Bugs

Maybe a recent quote from Thomas Pynchon I read has fertilized my natural paranoia, but I think I would like to extend my advice about taking precautions a bit.

Mr. Beers? And others who speak out on this topic. Please be vigilant in the matter of smiling strangers and outside workmen and the like.

If this is what it appears to be, it is evidence of powerful panic. People with unlaundered cash to spend might spend it in any number of ways.

Make sure there are nice copies and back up everything.

The Break In

Bill, did you find any "spiderwebs" in your office post-break-in ?
You better check to see if G. Gordon Liddy was in town for a Plumbers' Convention.
Have you rented . . . ALL THE PRESIDENTS MEN lately ?
No I'm not Deep Throat,

Break-ins then and now

BILL:
This almost sounds like a repeat of the Liberal Party of Canada in BC break-in at the party's HQ offices back in the late 1990s.
In those days the Martinites wanted the LPC membership lists and records of cash donators to the LPC/BC.
I heard LPC/BC had a problems with empowered-young SPIDERS infesting their offices in those days.
Do you have SPIDER problems in your office ?
Maybe you should hire some PLUMBERS !

Definitely get your computers checked

Find some experts in computer security to get your computer(s) checked and then write about what they found (if anything). The PR for the security guys should help off-set or eliminate the cost to you. Make sure you install a continually updated anti-virus software like avast!

If you start getting other threats demand protection, and make a lot of noise about it wherever you are in print. This kind of stupidity is intolerable. Thankfully there is at least the Tyee to help broadcast the problem.

Make this about journalistic freedom, and it's likely to get picked up even by the Asper dominated press and TV media, as reporters are still likely to raise a fuss over these kinds of intimidation tactics.

It's ironic something like this happens right around the time Dobbin writes about the TV show Intelligence, and its "fictional" clandestine world that operates here in Vancouver.

But whoever did the break-in came in through the ceiling.... hmmm... reminds me of that Spiderman story... EDITED FOR LEGAL CONCERNS. TYEE MODERATOR

BC Mary, you should think about securing your residence and your computers and files as well. I'd also recommend you get your computers checked by a security expert to make sure no one messed with them clandestinely. Make sure you have backups of everything in a secure place well away from your current residence (or wherever you keep most of your info).

It looks like these break-ins were for intimidation purposes, but better safe than sorry. I wish you all well, and be safe.

A Cancer on BC

I told the President that . . . "Watergate was a Cancer on the Presidency". . .
White House Legal Council John Dean.

We needs Woodwards, Bernsteins, Ben Bradleys and the Washington Post, not CanWest Global Cheerleaders.

Brownshirts?

Thugs, sounds like the man.

And they said that Stalin

And they said that Stalin died.

All decisions are based on the information available. we need more independent sources so that we can make proper decisions and protect some semblance of democracy. It's amazing how strongly people can be influenced by just "lies of omission", let alone outright falsehoods.

No NEWS-No TRUTH !

In the CanWest/Global media empire this is a non-event.
Any in depth coverage of neo-con scandals: Basigate or the Tieleman Break-In . . . are glossed over by "important" journalist-fluff like Britney being Preggo or the Spice Girls' brand of underwear.
As the Soviets used to say . . . There is no News in Isvestia and no Truth in Pravda.

Case solved

What was Elliot doing that day? After all he claims this government is "scandal-free".

:-)

'I always thought the Libs

[QUOTE FROM A PREVIOUS POST REMOVED BECAUSE THE ORIGINAL POST WAS REMOVED FOR LIBEL CONCERNS. -MODERATOR.]
...and the drivel goes on. wow! that tieleman sure is an important guy.

I don’t doubt Tieleman’s

I don’t doubt Tieleman’s story or the suspected cause one iota. In fact, this sounds totally in line with the way this kind of intimidation works. Everything about it will look like a garden variety coincidence, except for one nasty wink that lets the target know that there’s a method and a message. Tieleman’s opponents will simply call him paranoid, while he and his kin count the cost in anxiety and a negatively altered outlook.

It’s actually amazing how vulnerable the average citizen is to this sort of thing. Owing money to the wrong people, pissing off the wrong crowd – it happens everywhere every day. It’s a form of psychological vandalism. Once someone has been put shocked into that mindframe, it becomes easier and easier to rattle their cage. If they're sufficiently alarmed over time, all it takes in subsequent events is something even more apparently coincidental (the same car parked outside, unsettling items of "spam", the same people staring into your living room from the bus stop across the street, etc.).

