Please hand over your belt, shoes, pipe bombs. Have a good flight.

    

                                                                                                  LUCAS OLENIUK / TORONTO STAR

 

The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA) really needs to say more. They need to explain how an 18-year-old was allowed to board a flight from Edmonton to Mexico after it was discovered that he was carrying a pipe bomb. They need to explain why a security guard, upon discovering the pipe bomb, tried to give it back to the teenager. You make us take off our shoes and belts. It's only fair.

According to details that came out in court and were first reported by CBC's Briar Stewart, the CATSA guard was seen on video pushing the device back to Skylar Vincent Murphy. Reportedly, Murphy was told “You can keep it.” ... And cue the polite Canadian jokes.

Stewart reported that Skylar Murphy, who pleaded guilty to possessing explosives, told the court he built the pipe bomb with a friend to blow up as shed. The bomb was in his camera bag and he forgot about it until boarding that flight to Mexico last September. 

Okay put aside how strange that is (I mean I carry a camera bag. Here's a helpful guide on how to pack like a foreign correspondent: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2013/07/15/howto_guide_16_ways_to_thrive_in_todays_world.html. General idea is to avoid attention), how could that possibly not have raised red flags, when tweezers do?

Police were contacted four days later, which a CATSA spokesperson has admitted was a mistake and said that screening employees were suspended.

Apparently there will also be some extra training.

Hoping this doesn't influence the recent easing of restrictions at airports, which have been imposed in the decade since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Pipe bombs have always been forbidden - even before 9/11.

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award and producing a documentary on the Uighur detainees due out this year. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

 

Britain ponders probe of Guardian "jihadi journalists"

Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger arrives at parliamentary hearing to defend his newspaper's publication of leaked intelligence documents. He carried a copy of the banned 1987 book Spycatcher. which caused scandal by revealing history of MI5 spy agency. Photo: AFP/Ben Stansall/Getty Images.

Britain may be on its way to making journalistic history – and not in a good way.

According to Reuters, Brit police are pondering whether to investigate Guardian newspaper staff for “terrorism offences” because they received and published material handed over by Edward Snowden, the now exiled American spy agency contractor who went rogue with up to 200,000 classified U.S. and British documents.

Yes, you did read that right. Terrorism offences.

Right up there with Al Qaeda, Al Shabab, Al Nusra and the Haqqani Network. And all the other suicide bombers, hostage-takers and would-be underwear bombers who are hunted down, jailed and put on international no-fly lists, if they survive their dastardly deeds.

So what did these journalistic jihadists do to set the security establishment's collective teeth on edge?

The MPs who grilled Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger this week said it was making top secret information public and sharing it with other news organizations. They pointed to Section 58A of the Terrorism Act (you know this already) which makes it a crime to “publish or communicate” any information about the armed forces or intelligence services.

But here’s the thing:  “it isn’t only about what you’ve published, it’s about what you’ve communicated,” said Tory MP Michael Ellis, a member of the home affairs committee, airing a view seconded by London’s Specialist Operations chief Cressida Dick.  

Broadly speaking, “communicated,” could mean that anyone who receives any information that might be verboten under the act is at risk of a terrorism prosecution. In Britain, that could get you up to 10 years in jail.

As expected, the international media community was not amused.

“Horrifying is how I’d describe it,” says Tom Henheffer, executive director of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. “How can you have investigative journalism when you can’t even get a brown envelope without fear of a charge? This could have a major effect.”

And he points out, although Britain already has more draconian muzzling laws than North America, the Guardian case goes even farther.

“Labelling journalism as a crime and terrorism is frightening language,” he says. “It stinks of dictatorial rule.”

Watergate journo Carl Bernstein wrote the Guardian a letter of support, pointing a finger at the authorities’ “dangerously pernicious” attempt to turn the embarrassing surveillance debate on government secrecy back on the media.

The Guardian has been a leader in exposing massive monitoring of private phone, email and social media communications by the U.S. and its allies, including Britain and Canada. It denies that it has published any names or details that put spy personnel or operations at risk.

