[Newsbot]

Title: Wearing a mask at a riot is now a crime
Category: Law & Order
Posted By: Zipperfish
Date: 2013-06-20 08:34:01
Canadian

[Zipperfish]

I guess that's the logical next step for the surveillance state.

[jj2424]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

I guess that's the logical next step for the surveillance state.

post1988630#p1988630

[BartSimpson]

You know, as much as I detest the anarchists, I detest this kind of thing even more. It's just one more advance of the police state that the anarchists rage against. Why not just pass a few more such laws and prove the anarchists case for them?

[raydan]

Isn't rioting a crime by itself?

This is like making it a crime to wear a mask when you rob a bank.

[raydan]

I can't wait to see the police arresting a bunch of Niqab wearing women at a Muslim assembly.

[Zipperfish]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

You know, as much as I detest the anarchists, I detest this kind of thing even more. It's just one more advance of the police state that the anarchists rage against. Why not just pass a few more such laws and prove the anarchists case for them?

I don't agree with this law on principle. However, I'm also one to recognize that in some cases reality sometimes uncomfortably on our principles. This is not one of those cases. Of all the riots I can think of in Canada, the biggest threat were a few yahoos running around smashing windows and stealing stuff and such. The anarchists are about as much threat as a pack of rabid squirrels.

If you are going to trample basic freedoms, then you should have a good reason for it. A credible threat as to why it is necessary for the government to pass laws that can put people away for ten years because they don't like what they're wearing. I can't see that here.

They just seem to want to know where we all are, all the time.

[BartSimpson]

Zipperfish Zipperfish:

I don't agree with this law on principle. However, I'm also one to recognize that in some cases reality sometimes uncomfortably (intrudes) on our principles. This is not one of those cases. Of all the riots I can think of in Canada, the biggest threat were a few yahoos running around smashing windows and stealing stuff and such. The anarchists are about as much threat as a pack of rabid squirrels.

If you are going to trample basic freedoms, then you should have a good reason for it. A credible threat as to why it is necessary for the government to pass laws that can put people away for ten years because they don't like what they're wearing. I can't see that here.

They just seem to want to know where we all are, all the time.

That is exactly right. It's not about masks, it's about control.

[Zipperfish]

I was going to say "impinges" but "intrudes" works just fine--thanks for the catch.

[Thanos]

Which sections of our respective constitutions delineate that it's a basic freedom to conceal your during the commission of a crime?

[N_Fiddledog]

I can't argue against this one...

$1:

They also noted that there are legitimate reasons for wearing masks at protests; some may be worried about reprisals at work, for example, if sighted at a political protest.

I can see where that one begins to make sense coming up shortly here, not just because of the recent American cases of government databasing and reprisals, but if there ever should be a necessity for North American EDL style protests. I'd attend, and I'd consider wearing a mask for protection from the Jihadi and Prog radicals that would be filming from their anti-protest lines.

[BartSimpson]

Thanos Thanos:

Which sections of our respective constitutions delineate that it's a basic freedom to conceal your during the commission of a crime?

In the US it would be rooted in the 1st Amendment as in the 1st Amendment it can be argued that anonymous speech is protected speech. Period.

(Edit: Our 5th Amendment also prohibits laws that require people to incriminate themselves and if this law went to the Supreme Court I imagine the 5th Amendment argument would loom larger than the anonymous speech argument.)

In Canada you folks have a Soviet-style document of 'rights' that enumerates a list of rights and then also creates a construct within itself to abrogate those rights.

More or less, our Constitution says we have certain rights no matter what.

Yours says that you have certain rights unless your government says otherwise. This renders your rights into mere privileges.

In general, your government doesn't do much to violate individual rights but when they do the violations are egregious. Such as allowing a Canadian citizen to be subjected to extrajudicial rendition by the United States and then transported to Egypt to be tortured by that country's security services.

True, this is an isolated incident, but given that your government did it to that man means they've probably done it to others and then kept those incidents secret.

Down here the surviving Boston Marathon bomber will be entitled to the same Constitutional protections at trial as any other US citizen and I wouldn't have it any other way because to dismiss his rights is to dismiss them for everyone else.

Likewise, if I were a Canadian I'd be wearing a mask pretty much all the time after this. I imagine that the next anarchist riot will feature thousands of people wearing masks and they'll overwhelm the police and your justice system with prosecutions.

Your government wants to put people in jail for ten years for wearing a mask at a riot? What about ten thousand such people? Where are you going to put them? How much will you spend on their trials?

Thinking about it, this stupid law is just another tool for the anarchists to use against your government.

[Benn]

raydan raydan:

Isn't rioting a crime by itself?

This is like making it a crime to wear a mask when you rob a bank.

Actually you can get an extra charge for "wearing a disguise" in commission of a robbery. So we've already started down this route awhile ago it seems.

[Thanos]

For a Soviet satellite Canada still manages to have a squishier justice system more full of pro-criminal wimps than anything even the bluest states in the US are plagued by. We free freaks of all sorts, folks that most US states would gladly (and quite rightly too, more often than not) strap to a gurney and give a needle in the arm to.

Regardless, my question still wasn't adequately answered. And I'm kind of genuinely puzzled by the New Anarchist claim that lofting a brick at a cop's face whilst wearing a Guy Fawkes mask is now considered by some to be "free speech". Once again, what part of our respective constitutions say that it's legal to conceal one's identity while one is committing a crime?

[Benn]

I'd need to read the bill before really commenting as I'm a bit confused. The article says "Wearing during a Riot" yet in the article there is a quote saying "... the bill is meant to give police an added tool to prevent lawful protests from becoming violent riots..." which seem to indicate to me this means it will be illegal to wear a mask even to a public protest, lawful or otherwise.

So if I work for the provincial taxation department and make a personal choice to go out to protest the Manitoban sales tax increase and don't want reprisals from my work I'm screwed because I can't wear a silly Stalin mask to both conceal myself from repercussions and secondly to get my point across.