"That’s only a first step. Canada must also establish a national office
to assess all emerging technologies regardless of national origin and
their threats to democracies."

For all the paragraphs used to finger point at China, deservedly, Nikiforuk glosses or glazes over what advanced and liberal democracies have allowed to happen or are encouraging to happen in their own jurisdictions by western corporations. Huewei may be out in front in supplying autocracies with AI surveillance technologies (50 countries) however three US companies are responsible for providing AI surveillance technologies to 32 countries (IBM and yes they're still around, Palantir and Cisco). The US companies involved in public surveillance technologies aren't the only liberal democratic countries involved there's France, Germany, Israel and Japan also. A slight majority of the countries that have embraced this technology are those described as advanced democracies (55%) and 37% of the countries using this technology are described as closed autocracies .

We have allowed our governments to embrace this technology and we have allowed companies like Google Apple and Facebook to collect so much data on our lives it has provided these companies and their owners billions in profits. Yet no government or agency can tell us just what all these companies have collected on us nor how it is being used. Huewei may just be an evil Nikiforuk wants us to be wary of yet we also must be very wary of our own western companies who already are operating in our advanced democracies with evil intent.

If there was ever a reason to read both 1984 and Brave New World this is it.

Agreed. And the similarity that joins all the dots connected in this piece is the endless war of capitalist domination of markets, now being emulated by China and everyone else. Capitalism will continue to absolve itself of responsibility for a competitive system that demands the race to the bottom and undermining the possibility of democracy (how much western cash is enabling the growth in power of Communist and Russian autocrats? Capitalism is happy bout dat)). Tech companies are happy with authoritarianism and control just like the other companies exploiting this ideology. Can't resolve tech problems without resolving unrestrained capitalism that protesteth its brutality.

Some argue that capitalism and its consequences, i.e. fossil fuels and digital technology will continue to 'dig the hole deeper' until a massive ecological collapse either curtails it or leads to extinction.
At this point, I give them at least even odds.

"...at least even odds."? You're an irrepressible optimist.

the endless war of capitalist domination of markets, now being emulated by China

The only difference being is that China has "organized" this. The comparison of the US military and the conquest of the indigenous peoples comes to mind.....

If there was ever a reason to read both 1984 and Brave New World this is it.

I think Stuart McMillen has it figured out.

(Unfortunately, in an oddly self-referential move, McMillen took down the original, due to a request from the copyright holder. But there are copies in the wild. Grab one before the copyright police, enforced by the likes of Huawei, take them away… SCORE: Orwell 1, Huxley 0.)

very nicely and simply analyzed. thank you. plastics, technology, industrial evolution etc, etc is providing us with "unseen" consequences we chose to ignore for roi, until "unsustainable"?! being unfairly "detained" at yvr airport just like any other government protection is politically motivated and points out how globally divided we stand. sad reality and news catching topics that point out we cannot handle the truth. yet, we have done nicely with all of the inventions of past except our resolution to commitment to all and of course global misuse of these invention due to lack of awareness and commitment to sustainability although it seems soon will be able to walk on water if there is any left. lol.

I just finished reading 'Permanent Record' by Edward Snowden detailing his unmasking of America's mass surveillance of everyone in its' reach. Coincidentally my wife just received a bill from Revenue Canada for $18,000 erroneously claiming she had undeclared income. A clumsy mistake they made by peering into our private bank account and not following up with any personal contact. Don't think for a moment that by banning Huawei, Western governments won't do their best to occupy that surveillance space, fighting against any constraints.

Hi CSIS! How are you today?

Hey they just nailed me too! I guess they ran out of waitresses to audit.

My uncle, in his career, worked for the Canadian Military Intelligence (no oxymoron jokes, please). In that time he was required to do investigations and reports on many prominent people, including Canadian politicians. The head shaking moment happened when he had to investigate and report on himself!

The US and other ' western democracies" all have " backdoors" into google, microsoft,i-phone,facebook, instagram and other social technologies to use when ever they need it. Where do you think the 20+ ' security ' agencies in US government get much of their 'surveillance?

The solution is simple. Cancel your smart phone contract and throw it in the trash.