In the latest revelation, Wednesday, the Washington Post said that the U.S. National Security Agency – the world’s largest harvester of private data – gathers nearly 5 billion records a day on the whereabouts of cell phones around the world, allowing it to track customers’ locations and relationships “in ways that would have been previously unimaginable.”

Stay tuned. 

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights from the former Soviet Union to the Middle East, Europe and U.S. She also follows the ballooning of Big Data.









 

Why an American family is trying to seize Iran's bank accounts and property in Canada

Marla Bennett, 24, a San Diego native and one of five Americans killed from a bomb explosion at Hebrew University in Jerusalem on Wednesday, July 31, 2002. (AP Photo/Bennett Family)

On July 31, 2002, Marla Bennett walked into the crowded cafeteria at Israel's Hebrew University.

Bennett, 24, was among seven casualties who were killed when a bomb exploded, detonated by a remote cell phone. Hamas later claimed responsibility for the attack during a rally in Gaza City.

Bennett's family wanted someone to pay for their loss and turned their attention to Iran, a longtime supporter of Hamas, which has denied Israel's right to exist as a country.

The family's battle brought th to Canada.

In 2007, after finding evidence that Iran and the Iranian ministry of information and security had provided support to Hamas, a U.S. court awarded $12,904,548 to Bennett's family.

The family asked the court to help seize assets in the U.S. that belonged to Iran. After all, the family argued, the U.S. and Iran had cut off relations in 1980, following the attack on the U.S. embassy in Tehran. But the American government cited the U.S. Foreign Missions Act, which gives the government the right to protect and preserve property of a foreign mission that has stopped conducting diplomatic activities.

The U.S. government won its argument in the court of appeal.

So the Bennett family launched a similar claim in Ontario Superior Court days after the Canadian government on Sept 7, 2012, suspended relations with Iran.

On February 13, 2013, lawyers for the Bennetts wrote to the Canadian Department of Justice, Canada, seeking assistance under in identifying the assets of Iran held in Canada.  On September 4, 2013, the Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development Canada provided a list of Iranian non-diplomatic and diplomatic properties in Canada.

On Oct. 31, 2012, a Canadian judge granted the request of the Bennett family to allow it to lay claim to four properties, including the former main Iranian embassy at 245 Metcalfe St. in Ottawa. The judge noted that Canada's State Immunity Act protects a property of a foreign state "from attachment and execution." But the same law gives several exceptions, including when a foreign government is found to have supported terrorism.

Like the Americans, the Canadian government appealed the decision.

A Canadian judge agreed to overturn the earlier decision - this time at least partly because the Bennett's lawyer had not told the court about the earlier failure in the U.S. legal system.

"I have no doubt that had the unfavourable U.S. Court of Appeals decision been disclosed, the motions judges would have approached the plaintiffs’ request with a much higher degree of scrutiny and skepticism," Ontario Superior Court Justice D.M. Brown wrote in a Nov. 5 ruling.

The Bennett's lawyer may still appeal that decision, and is also battling to get control of the government of Iran's bank accounts at the Royal Bank of Canada, ScotiaBank, Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce and Bank of Montreal.

Last year, an Israeli military court convicted a Hamas leader as the principal planner of suicide bomb attacks that killed Bennett and dozens of others during a Palestinian uprising in the past decade.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

Britney Spears is "Toxic" to Somali Pirates

                                                                                                                JORDAN STRAUSS / INVISION / AP

Britney-Oops-I-did-it-Again-Spears is on the front lines of fighting piracy.

That's right. According to U.K. Merchant Naval Officer Rachel Owens, British ships patrolling the coast of Africa have taken to blaring Spears's tunes to ward off pirates. "Her songs were chosen by the security team because they thought the pirates would hate them most," Metro (a free UK tabloid) reported on Sunday. "These guys can’t stand Western culture or music, making Britney’s hits perfect," said Owens.

