Have you ever heard of the trolley problem? It goes like this. There is a runaway trolley barreling down the railway tracks. Ahead, on the tracks, there are five people tied up and unable to move. The trolley is headed straight for them. You are standing some distance off in the train yard, next to a […]
The 2002 movie Minority Report, based on a short story by sci-fi writer Philip K. Dick, takes place in 2054 Washington D.C. where crime has been all but eliminated. This happy result is due to the work of the ‘Pre-Crime’ unit which relies on the foreshadowing of ‘Pre-cogs’, people floating in shallow pools who see […]
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A good day for anti-extremist forces
Sometimes you just have to applaud the police. Yes, I know that they are often accused of, and even involved in, things that are not right, such as brutality or profiling or bias and these are issues that indeed must be identified and rectified. Police officers are human after all and hence fallible but as […]
A common refrain to many issues is ‘follow the money’. Whether we are talking about organised crime or campaign irregularities or other social ills it is believed that if you can establish who is paying who you can devise ways to interdict that cash flow and hamper the activities that it is supporting. If successful, […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 29, 2018 As Canadians we expect the authorities tasked with keeping us safe to do as they are mandated. We spend a lot of taxpayers’ hard-earned money on law enforcement and national security agencies and we demand an efficient use of those dollars. We want results, […]
When we turn our attention to terrorism – of the Islamist extremist variety – our focus tends to be concentrated in areas we all know to be frequently beset by attacks. These regions would include Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Nigeria for most as an initial cut. Those who watch terrorism more closely would throw in […]
When you try to think of London and terrorism, what comes to mind? I’d wager the 7/7 attacks in 2005 and any number of similar incidents. Or that fact that the UK Security Service has identified 23,000 radicalised Britons they worry about. What I would be surprised at would be if your immediate thoughts turned […]
China is getting a lot of headline attention these days in Canada and elsewhere. Most of this coverage revolves around Chinese attempts to have its state-owned enterprises (SOEs) buy up Western companies. Some of these deals have been cancelled by Western authorities over security concerns. The bottom line seems to be we in the West […]
This piece appeared in The Hill Times on May 21, 2018 It would be hard to forget the G8/G20 riots in Toronto in 2010. Or similar mass violence at the WTO meetings in Seattle in 1999. Commercial properties smashed and vandalised. Police cars destroyed. The arrests of hundreds. People kept in cages by the authorities. […]
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Sometimes a bomb is just a bomb
OK, so what were YOU doing at 545 Friday morning? Sleeping soundly I sincerely hope. As for me, I was getting ready to go on a Toronto talk radio programme to weigh in on an incident at an Indian restaurant in Mississauga Thursday evening when two men wearing disguises left a bomb that exploded, wounding […]