From OpenMedia.ca:

The Big Three are ripping us off and using the money to manipulate Canadians and the government.

As we’ve been saying, the Big Three cell phone companies have a plan to price-gouge Canadians by shutting out small competitors¹. Now they’re unleashing a misinformation campaign to muzzle your voice.

For example,

1. Rogers recently bought and paid for a trumped-up study² that wrongly implies Canadians (you) can afford to pay more for telecom services.

1. Rogers just took to the courts to argue that Canada’s false advertising rules violate the telecom giant’s freedom of expression! This after being caught red-handed and fined $10,000,000 dollars for misleading cell phone advertising.³

Will you let them get away with it?

With these two acts of extreme arrogance, Rogers has demonstrated that they will go to ridiculous lengths to tighten their stranglehold on communications and raise prices.

Some say mobile is the future of the Internet and communications. We have to stop the Big Three from creating a command and control communications market with tight contracts, content controls, price-gouging overage fees, and disrespectful customer service.

The government could make a decision on this at any moment. Sign the Stop The Squeeze petition now.

With hope and determination,

Steve, on behalf of your OpenMedia.ca Team

P.S. Unlike Big Telecom, we listen to Canadians. Some of you have expressed that we should provide more details in our messages. We heard you—here’s some more detailed background information:

1. Cell phone companies require low-frequency wireless spectrum to deliver the latest mobile devices to customers. There is a new block of 700 MHZ spectrum that will be available for use through an auction later this year and the government is about to decide who will have access to the spectrum.The Big Three providers are sitting on more than enough spectrum to do deliver their services to Canadians (including those in rural areas). They want the government to take a do nothing approach and allow the Big hree to control essential spectrum and shut out independent competitors. You can also check out CTV News coverage of this issue here.
2. Lemay Yates recently released a report, bought and paid for by Rogers, that suggests Canadians have better Internet speed, availability and pricing than our global counterparts. But this research directly contradicts many other independent reports (from the OECD, Harvard, the New America Foundation, Akamai, and more) that show Canada falling woefully behind on key metrics like price and speed.

1. According to the Vancouver Sun: “Rogers Communications Inc. is asking an Ontario court to strike down part of a federal law requiring a company to have ‘adequate and proper’ tests of a product’s performance before advertising claims about the product — on the grounds that it violates its freedom of expression.”

Now that you know the details, it’s time to act.

Behavioural patterns.

Patterns of abuse.

When will some authority – any authority – acknowledge a pattern of abuse and put an end to it?

Let me paint a picture for you of a very nasty pattern of abuse of authority which has targeted a specific citizens and his associates:

Imagine being arrested for ‘trespassing’ for walking down a public street.  While you are being arrested, you actually have proof with you that this is a county street – and therefore 100% it is public street, with no restrictions, so no act of trespassing is taking place.

In addition, since it is a county road and therefore not within the jurisdiction of the Ontario Provincial Police, even if someone were to trespass on it, these OPP officers would have no jurisdiction to arrest them for it.

But, the OPP are there in large numbers, heavily armed, and they arrest the small group of unarmed citizens anyway.

These citizens (including an army vet suffering from cancer) are handcuffed and driven off in OPP vehicles, processed and charged with trespassing.

They are forced to hire legal representation and appear in court.

Once they get to court – the group of citizens find all the charges against them have been withdrawn!

Why?

Because, as the prosecutor explains, there is no reasonable expectation that they would be found guilty…beause, well, they were on a public road where they had every right to be, and even had they been trespassing, the police officers who arrested them had no jurisdiction to do so…

Victory?

Perhaps – in this one battle.

But, what if this happens over and over and over?

If the charges are withdrawn, these citizens have no opportunity to clear their name – and recover legal costs, much less damages!

And what does it say about our law enforcement agencies, that they are willing to perpetuate this abusive pattern of ‘catch-and-release’?!?!?

This is exactly what has been happening to Gary McHale.

Now, more and more citizens are standing with him, being arrested with him – and being released when the bogus charges against them are dropped!

Please, ask yourself:  should we, the people of Canada, tolerate this treatment of our citizens?

Just how badly is our system broken that such a lengthy pattern of this type of abusive of power can be established?

And exactly what can we, as citizens, do to stop this corruption?

How can we hold out authorities accountable?

Because we must – for all our sakes!

But, that is exactly what they are doing…

Sad, but true.

Draw your own conclusions about the CBC.

Yes, war.

It sickens me that governments are now openly saying that if you shield your screen from the view of others, this makes you a terrorism suspect!

This creates precisely the type of environment where hacker-vigilaties will be not just tolerated, but positively embraced by a population that feels increasingly under attack by the very institutions created to ensure their individual rights.

Let’s not make any mistakes about it:  it is not Twitter and Google who are increasingly censoring us, the members of online communities.  Even though they facilitate access to the virtual world of the web, they are themselves physical corporations which exist in the real world, very much subject to the whims of real-world governments.

As such, they are subject to the arbitrary rules which various governments impose on corporations operating within their physical boundaries.

It is unreasonable for us to expect that these corporations will put the freedom on the internet above their ability to physically survive…

So, you may blame them for buckling – but don’t blame them for imposing the censorship itself:  the blame lies directly with our governments, our regulating bodies, and us, the citizens, who permit this encroachment!

The solution?

We must all fight to prevent all governments from usurping jurisdiction over the internet, the way they have been doing!

How?

I don’t know.  Yes, I have been thinking about this for a long time, but there simply is no clear answer.

The easiest solution I suspect would be to continue the efforts to create alternatives to the ‘pipelines’ that ISPs use to deliver internet connections, but the more people try to solve this, the more actual attempts there are to make the web truly uncontrollable and impossible to be regulated by anyone or anything anywhere, the better chance there is of success.

So – keep your elective representatives responsible – and keep hacking!

The problem with this amazing material was that it did not naturally decompose, so that it would fill garbage heaps and create a set of difficulties all of its own.  This has lead to countless lobyists vilifying plastic and trying to limit its use.  Taxes on shopping bags are just one small real-life result of the anti-plastic propaganda.

According to PCWorld, these worries are now a thing of the past!

‘This is the first fungus species, identified by the Yale researchers as Pestalotiopsis microspore, which exclusively subsists on polyurethane. It can also grow in an anaerobic (air-less) environment, which will hopefully allow it to take root in the deepest regions of our trash heaps. ‘

Yes:  PESTALOTIOPSIS!

Making plastic a biodegradable material.

So, stop feeling guilty over this aspect of improving the human condition!

It just might…