Canada: Council delivers thousands of petitions opposing Schedule 2 to Environment Minister Prentice

The Council of Canadians and MiningWatch Canada delivered almost 15,000 petitions against Schedule 2 to the Confederation Block where Environment Minister Jim Prentice has his Parliament Hill office this week. The delivery was made in advance of a federal Cabinet decision on the future of Teztin Biny (Fish Lake), a freshwater lake that is facing the threat of destruction under Schedule 2.

Schedule 2 is a loophole in the Metal Mining Effluent Regulation (MMER) of the federal Fisheries Act that allows metal mining corporations to use lakes and rivers as toxic dumpsites. Once added to Schedule 2, healthy freshwater lakes lose all environmental protections.

The federal government is expected to announce its decision on Taseko Mines Limited’s proposed “Prosperity Mine” project as early as Friday September 10. Located in British Columbia, southwest of Williams Lake, the project calls for an open gold and copper mine in the heart of Tsilhqot’in First Nations territory. While the province approved the proposal, a federal review panel rejected it last month saying it would have “significant adverse environmental effect and significant cumulative impact on fish and bear population and habitat around Teztan Biny (Fish Lake), Fish Creek and Little Fish Lake.” Generations of the Tsilhqot’in people have opposed the project, which would jeopardize a sacred site of great cultural and historic significance. The lake and its surroundings have been an important source of food security for the Tsilhqot’in who have lived, fished and hunted in the area for thousands of years

The Council of Canadians is a non-profit organization and does not accept money from corporations or governments. Our work is sustained by the generous donations of concerned Canadians who share our vision and commitment to action.
The Council of Canadians has joined the Tsilhqot’in’s fight against the destruction of Teztan Biny, arguing mining companies should not be allowed to use healthy Canadian lakes as dumpsites. Our Williams Lake chapter joined a petition campaign, organized packed-hall information evenings and took part in rallies to help build public awareness about the proposal. The Council’s BC Regional Organizer Harjap Grewal and National Water Campaigner Meera Karunananthan presented at the federal review panel’s public hearings protesting Taseko’s plans.

“Canada is one of the few countries in the world where mining companies are allowed to dump their tailings directly into lakes and rivers,” said Karunananthan. “Schedule 2 remains a threat to all lakes in Canada and must be eliminated. In the meantime, the federal government must do the right thing and save Fish Lake from destruction.”

Take Action!
Send a letter to Environment Minister Jim Prentice and members of the federal Cabinet to demand that they reject this proposal. Go here to send a letter.

To read more about the threats posed by Schedule 2 to Canadian lakes and rivers go here.

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In Shining India, Over 5,000 Children Die Every Day From Hunger And Malnutrition

The boycott of Israel is “gaining speed”

The next big thing in autos: a hand-cranked hybrid?

More birds dying in Alberta oil sands than first reported

Blackwater Worldwide/Xe Services formed a network of 30 shell companies

Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography

In Shining India, Over 5,000 Children Die Every Day From Hunger And Malnutrition

By Devinder Sharma

September 9, 2010

The startling figure still resonates in my memory. Some 25 years back, I remember reading a report in one of the major dailies which said that some 5,000 children die every day in India. Today morning, my attention therefore was automatically drawn to a news report: 1.83 million children die before fifth bithday every year: Report (Indian Express, Sept 8, 2010).

I immediately took out a pen and paper to find out the per day child mortality rate. I wanted to know whether the child mortality rate has come down, and by how much, in the last 25 years or so. My disappointment has grown. The calculations shows that every day 5,013 children are succumbing to malnutrition. Given that a half of all children in India are under-nourished as per the National Family Health Survey III (2005-06), of which over 5,000 die every day I think every Indian needs to hang his/her head in shame.

Globally, 14,600 children die every day. This means that India alone has the dubious distinction of having more than a third of the world’s child mortality. This is ironically happening at a time when food is rotting in the godowns.

Yes, India is surely an emerging economic superpower, but building an Empire over hungry stomachs! Mera Bharat Mahaan!!

A new global report “A fair Chance at Life” by the international child rights organisation Save the Children is not only a damming indictment of the supplementary nutrition programmes that have been running for several decades now, but also is an eye-opener in many ways. While it tells us how hollow the global claims under the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are, nationally it shows us the stark hidden realities. A country which doesn’t get tired of patting itself in the back for creating an impressive list of 50 billionaires, and off and on does bask under the fictitious glow of Shining India, the dark underbelly remains deliberately hidden from the media glare.