Isn't it great to imagine a security team reviewing possible songs? Was Celine Dion's "My Heart Will Go On" among the selections? What about viral sensation "What Does the Fox Say?"

Wondering if this story is true, or merely a publicity ploy for Spears' upcoming album release (the single, "Work Bitch" is already out there. You're welcome.) I called the London-based Security Association for the Maritime Industry (SAMI). The Metro story quotes SAMI Maritime Director Steven Jones: "Pirates will go to any lengths to avoid or try to overcome the music." He adds, "I’d imagine using Justin Bieber would be against the Geneva Convention."

SAMI Communications Manager Gianna Molica-Franco's phone has apparently been ringing non-stop since the story broke. "He did in fact say that and we can't believe the story has gotten that much traction." She laughed.

SAMI is embracing this titillating story rather than wishing it would go away - if only for the chance to raise awareness about the problems of piracy. As Molica-Franco notes, there are still more than 64 seafarers being held in Somalia and 2 U.S. crew members in Nigeria. Jones, as a former seafarer who survived a pirate attack himself, knows the subject well. 

In an email, Molica-Franco later followed up with some fascinating background on the use of music to deter pirates:

"We were approached after it emerged that some private maritime security guards on merchant vessels were using music tracks to 'blast' at pirate skiffs which were approaching their ship. This was a trend, which began a few years ago, in which Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRAD) were used to try and supposedly 'deafen' pirates. The equipment was first used by US police/military to quell rioters ashore, but it has been adapted for maritime use. However just as protesters ashore often use gas masks to counter tear gas, the wily pirates can also use ear defenders to counter noise."

(The LRADs created controversy in Toronto a few years ago when it was revealed that the Toronto Police Service spent $30,300 to purchased four of the "sound cannons" to use on G20 protesters.)

Molica-Franco continued: "The LRADs are complex and expensive pieces of equipment, so not widely used. The marine LRAD trend was first used on cruise ships, most noticeably the Seaborne Spirit,which was attacked off Somalia. The presence of the big white LRAD dishes was perhaps a reassurance to passengers, over the actual effect on the pirates. News stories at the time described the LRAD as a "sonic weapon that fired a beam of sound at the pirates and drove them away."

The LRAD is capable of generating sounds of up to 162 dB, which is higher than the human threshold of pain (without ear defenders) which is generally regarded as around 130 dB. The LRAD is not solely about causing discomfort or injury; it is an excellent device for hailing or communicating across a distance – so ideal for telling suspected pirates to "back off." There is a suggestion, therefore, that the LRAD sound does not actually overpower the pirates, as claimed in the rash of news stories over past days.

"Instead, more likely the music shows the pirates that the vessel has security guards onboard. It then loudly demonstrates that the pirates have been spotted and the security team are ready to act against them if they proceed closer."

She added: "So rather than Britney actually making them break off their attack, it could be they are instead going to seek a softer unprotected target – one which may not be so vigilant or protected. While the artist choice does not appear to overly important, if the music is distasteful to the pirates, then it perhaps gets the message over a little quicker that their presence is not welcome – hence the Britney back-catalogue being a popular choice."

Michelle Shephard is the Star's National Security correspondent and author of "Decade of Fear: Reporting from Terrorism's Grey Zone." She is a three-time recipient of Canada's National Newspaper Award. Follow her on Twitter @shephardm

Protest and (psychiatric) punishment in Putin's Russia

Mikhail Kosenko during a court hearing in Moscow in May.  A Russian court on Tuesday ordered him confined to a psychiatric ward indefinitely.  Photo: Reuters/Maxim Shemetov. 

It’s back to the future – again.

Since President Vladimir Putin came to power (there are kids alive today who can’t even remember when he wasn’t) Russia’s exterior has become ever glossier but its core is the same old Soviet security state.

Twenty-first century Russians have seen a return to retro political repression, election manipulation, homophobia and demonization of civil society activists as “foreign agents.”

Now – take a deep breath – there’s old-fashioned psychiatric punishment.