As someone who was once the target of an intimidation campaign several years ago (not for political reasons, but nevertheless involving a rash of anonymous threats and unsettling "coincidences", each accompanied by the figurative "wink" described above), I can definitely relate to what’s being described here.

You may die

Many warning posted here to Bill, and rightly so; May I add that you consider a personal bodyguard!

The goal is to stop you, and if this attempt does not scare you off, they WILL proceed to the next step.

This is hardball politics, never doubt it!

Naaw, warn't me....

Nope, not even I will travel that far to see what I said in a rejected comment.

However I do think perhaps it was as much a message of (attempted) intimidation as anything. For example, if someone was interested in what was on your computer, they don't even have to come to BC to find that out. Little sign of subtlety in this operation, eh?

I guess we are fortunate you don't have any personal security goons, eh Bill? You know the kind who may just have been sitting in your office cleaning their (permitted/licensed) .44 Magnum when the intruder showed up. It can only be a good
sign for the side of justice when the other guys start losing it and becoming desperate and doing dumb stuff.

and working mem:

Do you go for the "man-sized" large safes, like that folk hero, Shooter DickHead Cheney?

and Baily:

Didn't that just come up in the pig farmer trial? That stupidity was no defense, or you would have to empty the jails?

keep up the pressure cause

keep up the pressure cause it's the only hope the ndp has. no ideas, no policies, no leadership, no nuthin'.

Elliot

And no personal aides accused of corruption and more before the courts.

Tell us the truth, JIm

Nice theory, JIm:

Why would the BC Liberals or their supporters throw a tanker truck full of gasoline on a smoldering fire?

Trying to intimidate a journalist has a zero percent chance of killing the story or shutting people up. It has the opposite effect.

The problem is that your insincerity speaks for itself. The major media have not covered this break-in, as you well know. The fact that you don't find that at all troubling pretty much says it all, doesn't it?

We all know who stands to benefit from intimidating Tieleman and persuading him to report on other matters. The only question left is, what's in it for JIm?

frank; 'And no personal

frank;
'And no personal aides ACCUSED of corruption and more before the courts'
p.s. who's elliot?

Elliot

You are old buddy. Isn't this handle number 6? (Sir John A, Elliot, Nemesis, AdamWest, Robin)

Kootcoot - man-sized

A man-sized safe deposit box might be a consideration if I were going it alone, but fortunately I'm not, and obviously neither is Bill.

You can't bake a cake unless you break a few eggs. Personally, I'm up to about two dozen in the 2010 kitchen, but thankfully, many people are also mixing the batter and turning up the heat.

Bill isn't operating in a void.

In the day it was easier to silence a journalist through intimidation or payola, but today you'd have to take on the entire indie network, including those who sit in the shadows, sous chefs and all.

Good luck with that ...

nice little conspiracy

nice little conspiracy theory there frank, but i'm afraid i don't know what you're talking about. be careful though, or the editor will warn you for being off topic and wasting the valuable time of their moderator.

rousseau

Conspiracy theory? "Elliot" never denied being all of those names. You see the way it works is its not a conspiracy if the person involved says "ya, sure that was me".

And like him, you don't use capital letters, you're the only person here who has a hate-on for Chudnovsky, you're the only person here that ever references the "next election" in the manner you did etc.

Admit it, you forgot your password again didn't you?

rousseau

Perhaps this time you were told not to frequent these hallowed halls any more so you're shy about fessing up?

you're sounding a little

you're sounding a little delusional frank. maybe you and tieleman should get together.

my apologies if the above

my apologies if the above post was too harsh. it was meant to be light-hearted but as i see it in print i realize it may not have come off that way.

rousseau

Okay Jean Jacques, I'll admit Elliot never apologized for any remark so I'll stop calling you by that name.

Paranoid is Tieleman

Tieleman has zero shred of evidence that he is being targeted. Me thinks Tielman is simply making noise for the purpose of making noise.

Conspiracy, I think not. More likely a druggie looking for hard cash.

The eye of the needle

It seems that panic is occurring with 'railgate' types, the question is why?

The Asper press in in the pocket of the Libs, SkyTrain/RAV lobby, and the P-3 lobby. Real sewerage is now rising from the 'railgate' quagmire and those involved are beginning to panic. When one panics, one does dangerous things and certainly this crude break in and intimidation certainly looks like panic.

Turn the screw a bit more and see what develops, I think Bill you have them on the run.

rousseau

Clearly you're not Elliot, I apologize.

re conspiracy theories

Your reasoning in support of Jim's makes sense to me Frank. I think the others are just grasping at too convenient straws.