Let us look at what the report says: “Of the 26 million children born in India every year, approximately 1.83 million died before their fifth birthday. “What these aggregate figures do not reveal are the huge inequities in mortality rates across the country, within States and between them, as well as between children in urban and rural areas.”

Half of these children actually die within a month of being born. In other words, nearly 2,500 children of those who die have not even survived for more than a month. This is an indication of not only the inability of the parents to provide adequate nutrition to their new born, but more than that is a reflection of the impoverished condition of the especially the mother. Does it not tell us to what extent poverty and hunger prevails in this country? Do we need to still work out more effective parameters to measure hunger and malnutrition? Do we really need to find a new estimate of people living below the poverty line (BPL)?

Madhya Pradesh tops the list, followed closely by Uttar Pradesh. The under-5 mortality rate in Kerala was 14 deaths per 1000 live births. This stood at a sharp contrast to Madhya Pradesh at 92 per 1000 and 91 per 1000 for Uttar Pradesh.

I am reproducing below a news report from the pages of The Hindu (Sept 8, 2010):

‘Children from poorest section 3 times more likely to die before age of 5 than those from high income groups’

Children from the poorest communities are three times more likely to die before they reach the age of 5 than those from high income groups, Save the Children, a non-governmental organisation has said.

In a global report titled A Fair Chance at Life, the organisation said the policy to lower child mortality in India and elsewhere appeared to focus on children from better-off communities, leaving out those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds.

“The 41 percentage decline in child mortality over the last two decades masks a dangerous expansion of the child mortality gap between the richest and poorest families in India,” Save the Children CEO Thomas Chandy said.

Child mortality is often described as the best barometer of social and economic progress. Despite being one of the fastest growing economies, there has been no visible pattern between per capita income growth and the rate of reduction of child mortality rates. In 2008, 5.3 lakh children under 5 died in the lowest income quintile in comparison to 1.78 lakh among the wealthy quintile. The rate of decline between 2005-06 and 1997-98 among the lowest income quintile is 22.69 per cent, compared to 34.37 per cent among the high income quintile for the same period.

Of the 26 million children born in India every year, approximately 1.83 million died before their fifth birthday. “What these aggregate figures do not reveal are the huge inequities in mortality rates across the country, within States and between them, as well as between children in urban and rural areas,” Mr. Chandy said.

The under-5 mortality rate in Kerala was 14 deaths per 1000 live births. This stood at a sharp contrast to Madhya Pradesh at 92 per 1000 and 91 per 1000 for Uttar Pradesh.

“Every child has the right to survive and the Indian government has an obligation to protect them. Save the Children’s research shows that prioritising marginalised and excluded communities, especially in the States lagging behind, is one of the surest ways that India can reduce the number of children dying from easily preventable causes. The National Rural Health Mission, for example, should have a clear focus on social inclusion of Dalits and adivasis in terms of access to healthcare,” he said.

Save the Children’s report comes two weeks before a high-level U.N. summit in New York from September 20-22 to assess progress against the Millennium Development Goals.

By demonstrating a political will and the right policies, MDG4 could be achieved in India. The good schemes in place needed to be matched by effective implementation. And there was enough experience in India proving that low-cost interventions can make the difference between life and death for a child, the report said.

Huge inequity in child mortality rates: Survey
http://www.thehindu.com/news/article617626.ece

Source

The GM genocide: Thousands of Indian farmers are committing suicide after using genetically modified crops

Recent

The boycott of Israel is “gaining speed”

The next big thing in autos: a hand-cranked hybrid?

More birds dying in Alberta oil sands than first reported

Blackwater Worldwide/Xe Services formed a network of 30 shell companies

Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography

The boycott of Israel is “gaining speed”

By Lawrence Davidson

September 9 2010

On 5 September 2010 the Israel newspaper Ha’aretz published an article the headline of which read ‘Anti-Israel economic boycotts are gaining speed’. The subtitle went on to state that “the sums involved are not large, but their international significance is huge”. Actually, what seems to have triggered the piece was not international. Rather, it was the decision of a “few dozen theatre people” to boycott “a new cultural centre in Ariel”, an illegally settled town in the occupied territories. This action drew public support from 150 academics in Israel. The response from the Israeli right, which presently controls the government and much of Israel’s information environment, was loud and hateful.