On Tuesday, Mikhail Kosenko, arrested with 28 others for joining an anti-Kremlin protest, was accused of “calling for mass riots,” pronounced mentally ill, and sent for forced psychiatric treatment.

Kosenko, apparently, was disturbed enough to take a stand at a rally ahead of Putin’s widely protested third-term inauguration in May 2012. He was prosecuted for alleged violence against a policeman, but a psychiatric examination declared him unable to understand the “public danger” of his actions due to a “chronic mental disorder.”

He joins a long line of dissidents, would-be emigrants, religious believers and “inconvenient persons” who ran afoul of the Soviet authorities from the 1960s until the collapse of communism.

Back then the authorities invented blackly comical euphemisms for their “illnesses,” most famously, “sluggish schizophrenia,” whose symptoms included “grandiose ideas of reforming the world.” The term has never disappeared from the lexicon.

Kosenko, 38, has, in fact, had outpatient treatment for mild schizophrenia. But, says Amnesty International, he was not guilty of any violence, and in a fair trial should have been exonerated by video footage and eyewitness accounts that backed up his defence.

His enforced psychiatric detention, it said, “smacks of the worst excesses of the now-defunct Soviet era when dissidents were languishing in mental institutions, treated as mental patients only because they dared to speak their mind.”

It added that he may be locked up indefinitely and deprived of the same chance of an amnesty that his fellow protesters could be given.

The sentence says less about the about the condition of Kosenko than of Russia under Putin. It highlights an even more serious malaise: state paranoia.

Olivia Ward covered the former Soviet Union as a bureau chief and correspondent from 1992-2002. 

 


 

Afghan police fuel costs latest expense to come under glare of reconstruction watchdog

If there was a competition for most depressing Twitter feed, @SIGARHQ would be a contender.

The account belongs to John Sopko, a former prosecutor who is now the special inspector general for Afghanistan Reconstruction.

That job was created in 2008 by Congress using the template of a similar job related to Iraqi reconstruction. The inspector general’s findings, released every few months, are a sobering tale of how the billions of dollars that has poured into the crippled country has been funneled off through corruption, influence peddling and self-dealing.

Today’s story of waylaid funds, courtesy of Sopko, focuses on the Afghan National Police Fuel program.

“Poor oversight and documentation resulted in the use of higher-priced vendors and questionable costs, including $1 million in additional costs over the two-month period as a result of using higher-priced vendors,” Sopko writes in his report adding that the mulitnational Combined Security Transition Command (CSTC) has bought fuel for the ANP for six years, yet still does not have reliable information about the number of ANP vehicles and generators.

Similarly, the Afghan Ministry of the Interior has not handed over fuel consumption data.

In Helmand province, police have received more fuel than they could store on 24 days over a 28-month period.

Even though CSTC officials believed direct funding of ANP fuel would be a “high-risk” for waste, fraud, and abuse, CSTC still approved $243 million for direct funding for 2014, even though there was no plan to mitigate this risk.

Sopko’s findings have been an embarrasment to both the Afghan and international governments, and a wealth of information for journalists and critics alike.

The New York Times two years ago reported on the ballooning cost of the Gardez-Khost Highway in Afghanistan, one of the world’s most expensive and beleaguered road projects.

The 64-mile highway, which The Times reported was yet to be completed, had cost about $121 million so far, with the final price tag expected to reach $176 million — or about $2.8 million a mile. Security alone had cost $43.5 million.

Earlier this year, Sopko sent out a so-called “alert warning” about “serious deficiencies” in a $47 million U.S. government project to improve the justice system in Afghanistan. Another letter spotlighted how $34 million was spent on a new headquarters for the U.S. Marines in southern Afghanistan. The headquarters would never be used.

There was the $47 million spent stabilizing a contested area that was hardly improved.

Not many dull days for a government watchdog studying corruption in battered Afghanistan.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

Hungary passes law criminalizing homelessness, says rights watchdog

Holding a sign that says “Poverty is not a crime," protesters outside Hungarian parliament on 30 September 2013. (Human Rights Watch.)