I've never developed the habit, so I don't feel the gnawing grip of addiction. I don't have the unconscious "grip, swipe, passcode" cycle that I see friends and family go through every minute or so, while they are supposed to be "being with" friends and family.

Sorry for not being more empathetic. First-world problems will have their own solution someday, as we join the Third World in their daily problems of water, food, and shelter.

A phone is a tool. Before phones people would complain about their significant others spending their evenings in the workshop or the shed or the basement. If phones didn't exist people would find other ways to avoid spending time with friends and family. Don't blame the phones.

You can carve with a chainsaw, or kill with it. A chainsaw is just a tool.

You can build a relationship with a phone, or you can kill a relationship with it. A phone is just a tool.

What today's smart phones seem to do is relieve people of their inhibitions regarding social situations. It's as if the chainsaw was shaped like a comfy couch.

JUST PUT THE DAMN PHONE DOWN WHEN YOU'RE AROUND OTHER PEOPLE, AND NO ONE GETS HURT!

Or ask why they're on the phone. Is it business? Or are they bored with their company?

If a friend is always on the phone when they should be visiting its probably time to accept that friendship is on its last legs.

Just as a husband always being in the workshop was probably a sign the marriage wasn't working well.

It has nothing to do with the phone...

a husband always being in the workshop was probably a sign the marriage wasn't working well.

Or, in my case, it's more likely a "honeydew" project, and a sign that things are working very well… :-)

lol, okay :)

Yeah, let's all be Luddites and/or employed, what a wonderfully ridiculous idea. There are many people who are required to use their cell phones for work or personal lives. You likely don't have a family, job, or any friends. Therefore, you have no need to keep in contact with your company, check your stock performance, or schedule anything.....etc. They're called smartphones for a reason.

Actually, I run a co-op that has over 100 stakeholders, and have as many friends and family as I need. They all know how to get in touch with me without showing me what they had for dinner last night.

I prefer fewer, closer relationships to distant, distant relationships. It's the old "jelly sandwich" principle — the more you spread it, the thinner it gets.

SPOILER ALERT: GODWIN'S LAW! As for "required" to use one for a job, well, I bet the prison guards at Auschwitz had tools that were "required" for their job, too. That's no excuse.

check your stock performance,

HA! Investments for financial yield are the cause of the mess we're in. It's ludicrous to believe that little bits of coloured paper with pictures of dead people on them somehow get together in dark bank vaults, copulate, and produce more little bits of coloured paper — almost as ludicrous as believing those bits of paper have any intrinsic value at all. It's all a shell game, and it sounds like you've bought into it.

The only "ethical" investment is if you acquire something that allows you to turn your labour into funds. In our case, shovel, hoe, etc.

schedule anything

We have a white board that everyone puts their schedule on. No WiFi required. Amazingly enough, it even keeps working when BC Hydro doesn't!

Just Say No™ to soul-destroying, planet-destroying tools that are "required" just to keep some job. The average lifetime of a smart phone is 21 months. This is coming to you from a twelve-year-old computer.

https://www.theguardian.com...
The Fat Years remains valid because it is not simply a "what might happen" exercise in futurism. Its central conceit – that collective amnesia overtakes the entire country – is an all-encompassing metaphor for today's looming superpower and the question that lies behind its material renaissance since the 1980s – namely, whether a booming economy and an increasingly free individual society can be contained within the political straitjacket of a one-party system that seeks to retain all the levers of power for itself.

Does Andrew's assertion of an evil Huawei imply that the world's other tech behemoths are Mr. Clean by comparison? pwlg nails it - they are all on a clear track to 1984 2.0. It's "inevitable", given that ever-increasing populations tend to render individual freedoms more problematic. Nazi Germany is (still!) offered up as the epitome of the state interfering in the bedrooms of the nation ( https://www.cbc.ca/archives... ) Yet it would be well to remember how grudgingly/openly The West admired the "efficiencies" of that regime at that time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Is the Tyee a branch of the CIA now? Remember Edward Snowden? Ever heard of the NSA? Or the “Five Eyes”? Spying 24/7 on the entire world? Just like that Apple or Android phone in your and my pocket - all “Designed in USA”, and busy recording this as I type. We kidnapped Meng because Apple and Google are losing market share to Huawei, not because Huawei is spying on us.

