necessity was a pre-requisite for free expression, effectively all expressions in Canada (and around the world) would be illegal.

Consequently, it appears that the OPP intentionally and maliciously misrepresented the state of the law and the rights of Canadian citizens under the constitution with the clear intention of suppressing the citizenry's constitutionally protected rights for freedom of expression. As a result, those responsible for this action at the OPP should themselves be prosecuted, and any lawyers who "signed off" on the public release of this poster should be investigated, and as necessary – sanctioned, by their applicable law societies.

With Canada's deeply problematic "hate speech" laws, we could argue about the constitutionality of the "T," "H," and "K" in the OPP's poster, but there is no debate over the "N." Whether or not a social message posting is "necessary" is not a constitutionally valid criterion for assessing its potential illegality under the criminal law in Ontario (or Canada in general).

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/201 ... legal.html
Thomas, Administrator

User avatar
Thomas
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2562
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Location: Canada

OPP Has Become The Actual Speech Police

Postby Thomas » Wed Apr 06, 2016 1:16 pm

After encouraging Ontario Twitter users to be “kind” and not “hurtful,” the Ontario Provincial Police proved itself to be the intolerant party by blocking a vocal critic of its campaign to police speech.

Rebel Media founder Ezra Levant tweeted a screenshot Sunday evening, showing he had been blocked by @OPP_News, the official Twitter account of Ontario’s police force.

“On the snow-drifted highways west of Toronto, but @OPP_News has blocked me from road warnings b/c of my politics,” Levant tweeted.

The self-styled “Rebel Commander” may not be your cup of tea, but he’s a member of the media, and more importantly a citizen of Ontario: in other words, the OPP is there to ensure a “secure Ontario” for him just as it is for you and I, if its motto is to ring true.

But instead of keeping gangsters and drug dealers off the streets, the OPP focused its attention on telling people to “T.H.I.N.K. b4 u post” (though not about proper grammar and spelling, apparently.)

The department’s initiative, posted in February but fittingly noticed on April Fool’s Day, encouraged Ontarians to think about whether a digital missive was true, hurtful, illegal, necessary, or kind.

The last I checked, only one of those qualities are of concern to police. Kindergarten teachers can manage the other four.

Conservative blogger Stephen Taylor criticized the agency’s heavy-handed approach to policing the internet in a tweet of his own, ironically prompting a call from the OPP’s public relations department.

Members of parliament Jason Kenney and Larry Miller weighed in, suggesting that ignoring or muting unkind tweets is a more appropriate action than assigning a police task force to tackle the practice.

It’s unclear whether the OPP’s public service announcement has transcended from social media to real world law enforcement, but such a leap isn’t inconceivable.

In January, Gregory Alan Elliott of Toronto was tried after being charged with criminal harassment for his criticism of three feminists, who didn’t like that their blocking of him didn’t stop him from continuing his criticism of them on his own Twitter page.

While Elliott’s charges were all dropped, it still set a dangerous precedent that police have empowered themselves to curtail online speech, even when it doesn’t fit the actual legal criteria set out for criminal speech—such as harassment and threats.

The OPP has already shown a level of prejudice by blocking Levant: what would happen if that same man might need police assistance—or even protection?

We can only hope that the OPP does not selectively protect its citizens in the same way it apparently selects who are worthy of online engagement.

I looked at Levant’s Twitter feed, and saw only two tweets mentioning @OPP_News prior to his publication of the screenshot showing the block. Admittedly, one of those had him telling the police force to “fuck off,” but such a proclamation is still protected free speech.

If a private citizen wanted to block someone for that reason, I’d tell them to go to town. For a government agency—especially a police department—to take such an action is reprehensible, and will hopefully be short-lived.

We’ve seen ample reason to fear the “speech police”—my fear is that such a term is now a literal one.

UPDATE (04/04/2016, 12:00pm): I reached out to the OPP to invite a representative to appear on my show to discuss both the campaign and the blocking. That request was “respectfully” declined.

In an email, an OPP sergeant made the following statement about the blocking of Levant.

“The OPP is aware of comments and conversations that are taking place in social media and will continue to appropriately monitor them at this time.”

http://www.andrewlawton.ca/2016/04/opp- ... ch-police/
Thomas, Administrator

User avatar
Thomas
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2562
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Location: Canada

Ontario Provincial Police contact writer over critical tweet

Postby Thomas » Tue Apr 19, 2016 3:32 pm

Ontario Provincial Police contact writer over sarcastic, critical tweet

Scary stuff but is anyone worried in brain dead Ontario?

It couldn't be more like George Orwell's novel "1984": The Ontario Provincial Police told people, via Twitter, that they should "think" before they tweet; don't write "unkind" things, for example.

Toronto conservative activist Stephen Taylor made fun of this warning on Twitter -- and someone from the OPP phoned him about it!

http://forums.canadiancontent.net/canad ... riter.html

https://youtu.be/pZyH4x4MUAw
Thomas, Administrator

User avatar
Thomas
Site Admin
 
Posts: 2562
Joined: Sun Mar 25, 2012 5:18 pm
Location: Canada


Return to Charter Rights Violations

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 17 guests