As if being homeless wasn't bad enough.

Hungary is a country whose government has been making news for unfortunate reasons recently. Many Roma from Hungary have fled to Canada, claiming they have been persecuted by both the government and its supporters.

HRW and other human rights activists have been worried by what they've seen happening in Hungary since the country's 2010 elections, when the far-right political party Jobbik won 17 per cent of the popular vote, stoking mistrust of Roma and whipping up anger over alleged "Gypsy crime."

Now, Hungary seems to have its sights set on the homeless, another vulnerable group.
Hungary has passed a new law that criminalizes homelessness. (Hungary has about 30,000 homeless.) Parliamentarians voted 245 to 45 for the new bill, Human Rights Watch reports.

"Municipalities across the country now have a green light to impose fines, community service, and even jail time (if convicted twice within six months) on the homeless," HRW researcher Lydia Gall writes. "And it’s straight to jail for those convicted of erecting makeshift shelters."

The new law follows a decree passed this summer by the city of Budapest that banned "dumpster-diving." That law introduces fines of up to 150,000 Hungarian forints ($655), or even jail sentences for repeated violations.

Rick Westhead is a foreign affairs writer at The Star. He was based in India as the Star’s South Asia bureau chief from 2008 until 2011 and reports on international aid and development. Follow him on Twitter @rwesthead

Gun laws still holstered after Navy Yard rampage

Families of children who died at Sandy Hook Elementary school marked  the 9 month anniversary of the shooting in Washington this week as gun reform activists renewed their call for tightened gun laws. Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images.

Twelve people were dead in a “secure” military facility. A gunman –  maybe two or three gunmen – were at large.

The day had not started well.

It was Monday, and I was setting out for the U.S.  Capital just north of my hotel. But a couple of kilometres south, in Washington’s Navy Yard, all hell had broken loose.

Again.

Neck and neck with the Fort Hood rampage -- in which an army psychiatrist (how crazy is that?) killed 13 people and wounded 30 others, under the influence of a radical Islamic cleric – this mass murder was described as the worst to take place on a military base.

By early afternoon it was clear that the Navy Yard gunman had also worked alone, cutting down innocent people after blasting his way through the building with a shotgun and apparently snatching a handgun from one of his victims.

Blocks away In the quiet confines of the massive, neo-classical Capital building, guards, staffers and congressmen shook their heads in dismay: “this kind of thing doesn’t happen in Washington.”

But by 5 pm, guns had followed me to the Capital. My interviews were abruptly ended.

A battalion of heavily-armed, black-clad security officers cordoned off the building and put it under lockdown “for safety reasons.” Cell phones squealed and politicians, workers and tourists were herded from the building.

Meanwhile, the media buzz was getting louder. The now-dead gunman’s personality, family and relationships were dissected in all available detail. Security at the Navy Yard was raked over the media coals.

But astonishingly little was said about the lethal elephant in the room – America’s (lack of) gun laws. Only a handful of politicians joined with gun control advocates in calling for tighter regulations.

Turning a conveniently deaf ear to the endlessly replayed clips of survivors describing the terrifying volleys of bullets, congressmen gave a brief nod to the “tragic” victims and their families, and went on with business as usual.

What could they say?  These, after all, were the same politicians who voted against the mildest gun restrictions while families whose children had been slaughtered in a Newtown Conn. school  last December watched from the gallery in disbelief.  

Now, in an extraordinary example of spin dexterity, the hyperactive gun lobby outdrew anyone who dared to question their more-is-better philosophy: “gun free zones” are to blame for mass murders because they encourage killers to run riot without opposition.  A contention that was shot down by numerous fact-checkers. But no matter.

“If 20 slain first-graders didn’t move Congress, the killing of a dozen adults – a depressingly ordinary event in this violence-numb nation – wasn’t about to change the equation,” lamented Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank.