Though this affair was domestic, it provided a jumping off point for Ha’aretz to go on and examine the larger international boycott of Israel which is indeed “gaining speed”. It noted that Chile had recently pledged to boycott products from the Israeli settlements and Norway’s state pension plan had divested itself of companies involved in construction in the occupied territories. The Ha’aretz article pointed out that these incidents (and there are others that can be named in such countries as Ireland and Venezuela) are signs that the boycott movement – so long the province civil society – is now finding resonance at the level of national governments. The Israeli paper declared that “the world is changing before our eyes. Five years ago the anti-Israel movement may have been marginal. Now it is growing into an economic problem.”

The article puts forth two explanations for this turn of events one of which is problematic, and the other incomplete. Let’s take a look at them.

1. “Until now boycott organizers had been on the far left. [Now] they have a new ally: Islamic organizations… The red side has a name for championing human rights, while the green side [the Islamic side] has money.” I have some personal knowledge of the boycott movement and I find some of these particulars to be, at best, exaggerations. The term “far left” must be based on some arbitrary Zionist definition of the political spectrum. Worldwide community support for the growing boycott movement has gone beyond political alignments. Today, it is a reflection of real united front seeking the promotion of Palestinian human rights (in this Haaretz is on the mark). As for the “green side”, there is certainly an understandable affinity here. Muslims too are concerned about the human rights of Palestinians (including the Christians ones). However, the claim of any significant flow of cash is, as far as I know, another exaggeration. The Ha’aretz piece cites the example of the aid flotilla to Gaza, with its link to Turkey. But this is just one case in a worldwide movement. And, there was nothing illegitimate (despite Israeli propaganda) about the involvement of Turkish charities. It might come as a surprise to the Israelis, but you can run a boycott movement without heavy outside funding – as was the case of the boycott against South Africa.

2. Ha’aretz continues: “but then came the occupation, which turned us into the evil Goliath, the cruel oppressor, a darkness on the nations”. The article suggests that this is such a contrast with the righteous stand that helped convince the West to support the original formation of Israel that many have turned away from Israel in disappointment. “And now we are paying the price of presenting ourselves as righteous and causing disappointment: boycott.” No doubt there is much disappointment. The horrors of Israeli expansionism and occupation are such that they draw worldwide attention. And rightly so. But, they are symptoms of some deeper cause. What might it be? The state of Israel was founded on an ideological programme called Zionism. That programme called for the establishment of a state designed to serve the exclusive interests of one religiously identified group. While the Zionists felt this aim was justified by the centuries of persecution suffered by European Jews, it actually carried within it the seeds of its own corruption. The simple truth is that you cannot successfully design a state for one group only unless you found it on some desert island. If you put it down in a place that is occupied by others who are not of your group, what is the most likely next step? You turn into racists, ethnic cleansers or worse. The Zionist adherence to their ideology and its programme is the cause of their turning into “cruel oppressors”. The means dictated by their end made it so.

The Ha’aretz article does not go beyond these points, but there is plenty more to say. Those who wonder whether they should support the boycott should certainly consider the horrors of the Israeli occupation and its ghettoizing of the people of Gaza. They might also consider the following:

1. The non-Jewish population of Israel proper, that is Israel within the 1967 borders (the “Green Line”) are subject to segregation and economic and social discrimination that is both de jure and de facto. Their overall standards of living are lower than the Israeli Jews, their educational facilities inferior and their economic prospects poorer. This is to be expected. If you are running your state based on a racist principle, by definition discrimination must infuse the home front. This fact does not appear to fit with the often heard claim that the Israelis are “just like us” Americans. However, in a rather anachronistic way they are “like us” – that is like the United States prior to our civil rights legislation. In other words, Israel is like, say, Georgia or Alabama circa the 1920s.

2. The second factor worthy of consideration is the negative international impact of Zionist ideology, for the harm of Zionism is not confined to either Israel or its occupied territories. The fact is that Zionist influence spreads far beyond Israel’s area of dominion and now influences many of the policy-making institutions of Western governments, and particularly those of the United States. This influence is corruptive if only because it distorts both official and popular notions of national interests in the Middle East. When you have a powerful and single-minded lobby that is able to manipulate your government in such a fashion that it pours its national treasure into a racist state, arms it and protects it to the point of becoming an accomplice to its crimes, and by doing so wilfully alienates 22 per cent of the world’s population, you know that your notion of national interest has been seriously mangled. This harmful influence makes it imperative that Israel’s oppressive behaviour be singled out as a high priority case from among the many other oppressive regimes that may be candidates for boycott.

