Ontario Wants Random “Street Checks” of Citizens

[Masato]

http://pressfortruth.ca/top-stories/con ... -citizens/

Controversial Carding Policy: Ontario Wants Random “Street Checks” of Citizens

According to the Ontario Minister of Community Safety and Correctional Services, Yasir Naqvi, Ontario is looking to newly standardize a highly controversial carding policy that has been referred to as “street checks,” by several police departments. The carding policy allows police officers to check people randomly on the street, and on occasion the policy has been abused in affording police the authority to wrongfully target innocent individuals for no justified reason, according to Naqvi.



When it comes to the cases involved with this policy, Naqvi says that the status quo is not acceptable and that it cannot be allowed to continue, he asserts that the Ontario government should have a zero tolerance when it comes to any racial profiling and discrimination. The Law Union of Ontario has previously addressed concerns over the policy, warning that the practice would lead to “a systematic violation of the rights of people in our communities.” Also, they asserted that such a policy would undermine the public's trust and confidence in the police service,.. thereby [impairing] the public safety.” The board has continued to work hard at effectively trying to rein in this controversial practice.



Naqvi says that he himself wouldn't seek to eliminate the practice, because he claims that it is “important that police are able to investigate any suspicious activity.” However, if there truly was some legitimate suspicious activity that authorities were concerned about, one could assume that their activities (being legitimate) would provide evidence for those authority figures to follow the criminal justice procedures which have been in place now for decades that afford them the ability to do their job. Making the question of necessity for this controversial policy a very questionable one.

Naqvi says that the government will be working along with various organizations in order to develop and implement mandatory and enforceable regulations on street checks that will apply to all of Ontario. Could this policy eventually expand to encompass every province in Canada, placing every citizen at risk of random street checks? Toronto Mayor John Tory's communications adviser, Keerthana Kamalavasan, has affirmed that the mayor's stance (against the policy) still stands. The new regulations being made to enforce and further implement this highly controversial policy, are expected to be finalized later in the fall of this year.



This carding policy is eerily similar to the controversial “stop and frisk” policy in the United States. That policy ran for years with countless individuals being wrongfully targeted and harassed. The policy was deemed by many, including federal court judges, to be unconstitutional and illegitimate. It had been found that nearly 90 percent of the 4.4 million people the police had stopped and questioned under the policy, between 2004 and 2012, were innocent and had done nothing wrong, according to evidence that was presented at a non-jury trial. A federal judge back in 2013 finally (officially) ruled that the policy was in-fact illegal. Coincidentally, after judge Shira Scheindlin made that ruling, she was removed from presiding over challenges to the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy since 1999.



Not too soon after, a three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit effectively blocked her ruling that it was unconstitutional. Why would Canada want to follow in the same failed footsteps as the U.S. and put themselves at the risk of violating the rights of their citizens on a massive scale, which has been shown to occur with this type of policy enactment? If officers truly have an objective justification for investigating an individual, then their objective assessment of those various facts on the matter, should be sufficient enough for them to obtain a warrant, should it not? This type of policy raises serious issues over racial profiling, privacy rights, and illegal stops. When it comes to Ontario trying to work with various organizations in formulating and regulating a policy such as this, citizens can only hope that authority figures will not abuse this policy.

[Canuckster]

BECAUSE THE GOVERNMENT DOESNT GIVE A FUCK ABOUT THE PEOPLE!

Politicians give a shit about getting re elected and keeping their jobs at all costs. The sooner people. Figure this out the better.

[What]

asshole Harper shoving his nose up America's ass again

fuck our capitalism politics and following the lame american police state model