As I trudged back to my hotel, passing a busy nearby metro station, the traffic light turned red. Next to me were three young men probably on the sunny side of 20, hunched in their hoodies, making plans oblivious of passers-by.

“So, did you get the gun?” asked one.
“Yeah, I got it.”
“Where did you get it this time?”

I would never hear the answer because the light changed, and they walked on. But nothing else in the city, or the country, had changed.

Maybe next week I’d hear breathless TV reports analyzing their childhoods, their report cards, their girlfriends. And Congress would pause for a nanosecond to offer “thoughts and prayers” for their victims.

“The issue, for the foreseeable future, is settled,” Milbank pronounced grimly. “Gun control is dead.”

Olivia Ward has covered conflicts, politics and human rights in the former Soviet Union, Middle East and the U.S. She collaborated on the film Devil’s Bargain, on the international gun trade, with director Shelley Saywell.

 



 

 



   

Family of slain Mexican activist demands answers outside Canadian embassy

Anti-mining leader Mariano Abarca, with microphone, leads a protest outside the Canadian embassy in July 2009. Abarca was shot in the back at close range outside his house four months later. PHOTO BY TAMARA HERMAN

In a potential embarassment to Canada’s image abroad, the family of a Mexcan activist gunned down as he led protests against a controversial Canadian-owned mine in Chiapas plan to push for answers about his murder in front of the Canadian embassy in Mexico City this week.

The family of Mariano Abarca, along with local and Canadian human rights groups, will issue a report  entitled “Corruption, Murder and Canadian Mining in Mexico: The Case of Blackfire Exploration and the Canadian Embassy” at a news conference at the Human Rights Commission in Mexico City Tuesday, followed by a public event outside the embassy on Wednesday. 

As the Star reported last May, secret diplomatic documents suggest the Canadian embassy in Mexico provided “active and unquestioning support” to Calgary-based Blackfire  Exploraton before, during and after it became embroiled in controversy over the Abarca’s murder according to the report issued by MiningWatch Canada.

On Nov. 27, 2009, Abarca — who had warned before his death that “if anything happens to me I blame the Canadian mining company Blackfire” — was shot in the back at close range outside of his house.

At the time, the embassy reported to Ottawa that three men connected to Blackfire – one former contractor and two men still working for the company at the time as an employee and as a contractor – had been detained in connection with the assassination.

“Regarding the actions of former contractors and employees, we are unable to control what individuals do in their personal lives and their actions do not reflect upon Blackfire in the slightest,” the company told the Star last May.

Abarca’s family told MiningWatch that eventually a former Blackfire contractor, Jorge Carlos Sepulveda Calvo, was convicted of the murder and sentenced to 24 years in prison

 Shortly after the murder, Mexican authorities suspended Blackfire’s Chiapas operations for environmental violations, and the barite mine has not reopened. In 2011, RCMP raided the Calgary office of the company, alleging in a search warrant that Blackfire paid a local Chiapas mayor to ensure protection from anti-mining protesters.

According to MiningWatch, the emails and internal documents show that starting in 2007 and continuing after the murder, the embassy’s support and lobbying with the Chiapas state was “essential to the company’s success in starting the mine” even though Canadian officials were aware of what they called “difficulties” Blackfire had with the local population.

 

Memorial march in  November 2012 in Chiapas for Abarca three years after his killing.
PHOTO BY JENNIFER MOORE

 

Now the family – supported by Canadian groups such as the Council of Canadians, MiningWatch  and the United Steelworkers  --- wants more answers about the corporate and political response to the killing.

“The family of Mariano Abarca will present the report and seek a response from the Canadian Embassy to ensure justice is obtained in this case and that Canada adopts corporate accountability measures in accord with its international human rights obligations.” say organizers in a press reléase.

The events at the Human Rights Commission in Tuesday and in front of the Canadian embassy on Wednesday  will be broadcast live on a Mexican website. 

______

Julian Sher is a foreign affiars and investigative journalist  for the Star and can be reached at [email protected] and on Twitter @juliansher.