So no one in Israel, the US or anywhere else should be surprised that the boycott against Israel, in its many manifestations, is “gaining speed.” If you are not yet a supporter you should become one. To join the boycott is good for the world’s future in general. It is certainly good for the Palestinians, and yes, it is good for the Jews too.

For more information on how to join the boycott Israel campaign, visit the websites of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement website and the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University

Source

Recent

The next big thing in autos: a hand-cranked hybrid?

More birds dying in Alberta oil sands than first reported

Blackwater Worldwide/Xe Services formed a network of 30 shell companies

Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography

The next big thing in autos: a hand-cranked hybrid?

By Melissa Hincha-Ownby, Forbes.com

August 21, 2010

The next big thing in hybrid vehicles may not come from the likes of Toyota or General Motors. Instead, it may come from Charles Samuel Greenwood.

Greenwood has been working on a human-powered vehicle concept for decades, and all of his hard work is coming together in the form of the HumanCar Imagine PS.

The vehicle seats four and generates power through a system of hand cranks. Yes, hand cranks.

One might think that a hand-cranked vehicle would be marketable only as a neighborhood vehicle with a limited top speed. However, the HumanCar has surprising potential — a top speed of 30 mph (48 kph) going uphill and 60 mph (96 kph) on a flat surface. All of this can be achieved via human power and nothing else.

However, Greenwood addresses the times when owners may not have three friends available to help power the vehicle. The HumanCar Imagine PS (power station) is equipped with electric plug-in capabilities so that a single person operating a hand crank can power the vehicle. That makes this a genuine human-electric hybrid. Forget the advanced gasoline-electric hybrids of today; tomorrow’s hybrid is a true muscle car.

This zero-emissions vehicle is not only better for the environment; it improves the driver’s health thanks to the workout you get while driving it. The human health aspect was part of Greenwood’s decision to build and ultimately refine this concept.

“It was 1968. Traffic was at a complete standstill, again, on a busy boulevard in what is now known as the Silicon Valley,” Greenwood wrote. “Sitting within their cars were many commuters who were overweight and out of shape, breathing unhealthy exhaust fumes. As a young engineer working at my first job at a research and development laboratory for a major corporation, it seemed intuitively that there must be a better way to move people around than this.”

And with that, the concept for the HumanCar Imagine PS was born. The vehicle is street legal as a low-mass vehicle and is vehicle-to-grid (V2G) compatible. Greenwood plans to bring the vehicle to market next year but is already taking reservations on his website. A $50 fully refundable, no-questions-asked reservation fee will put you on the list for a $15,500 HumanCar Imagine PS.

Melissa Hincha-Ownby blogs for the Mother Nature Network.

Source

Put the kids to work too, if they want to go somewhere they have to provide the fuel.

Neat Concept I must say.

Solar Powered Car

Recent

More birds dying in Alberta oil sands than first reported

Blackwater Worldwide/Xe Services formed a network of 30 shell companies

Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography

More birds dying in Alberta oil sands than first reported

September 7 2010

A new report suggests more birds are dying in Alberta’s tar sands than the government has let on.

Government industries have estimated that on average, about 65 birds die each year from tailings pond exposure, according to the study released Tuesday. The mean annual rate was determined by analyzing the mortality rate between 2000 and 2007.

However the study, which has been published in September’s edition of The Wilson Journal of Ornithology, suggests a number that is at least seven times higher than the industries estimate.

Researchers report that on average, between 458 and 5,029 birds die each year at the Bitumen Tailings Pond in northeastern Alberta.

In fact, researchers say that average is likely conservative because the data that was studied doesn’t include bird deaths that occurred before spring, between spring and fall migration and after fall migration.

Researchers say the wide range is due to spatial and temporal variations in bird mortality rates.

Tailings ponds are said to contain bitumen, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, volatile organic compounds, naphthenic acids, brine, heavy metals, and ammonia.

The study concludes by saying the government needs to introduce a system that is “statistically valid” and is standardized.

“Systematic monitoring and accurate, timely reporting would provide data useful to all those concerned with bird conservation and management in the tar sands region,” the study says.

Dr. Kevin Timoney, a scientist with Treeline Ecological Research, said the industries’ estimates are hampering efforts to protect wildlife in the tar sands.

“The ad hoc monitoring by industry, sanctioned by government, cannot address pressing questions whose answers would aid in the conservation of both migratory and resident birds,” said Timoney, a co-author of the study.

