Friday, May 02, 2008

EC 'Raid' Seized Confidential Legal Docs: Tories

Story here. h/t: Bourque.org

The party said Thursday that 17 boxes of documents, five envelopes and seven computer hard drives contain privileged legal advice and material that's irrelevant to an Elections Canada probe.

Why would Elections Canada take all that? It seems that they just pushed their way in, with armed Mounties along for intimidation purposes, and just proceeded to confiscate whatever they wanted, which was pretty much everything in sight. Why? Is this acceptable in a country based on the rule of law? Is it acceptable for the state apparatus to barge in and take whatever they want, no matter what?

Did the warrant grant them the "right" to take anything and everything? Now, that would be something, wouldn't it? Imagine the precedent it'd set. At least then, the state apparatus would then be able to barge into anyplace and seize whatever it pleased from, say, suspected terrorist organizations or foreign spy entities. Now, that would be worth such incredible, absolute power on the part of the state apparatus! So... let's not just be fascists towards the Conservative Party; let's be fascists towards suspected terrorists, spies, organized crime gangs, you name it! Let there be no limits on state apparatus search and seizure! Let it be like in the Soviet Union, where no one had any rights and the state apparatus could do whatever it wanted!

Hope the sarcasm is evident. I mean, c'mon... think, think... something is very wrong here, obviously.

Last year they filed a lawsuit in the Federal Court of Canada challenging Elections Canada's interpretation of campaign law. Senior Tories, including Prime Minister Stephen Harper, have questioned the motives for last month's raid, suggesting the elections agency may have been trying to do an end-run around the Federal Court suit.

Suspicious. It does indeed appear that the state apparatus, which is predominantly leftist, is trying to intimidate and somehow unconstitutionally, illegally, unfairly treat the Conservatives. This is dangerous.

Clearly, the state apparatus has far too much power. Oh, it's ok to do whatever they want to the Conservatives based on nothing other than accusations, but imagine the uproar if they treated terrorists, spies and criminal gangs with such absolute fascism!