 

Microsoft Bing to launch child porn warning – but only in UK

Image of Bing search bar courtesy of Microsoft

 

Anyone looking for child pornography images using Microsoft’s Bing search tool will get a “pop-up” warning what they are doing is illegal – but only in the UK.

According to The Telegraph newspaper, the tech giant announced that a search for material “that shows the sexual abuse of children will trigger the Bing Notification Platform message warning that tells them the content they are looking for is against the law.”

The notification will also provide a link to a counselling service.

But even though the Bing search bar is virtually the same worldwide and child abuse images are as illegal in Canada and the US and they are in the UK, it does not appear this new measure will be crossing the Atlantic anytime soon.

A spokesperson for Microsoft told the Star “this particular campaign was designed for UK experiences” and indicated there was no immediate plan to copy the plan in North America, although there might be “more information to share in the future.”

“The use of notifications is just one way in which Microsoft is working to tackle the scourge of online child abuse content,” the company said.

Microsoft’s move in the UK is clearly designed to address concerns raised by British Prime Minister David Cameron last week when he called on tech companies and Internet providers to do more to fight what he termed “the horrible crime” of online child abuse.

Cameron called on U.K. Internet providers to install a “porn block” that would prevent web users from accessing all kinds of pornography. He also wanted all new Internet accounts in the U.K. to have filters switched on by default that would block access to a list of illicit websites and images compiled by Britain’s national police agency known as the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre.

In Canada, influential Tory MP Joy Smith said she would push for Ottawa to follow the UK’s “bold” measures - sparking a debate about how far government should go in trying to control the Internet in order to protect children. 

Still, many experts with long experience in the field believe that regardless what policies the public and governments choose to adopt, the tech companies could do a lot more on their own to curtail the proliferation of online child abuse images.

 “We need more active industry engagement from the IT sector to really keep the Internet safe for children,” says Paul Gillespie, the president of the Kids’ Internet Safety Alliance.

As the former head of the Toronto Police Service’s Child Exploitation Unit, Gillespie became famous when in 2003 he reached out to then Microsoft chief Bill Gates for help in taking on the explosion of Internet crimes against children. 

Gillespie convinced Microsoft to invest millions to help police develop a sophisticated database known as the Child Exploitation Tracking System. It helped police to catalogue and organize the millions of child abuse images they were finding in order to stand a better chance of identifying and rescuing children from online predators.

Yahoo intends to introduce a similar measure in the Bing pop-up warning button, according to  the Telegraph, but Google, the world's most used search engine, has no plans to use pop-ups.

 Google, which has a much wider share of the search market than Bing in the UK and around world, has not yet responded to the UK Prime Minister’s plea for tech companies to do more.

 But in a recent official blog announcement, Google said it was launching “a $5 million effort to eradicate child abuse imagery online.” 

 It noted that in 2011, in the U.S., the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s  reviewed 17.3 million images and videos of suspected child sexual abuse -- four times more than what they  saw in 2007. 

 More than half of the images and videos sent to NCMEC for analysis are found to have been uploaded to U.S. servers from outside the country. 

 Part of the money would go to what Google called “heroic organizations” in Canada, the U.S. and elsewhere fighting child abuse online.

 Google said it was also investing $2 million in a Child Protection Technology Fund to “encourage the development of ever more effective tools”

One tool it was developing involves storing encrypted “fingerprints” of child sexual abuse images into a cross-industry database.

“This will enable companies, law enforcement and charities to better collaborate on detecting and removing these images, and to take action against the criminals," says Google.

 “The Internet companies are perfectly placed to put the incredible thought leadership they possess within their organizations to the task of developing technologically top-drawer prevention efforts,” says former cop turned child protection advocate Paul Gillespie.

____________

Julian Sher is a foreign affairs and investigative reporter for the Star and the author of One Child at a Time: Inside the Police Hunt to Rescue Children from Online Predators. He can be reached at [email protected]  and on Twitter @juliansher