Greenpeace Canada expressed outrage at the finding of the study and released a statement asking for an “independent scientific analysis.”

“We can no longer let the fox guard the hen house,” Mike Hudema, Greenpeace climate and energy campaigner, was quoted as saying. “It has become glaringly obvious that we can’t trust the government to give us accurate information on the tar sands industry.

“It’s time for independent scientific analysis so that the public knows the full scope of this horrific industry and can make a decision about the kind of future we want to invest in: a toxic legacy or a green economy we can all live and breathe in?”

The study also found:

• Landing deterrent systems at tailings ponds are only partially effective and don’t always prevent bird deaths.
• Researchers are unable to determine the fate of lightly oiled birds that continue on the migration path.
• There is not enough data on deaths reported during extreme weather or how often there are circumstances leading to massive bird deaths.

The Alberta government stated that oilsands companies must have monitoring and deterrence mechanisms in operation for all animals.

However, Alberta Sustainable Resource Development Minister Mel Knight admitted that more needs to be done.

“I would not argue at all with the study with respect to the fact that there could be better work done on monitoring, and we’re going to work to do that,” he said. “At the end of the day we’ll come to appreciate the advice that is being given to us and we’ll use it.” Source

Related

Alberta Oil Sands a Pollution Nightmare

There is a major pollution problem in Alberta. This not only affects wild life but also the people who live near the pollution as well.

All Wild Life in the area of the oil sands should be studied as well.

This also will get into the ground water and contaminate for years to come.

Recent

Blackwater Worldwide/Xe Services formed a network of 30 shell companies

Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography

Blackwater Worldwide/Xe Services formed a network of 30 shell companies

September 4, 2010

WASHINGTON — The security company Blackwater Worldwide formed a network of 30 shell companies and subsidiaries to try to get millions of dollars in government business after the company faced strong criticism for reckless conduct in Iraq, The New York Times reported Friday.

The newspaper said that it was unclear how many of the created companies got American contracts but that at least three of them obtained work with the U.S. military and the CIA.

Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has asked the Justice Department to see whether Blackwater misled the government when using the subsidiaries to gain government contracts, according to the Times.

It said Levin’s committee found that North Carolina-based Blackwater, which now is known as Xe Services, went to great lengths to find ways to get lucrative government work despite criminal charges and criticism stemming from a 2007 incident in which Blackwater guards killed 17 Iraqi civilians. A committee chart outlines the web of Blackwater subsidiaries.

Messages left late Friday with spokespeople for the Michigan Democrat and Xe were not immediately answered.

The 2007 incident and other reports of abuses by Blackwater employees in Iraq led to criminal investigations and congressional hearings, and resulted in the company losing a lucrative contract with the State Department to provide security in Iraq.

But recently the company was awarded a $100 million contract to provide security for the agency in Afghanistan, prompting criticism from some in Congress. CIA Director Leon Panetta said that the CIA had no choice but to hire the company because it underbid others by $26 million and that a CIA review concluded that the contractor had cleaned up its act.

Last year, Panetta canceled a contract with Xe that allowed the company’s operatives to load missiles on Predator drones in Pakistan, and shifted the work to government personnel.

However, the Times quoted former Blackwater officials as saying that at least two Blackwater-affiliated companies, XPG and Greystone, obtained secret contracts from the CIA to provide security to agency operatives.

The newspaper said the network of subsidiaries, including several located in offshore tax havens, were uncovered as part of the Armed Services Committee’s examination of government contracting and not an investigation solely into Blackwater. But Levin questioned why Blackwater would need to create so many companies with various names to seek out government business, according to the Times.

The report quoted unidentified government officials and former Blackwater employees as saying that the network of companies allowed Blackwater to obscure its involvement in government work from contracting officials and the public, and to ensure a low profile for its classified activities. Source

Recent

Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography

Pentagon declined to investigate hundreds of purchases of child pornography

September 3 2010

By John Cook

A 2006 Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation into the purchase of child pornography online turned up more than 250 civilian and military employees of the Defense Department — including some with the highest available security clearance — who  used credit cards or PayPal to purchase images of children in sexual situations. But the Pentagon investigated only a handful of the cases, Defense Department records show.

The cases turned up during a 2006 ICE inquiry, called Project Flicker, which targeted overseas processing of child-porn payments. As part of the probe, ICE investigators gained access to the names and credit card information of more than 5,000 Americans who had subscribed to websites offering images of child pornography. Many of those individuals provided military email addresses or physical addresses with Army or fleet ZIP codes when they purchased the subscriptions.