Oxymoron Alert:

Frank suggests the culprit is:

There is another kind?

Well maybe the greedy and unretarded! But I truly feel that for most of them they don't even have half of a clue how "un-enlightened" is their own self interest and thus they act daily against their own long term interests and those of the children and beyond.

How can we expect or hope for positive change with most people acting against their own interests (much less mine), knowingly or not?

Hang in there Bill, these guys seem too dumb to be afraid over. Unless you're afraid they'll forget how to breath!

So sorry, Bill...

That someone would break into your office and take nothing tells me that it wasn't a druggie looking for his next high. So what ever the truth is behind it (I'll keep my thoughts to myself) the mess and destruction was uncalled for. Good luck and take care.

"There's nothing to these charges" by Gary Mason.

In December 2006, Gary Mason for The Globe and Mail decided to write a warm and fuzzy puff-piece about Basi & Virk (but not the other Basi).

In a lenthy, illustrated story titled There's nothing to these charges, Mason flatly vindicated these two men.

If he had worked hard to incriminate Basi and Virk, I would've been equally angry.

I asked myself "What kind of idiot goes into print on the eve of a serious trial [we thought it was the "eve"], decides the verdict, and presents it to the public this way?"

My web-site from Day One has clamped down hard on anybody who tries to pre-judge -- and Gary Mason was no exception. Sheesh, he even starts his heart-rending story (not) in bed with Mr & Mrs Basi. Right in their marital bed. Yikes.

So I "deconstructed" his views and called it "They played him like a violin." (This was even before we knew that Dave Basi had had work-experience as one of those Campbell government Media Monitor contractors.)

The result was something I've never experienced before. Gary is a decent guy and I'm not blaming him. I did -- and still do -- think his article was extremely biased, wrong-headed, and an affront to the judicial system.

And that's what I said, on The Legislature Raids. http://bctrialofbasi-virk.blogspot.com/

Immediately there was a swarming of anonymous comments which peppered my web-site for about 2 weeks. All of them hostile, ugly, rude, hateful, all of them reproaching me for not agreeing with Gary's article.

It was a crudely concerted attack clearly intended to intimidate, to make me stop writing. Or perhaps more precisely: to stop writing about Basi, Virk, or Basi.

It continued even on Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

Like Bill, I reacted with more determination than ever to keep writing about the things I think are important. And for my home province, the BC Rail trial of Basi Virk and Basi is very important.

Like Frank, I believe that the perps in Bill's attack most probably were "really dumb Liberal supporter[s] [who] could have been acting independently". I'd just add a word like "louts". Really dumb Liberal louts."

I leave it at that.

Our democratic right-to- know

southdeltawalker wrote:

People are fearing how they may be perceived or judged when they try to engage in social justice activities-some of them anyways. This fear is reflecting our current dominant media's bias.

We need to remind people the real radicals and threats are not Bill Tieleman or any of us.
The radicals are Gordon Campbell, Stephen Harper and those that do their bidding such as The Vancouver Port Authority and Gateway Project.
They are threatening our democracy {TILMA} destroying our environment and communities i.e. Gateway Project and here in South Delta the Port development.

thanks, southdeltawalker. You are making an extremely important point....and one that bears repeating.

Democracy and the public's right to information is in deep (as in " deep integration") jeopardy. Intimidation, as many note here, has become an all too common part of the cowardly process put in play by these bullies.

As citizens, we have a right to know - and a right to defend our right to know.

The Basi, Basi, Virk trial has so far been one big puzzling maze of what seems to be purposeful deflection and obstruction of the public's right to access information. It even often appears to be a highly orchestrated one.

Access to information is our democratic right. As southdeltawalker made clear, it is those who are trying to slyly take this right away from us who are the real threat.

Keep on keeping on, Bill. We stand alongside you.

Your work on the Tyee, along with BC Mary's blog, House of Infamy and a number of others have been invaluable in this regard.

If we're speculating...

I remember a short piece, buried as all the good ones were, during the Federal Sponsorship scandal, in which a meeting was reported where an envelope containing cash was handed to a man with an Italian sounding name, who had no known government or advertizing function.

When the question was asked, 'who's this guy, and what's the money for', the answer was, 'Don't ask', and 'this is the godfather'. I don't remember the specifics at this distance, it was one article among many at the time that caught my eye.

Then- please remember how strongly the words "organized crime" figured in the initial talk right after the RCMP raid that began all this exposure. So...

What if there is another group, or coalition of groups who are not the government, but who treat the government like a wholly owned subsidiary. For whatever reason- corporate contributions, blackmail, cultish secret society handshakes, any or all of the above, they own our governments and milk it for billions in dozens of different ways, and have done for years.

