Graham Hnatiuk

  • Breaking down barricades

    Despite formerly running an urban-centric blog for six years, save a brief stint in West Broadway, the suburb has been my home for my entire life.

  • Unlawful interception?

    Three weeks ago, I gave an overview of the current state of Canada's surveillance state: that is, our massively expanded spying institutions since 9/11, and their slow creep away from concerns about threats to national security, to a narrowing focus on antisystemic movements and environmental groups. Some of that attention has even been directed at energy and mining sectors in foreign nations such as Brazil.

  • Canada’s national security institutions are far from innocent

    Unlike the NSA, which is constantly written about and criticized by a small but significant fold of journalists, Canada has no such adversarial watchdogs; though we should. Canada is just as much a part of the nefarious “national security” complex that has seen priorities shift from the Threat of Terrorism in 2001, to the Threat of Everything in 2013.

  • Discipline and publish

    On Jan. 25, Hamilton resident Ken Stone greeted an unexpected pair of visitors at his door. It was the Canadian Secret Intelligence Service (CSIS) knocking.
    Unfortunately, it was not an isolated incident.

  • Exiting the world stage?

    On Feb. 25, the CBC reported on an internal Defence Department report showing a potential drop in spending on foreign deployments - from $470 million now to just $5 million in 2014-2015.

  • Why freedom of information activist Aaron Swartz mattered

    On Jan. 11, 2013, 26-year-old Aaron Swartz took his own life. Everybody who uses the Internet should know who he was.

  • Canada legitimizes Guantanamo Bay ‘justice’

    The story of Omar Khadr has now become a familiar one to many: a Canadian citizen, captured in Afghanistan in July 2002 at the age of 15, and whisked off to Guantanamo Bay, the U.S.‘s most notorious prison.

  • Pooh-poohing the pothole critics

    The extreme prairie weather arguably hits us hardest in January. Following that, it hits us where the sun don’t shine: the chassis of our vehicles.