No2010.com Hottest Anti-Olympic Website: Province

By Ethan Baron, The Province, January 27, 2010
http://www.theprovince.com/news/todays-paper/Arson+website+could+spur+po...
Militant anti-Olympic protesters proclaim that police are trampling their civil rights through surveillance and ambush interrogations. There is ample evidence of heavy-handed cop tactics. Protesters have been accosted in public. Their friends have been questioned. Police, in one case, mysteriously obtained the cellphone number of an activist. A cop infiltrated a torch-relay protest trip and ended up driving the bus. Canadian border agents detained U.S. pro-democracy, antiwar activist Amy Goodman for 90 minutes on her trip to Vancouver, demanding to know if she was going to speak out in Canada against the Olympics.
These actions appear to directly oppose democratic freedom. But if the Olympics are pushing Canada toward police-state status, we have some protesters, in part, to thank.
These activists shout to the world that police are violating their democratic rights. Hello? The website www.no2010.com, part of the Olympic Resistance Network (ORN), advocates arson attacks and has pictures of bombs on its website. Of course the cops are going to investigate the people involved. They'd be derelict in their duties if they didn't.
This is all part of the militants' plan. Just like the little brother who pokes and pinches his older sibling until he gets smacked and then goes running to mommy, the ORN deliberately provokes authorities so they can run to the public and say, "Look what Big Brother is doing!"
They reap short-term publicity while contributing to what they purport to be fighting -- costly authoritarianism.
It's clear the ORN is spoiling for a fight. In addition to the drawing of five bombs arranged like Olympic rings, and a passage that hypes arson as an effective way of attacking Games-related corporate profits, the www.no2010.comsite includes links to videos of rioting, stone-throwing protesters from the 2007 G8 Summit in Rostock, Germany.
Violent protests get widespread publicity on issues that may be otherwise ignored, and we can expect some anti-Olympic activists to act in accordance with that reality. However, those who plan to protest peacefully, perhaps engaging in civil disobedience, now face another reality: The militants in the protest movement have given police reason, and public support, for a heavy-handed response.
The Olympics represent a high-profile and legitimate venue for political expression. And the ORN and other groups have identified a host of issues worthy of protest. Many Canadian First Nations live in abysmal poverty. Homelessness has skyrocketed in Vancouver. And we are spending billions on a sporting event that will likely produce few lasting economic benefits for anyone but Olympics executives and the event's corporate sponsors.
RCMP Cpl. Joe Taplin would not say whether the arson advocacy and bomb photos on the site have prompted investigations, but acknowledged website content that's "possibly illegal or criminal" would get the attention of the Mountie-led 2010 Integrated Security Unit.
Harsha Walia, ORN spokeswoman, said she couldn't comment on the "no2010" website, and provided an email contact, but I didn't receive a response by deadline to my late-in-the-day message.
ebaron@theprovince.com