In a related inquiry, the Pentagon’s Defense Criminal Investigative Service (DCIS) cross-checked the ICE list against military databases to come up with a list of Defense employees and contractors who appeared to be guilty of purchasing child  pornography. The names included staffers for the secretary of defense, contractors for the ultra-secretive National Security Agency, and a program manager at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. But the DCIS opened investigations into only 20 percent of the individuals identified, and succeeded in prosecuting just a handful.

The Boston Globe first reported the Pentagon’s role in Project Flicker in July, citing DCIS investigative reports (PDF) showing that at least 30 Defense Department employees were investigated.

But new Project Flicker investigative reports obtained by The Upshot through the Freedom of Information Act, which you can read here, show that DCIS investigators identified 264 Defense employees or contractors who had purchased child pornography online. Astonishingly, nine of those had “Top Secret Sensitive Compartmentalized Information” security clearances, meaning they had access to the nation’s most sensitive secrets. All told, 76 of the individuals had Secret or higher clearances. But DCIS investigated only 52 of the suspects, and just 10 were ever charged with viewing or purchasing child pornography. Without greater public disclosure of how these cases wound down, it’s impossible to know how or whether any of the names listed in the Project Flicker papers came in for additional scrutiny. It’s conceivable that some of them were picked up by local law enforcement, but it seems likely that most of the people flagged by the investigation did not have their military careers disrupted in the context of the DCIS inquiry.

Among those charged were Gary Douglass Grant, a captain in the Army Reserves and a judge advocate general, or military prosecutor. After investigators executing a search warrant found child pornography on his computer, he pleaded guilty last year to state charges of possession of obscene matter of a minor in a sexual act in California. Others included contractors for the NSA with Top Secret clearances; one of them — a former contractor — fled the country after being indicted and is believed to be in Libya.

But the vast majority of those investigated, including an active-duty lieutenant colonel in the Army and an official in the office of the secretary of defense, were never charged. On top of that, 212 people on ICE’s list were never investigated at all.

According to the records, DCIS prioritized the investigations by focusing on people who had security clearances — since those who have a taste for child pornography can be vulnerable to blackmail and espionage. The documents show that the probe then concentrated on people who had been previously suspected of or convicted of sex crimes, or had access to children as part of their Defense Department duties. But at least some of the people on the Project Flicker list with security clearances were never pursued and could possibly remain on the job: DCIS only investigated 52 people, and 76 of those on the Project Flicker list had clearances.

A DCIS spokesman didn’t return phone calls. But the agency’s own documents obtained via The Upshot’s FOIA request indicate that the decision to press investigations forward hinged largely on questions of the resources available to the investigators. “Due to DCIS headquarters’ direction and other DCIS investigative priorities, this investigation is cancelled” is a common summation in the files.

A source familiar with the Project Flicker investigations — who requested anonymity because public disclosure could jeopardize this person’s job — confirmed that departmental resources, and priorities, were decisive factors in letting inquiries lapse.

DCIS is primarily tasked with rooting out contractor fraud and investigating security breaches; its 400 staffers were already plenty busy before Project Flicker dropped 264 more names onto their caseloads. And child pornography investigations are difficult to prosecute. Many judges wouldn’t issue search warrants based on years-old evidence saying the targets subscribed to a kiddie porn website once.

“We were stuck in a situation where we had some great information, but didn’t have the resources to run with it,” the source told The Upshot. Many of the investigative reports obtained by The Upshot end with a similar citation of scarce resources:

Of course, other federal agencies, including ICE and the FBI, may have prosecuted some of the Project Flicker names the DCIS ignored. But that’s unlikely, given that some of the DCIS investigations were closed due to lack of cooperation from ICE.

In one case, involving an Army Reserve corporal in the Pittsburgh area, a DCIS agent expressed exasperation after repeatedly trying to get ICE to collaborate with him on the investigation: “Based upon the complete non-responsiveness of ICE … it is recommended that [the] matter be closed.”

As for the 212 Project Flicker names that DCIS didn’t investigate, the source familiar with the investigation said there was no systematic effort to inform their superiors or commanding officers of their suspected purchases of child pornography. Source

Recent

Mail Destined to Gaza Strip from Canada Stopped By Israel

Killing Civilians in Afghanistan and Iraq

The real terrorist was me

Abdullah Khadr released as extradition request denied

Police: 4,000 Heroin Bags Seized In Investigation

Poorer Canadians less likely to survive cancer