Canadian province secretly passes law allowing arrest of those who won't show ID
thestar.com
thestar.com
You have this guy (probably with his green bandanna over his face) while "exploring the G20 perimeter with his friend". Being passive aggressive landed him in jail but will probably have his court date dropped before July 28.
Then again this appears to only be his side of the story. You want to bet that he was being a little more than passive aggressive ;)
I don't really mind people who protest but I hate the fact that these yahoo fly into toronto just to stir shit up. Are they even hear for a cause for just to cause trouble?
EDIT: added disclaimer: I tend to assume the worst in people ;)
That said, I don't have a problem with this law. I do have a problem with the way it was passed.
1. It was passed without debate.
2. By the time it is published in the Gazette (government newspaper where laws and other notices are posted) as required by law, the law itself will have expired.
3. It exposes flaws in our legislative system both with respect to process and entrenched rights (as a Canadian I basically have none because of our Constitution's notwithstanding clause).
I'd like to see these loopholes closed up. I think the law is balanced and within reason. But I would have liked to have my say before it became law. The way this went about implies that our leaders feel they have absolute power and that we citizens are merely pawns.
Either you have a lot of evidence that you're not telling us about, or you're casting aspersions onto this guy that are totally indefensible.
Your suggestion has been noted.
Updated original post; added disclaimer.
When I hear that a guy was walking around, I don't usually start off by assuming that he had his face covered and he was acting suspiciously. And I sure don't consider "the police arrested him" to be credible evidence about it, either.
EDIT to respond to your reply: I guess we just won't see eye-to-eye on this. I've worn a bandanna as an accessory before, and I don't see anything wrong with walking around near a security fence, or even "checking it out." I completely disagree that those things on their own are suspicious enough to warrant arrest.
"A guard or peace officer, may require any person entering or attempting to enter any public work or any approach thereto to furnish his or her name and address, to identify himself or herself and to state the purpose for which he or she desires to enter the public work, in writing or otherwise;"
I don't know what qualifies as "attempting to enter". Sounds arguable enough to be abused for this purpose though. Also I don't think a large part of the downtown core qualifies as a public work all of the sudden.
A better story is the guy they stopped with a crossbow at the G20: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/100624/national/g20_car_w...
Public Works Protection Act: http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/statutes/english/elaws_stat...
Amendment: http://www.e-laws.gov.on.ca/html/source/regs/english/2010/el...
Map of fence: http://www.g8-g20isu.ca/g20/resources/10-06-11-map.pdf
There's no state-mandated ID in the UK, for example, so the police can't demand it here. In most circumstances you're not required to even disclose your name and address to a random plod.