I agree with most of what you’re saying - particularly as it pertains to the ‘record’ of the US as an entity of the National Security State. I can’t however, concur with the suggestion that Meng’s detention was not legal and, my belief is that she has been treated with ‘exceptional’ fairness during her enforced stay in this country: One would, however, have to be pretty blind not to observe that Meng’s country has behaved (in this matter and with respect to its own detention of our citizens - the citizens of other countries and the Uighur minority) with far less fairness and equity.

Canada arrested Meng at the request of the USA...the USA was so eager to get their hands on her they waited a month to even begin to make a move to extradition...trade relations between Canada and China were threatened...which is probably what the USA wanted! We got had!!!

All true Anne. But what the US asked was within the ambit of a mutual agreement we have with them to cover such situations in either country. I don't believe (despite many claims to the contrary) that we had any choice under the law. China's actions in retaliation are not in any way commensurate nor justifiable. As for the effect on trade, it seems pretty clear that our relations with the US - since 2016 - have been as tendentious as our dealings with China.

I agree that our position is unenviable but I've seen no clear way (short of behaving similarly ourselves) to bring this thing to an end. I'd be very surprised if arresting and jailing a handful of Chinese nationals here in Canada would have helped.

I didn't understand him to say the detention of Meng was not "legal".

He used the word 'kidnapped’. If that's not illegal please tell me when the law changed.
Cheers

I have little doubt that your concerns about Huawei are well-founded, but as a Canadian, I have far less concern about Beijing spying on me than I do about Washington (and Ottawa) doing it. Andrew, you're pointing at the fire burning down your neighbour's house while yours is in flames behind you.

EDIT: Cf: https://www.theguardian.com...

Geoffrey, note that the Royal Canadian airforce is outfitting three King air aircraft with a spy suite that only yanks can work on. These planes stock are a few million each, the spy suite must be something special because we're paying 188 million for these three planes. I guess the yanks will be using them to have Canada spy on their citizens while the Americans spy on ours. The source of this is the Ottawa Citizen.

Andrew's article prompted me to take another look at 5G and enhance my understanding of what it is all about. Having done that I am all for a universal global ban on its implementation. We have 4G, to go to five is pure insanity; especially so when we see how much it has changed our world, how we live and how we think. We are already suffering an advanced case of future shock and in palliative care.

One of the items that scared me most was the imbecilic Donald Trump in a press conference proclaiming that this was a war the US must win. Whether it is Iran, 5G or World War lll( now in progress) he is emblematic of America's totally fucked up thinking-everything is a war they must win. It never occurs to the meatheads in Washington that humankind is entertaining a complusive death wish on too many fronts, and they are the chief perpetrators of it .

Whether its 5G, nuclear weapons or climate change our genius is to create endless ways to destroy ourselves. Humankind is truly miraculous when it comes to technological ingenuity: but when it comes to the political skill-set to deal with this genius we are in a knuckle-dragging stone age.

https://uploads.disquscdn.c...

YAY, Robert Billyard!

Or, as Wendell Berry put it:

The energy crisis is not a crisis of technology but of morality... The issue is restraint... Can we forbear to do anything that we are able to do?

Restraint very much so; but also transition- can we successfully transition away from fossil fuels? Our adaptive skills are about to get the ultimate test.

can we successfully transition away from fossil fuels?

That's a tough one.

I would not discourage anyone from trying to transition to so-called "renewables," but they seem to be pretty heavily soaked in oil.

So any "transition" that happens will necessarily be to a life with less energy. Most people will remain in deep denial and blame over that. It will be anyone's fault except that person in the mirror.

Just because we've had it pretty damn good does not mean we are entitled to continue having it that good.

can we successfully transition away from fossil fuels?

Not until our society's collective behaviour forgoes some of the narcissism, entitlement, convenience and comfort that these four aspects reinforce in our consumptive behaviour. Everyone has to paticipate, including the rich and entitled.

Everyone has to paticipate, including the rich and entitled.

Good luck with that one!

I think anyone who takes this seriously should be hedging their bets. Learn how to grow your own food.

Then, if things manage to defy all logic and proceed on the infinite growth path, you can say, "Gee, I fed myself for no good reason!" :-)

https://www.nature.com/arti...

