BIG BROTHER’S
DUMB COUSIN

For a while it looked like Stephen Harper would settle for ruining the Internet only in whatever way the U.S. entertainment industry told him to, but an Ottawa radio station has learned that the pasty PM recently dropped $75K into correcting what he calls “misinformation” on the Internet.

The Harper government used the unpopularity of the Maritime seal hunt to launch a pilot project in which a Toronto marketing company monitored blogs, forums and message boards across the Internet for dissenting opinion. When found, the company, presenting themselves as everyday Netizens, rebutted the comments with state-sanctioned propaganda.

In addition to hastening the forthcoming disappearance of the Internet, the discovery is being harshly criticized for being a gross overstepping of governmental involvement in public opinion.

Richard Rosenberg of the BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association says there are questions as to whether or not this sort of infiltration infringes on the constitutional rights to privacy and free speech. Rosenberg believes it certainly goes “beyond a reasonable action the government should be taking.”

by SCOTT SAXON