Secrecy Quote of the Day

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"Secrecy is vital for intelligence work, but not at any cost. And especially not when that secrecy looks like it has been disingenuously wielded to avoid public repercussions for incompetent, wrong-headed or careless behaviour."


-- from the Chronicle Herald Editorial Called 'The limits of secrecy' (Aug 2007)

N.S. chose pricier bids for rural web

N.S. chose pricier bids for rural web


Last Updated: Friday, April 9, 2010
7:33 AM ET Comments40Recommend21CBC News

Two companies hired to bring high-speed internet service to rural Nova Scotia did not submit the lowest bids, CBC News has learned.



Rural Nova Scotians were originally promised access to high-speed internet by the end of 2009. (CBC)Aliant lost the contract despite bidding millions of dollars less than EastLink and Seaside Communications, according to documents obtained under the province's Freedom of Information law.





Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2010/04/09/ns-aliant-internet.html?ref=rss#ixzz0ke0WqeBc

No wonder right to know activists get depressed.

In its May 1, 2007 edition the Globe and Mail carried two federal secrecy issues back to back.

In one an RCMP Officer complains that he saw requests to the RCMP for information involving the force's controversial pension plan delayed and obstructed. And this from the man who recently retired as a senior officer in RCMP Access to Information.

The Officer told a House of Commons Committee that the RCMP leadership took nine months to deliver records that could have been made availabe in 60 days. "And the version that was finally shipped out was so heavily editted that few actual words were visible between the vast swaths of blank ink".

The story on the next page is headlined: "Judge, Arar join to uncloak torture report secrecy." According to the writer of the story the public is still not allowed to see the blacked out portion, not even after a $15-million public inquiry that lasted more than three years".

Obstruction like this happens because not enough Canadians seem to care. And citizen pressure is the only thing that will get governments' attention.