Nice. 5G is just in time for the Powers That Be to further deny the effects of global warming.

(BTW: I usually don't bother with "naked" links. I short summary with links would be appreciated!)

After this dog and pony extradition process is complete, did you know that according to Canada's Extradition Act, the Minister of Justice can refuse to hand over the individual concerned by virtue of these provisions in the Act:

44 (1) The Minister shall refuse to make a surrender order if the Minister is satisfied that

(a) the surrender would be unjust or oppressive having regard to all the relevant circumstances; or

(b) the request for extradition is made for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing the person by reason of their race, religion, nationality, ethnic origin, language, colour, political opinion, sex, sexual orientation, age, mental or physical disability or status or that the person’s position may be prejudiced for any of those reasons.

This power should have been raised and used as soon as Trump indicated that Meng's arrest could be used as a bargaining chip by the US in its contemporaneous tariff war with China.

I will add, it is not wise to reference Richard Fadden as a source - he was a leading CSIS bureaucrat and has never personally acknowledged its role, along with the RCMP in four innocent Canadians being renditioned and tortured and ultimately receiving deserved $10 million in our tax dollars each in recompense for the horrors they endured.

In the end, if the court decides that Ms Meng is not extraditable then it’s highly unlikely that the Minister of Justice would overrule.
Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes of the B.C. Supreme Court did not say that the U.S. request for Ms. Meng’s extradition is objectionable.
But she did raise the possibility that a case like this one might be – and that it would be a judge’s role to say so, and to reject the case for that reason. She said that could be possible if the law broken in the country requesting an extradition was not consistent with Canadian values.

Something I found pretty surprising in a court of law.

Thank you.

My mistake, I didn't realize I was reading the National Post, the New York Times, or CNN. I thought I would come to The Tyee and see what was going on in the progressive world today. Instead, I get hit with this Yellow Peril piece typical of the corporate MSM. China bad. USA good. Canada an innocent bystander. I would unsubscribe if I had a subscription.

I too am surprised by the tone and lack of context of this piece.

"Meng, a glorious global leader of the next phase of the internet revolution, is entirely innocent of fraud, as charged by the U.S. Justice Department. Moreover, the company denies operating a shadow company in Iran that violated U.S. sanctions against that country."

This is as close as the usually reliable Nikiforuk comes to stating what was clearly behind Meng's arrest for a crime the U.S. alleges that was not a crime in Canada: evading (internationally condemned) U.S. sanctions on Iran. Desperate to renew NAFTA, the Trudeau/Freeland government did as it was told to gain Trump's favour.

This is not to excuse China's apparently unwarranted arrest of two Canadians (and definite mistreatment of them), nor to proclaim Meng as an angel. Nor to argue in support of Huawei; just not to jump on the mainstream bandwagon of innuendo. Let's stick to facts and reason.

Go away, bye..

Where, in the article, does it say "USA good."?

I agree, but this is just a simple editorial not based on facts written by a scaremongering, simpleton.

what was clearly behind Meng's arrest for a crime the U.S. alleges that was not a crime in Canada

Part of the charges are for bank fraud. That is still (barely) a crime in Canada.

I agree that anything regarding Iran sanctions don't count for extradition.

Yes, complete with quotations from Murdoch's Wall Street Journal

And how many Tyee readers are addicted to their smart phones? 70-80-90%?

My wife and I long ago made a decision to forego the modern cell phone addiction due to not liking the changes we saw in human interaction. In fact, when a few years ago an old colleague pulled out his phone while some of us met for a coffee reunion, that was it for me. I've never been back.

A very tragic thing I saw one day was watching a twenty something father at a Tims, having a donut treat with his young son. The Dad was on his phone, and the boy was quietly playing a video game on his on kid version. They didn't speak a word for the 15 minutes I was there. Those 15 minutes will never come again.

You can buy an effective cell phone jammer for less than the price of a phone. Imagine, a dinner where people look at each other and chat, a movie theatre where people watch....movies. A check out line where the ignorant remain silent.

Or, you can just choose to ban them from your home and life.

Your friend obviously found his phone more interesting than the company that was present. I doubt he loses sleep over being "banned".

Tim Hortons'? I agree. Very tragic.

The environmental impact of smartphones:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/the...