What if they really don't want any backtalk and don't want the money to stop, and they really, really don't want to see their names in print.

Wouldn't a guy like that maybe freak out a bit, and do something stupidly direct? If Mr. Tieleman seemed to be pressing a bit hard or getting too close?

Just a thought.

Dumb BC Liberals.

Given the number of comments from the me2s and rousseaus, ad nauseum there clearly are those in the BC Liberal camp who drink the koolaid. People who are willing to not only give the benefit of the doubt, but also sacrifice their first born to maintain their ideological attachments.

Intimidation is an age old tactic. It works quite effectively on some, but it can have the opposite effect on others. The latter group can be motivated to delve more deeply and to maintain their persistence in the search for the truth.

Dumb BC Liberal supporters don't take the time to locate a journalist's office, and watch him for enough time to know when he won't be there so they can break in and send a message. This isn't the kind of tactic you engage in on a whim. It takes consideration, and planning. Dumb BC Liberal supporters post inanities and misinformation to the comments section of the Tyee. Dumb BC Liberal supporters dismiss clear evidence of wrongdoing no matter how strong it is. Dumb BC Liberal supporters resort to dragging in tired attacks on a near decade old BC NDP provincial government to distract from the malfeasance of the current Campbell regime. No Tielman's break-in is the sort of behavior, while certainly stupid, isn't something performed in a naive and drunken ideological stupor.

The only people who are dumb are those who don't take this kind of criminal behavior seriously.

Chicken Littles?

In my opinion, the biggest reason the (New) Left so consistently fails to capture the public's attention these days is not because of the failure of the MSM to report.

Nor is it necessarily because the public has shifted its allegiances entirely to the Right. Proof of that is seen in poll after poll showing public support for such things as public health services, public ownership of resources, indeed for "gov't interference" of many kinds. Additional proof of that is seen in the lies, sleight-of-hand and secrecy Gordo has to resort to in order to carry out his secret agenda.

So how can Campbell and Harper get away with their various sellings out of resources and the "downsizing" of gov't?

Why, when we clearly have a strong case to make re the Basi-Virk scandal; the abject failure of thirty years of forest policy; the ongoing degradation of our fisheries by
fish-farms: the scandalous rip-off of our ALR lands; the obvious failure after failure in protecting the public interest - all of which the public is fully aware: why has the NDP and our enviros lost the public ear? Why are we so powerless when clearly we have such strong cases to make?

I believe it is because there is no will to thoroughly test ideas and policies before we support them. We fear "washing our dirty linen in public". We fear internal discord (read: lack of "solidarity") if we seriously question the reigning doctrines held by whatever group is temporarily in power. Worst of all is "disfellowshipping" those who disagee by using political correctness techniques.

I see a minor instance of that here with people like James Burns who say nonsense like this:

Given the number of comments from the me2s and rousseaus, ad nauseum there clearly are those in the BC Liberal camp

None but ideologues would be so ready to go on such flimsy evidence as offered, and anybody looking in would write us off as a bunch of crazies. Unfortunately, being Chicken Littles has become a Lefty trait.

Political Correctness?

The primary problem with adopting real change is a combination of fear and delusion. The majority of the public clings to what they have, believes they too can strike it rich, and they desperately fear taking any sort of political action that could endanger their position, no matter how tenuous it currently is. Once enough people start hurting, we'll see change, but not before. Once that point is reached, however, change could happen quite quickly. Tipping points have a tendency to work like that.

As for what happened to Tieleman, if someone with considerable suasion on the right were to suffer a similar attempt at intimidation the screams for an investigation and a proper accounting would reach the heavens. Pooh poohing this incident, not only bespeaks a considerable lack of empathy, it demonstrates an inordinate concern with "optics". The primary problem with the so-called "New Left", like "New Labour" or the majority of the current American Democratic party is that they are almost totally concerned with perception, and fundamentally lack an attachment or understanding of values. Being liked is more important than anything else. It's pathetic.

James

How did the Liberals gain by someone breaking into Tielman's office?

Were they trying to stop an investigation? What investigation? If there is one its news to me.

All Bill is doing (and god love him for it) is reporting on the events in a public courtroom.

This is not All the President's Men redux.

Obviously the break-in was politically motivated since nothing was stolen but it sounds like it was just someone pissed at Bill over their ideological differences and probably wished to hell he didn't have a public platform.

Basi-Virk is a godsend to the Liberal Party. They win either way the case turns out. The only threat to them would be an inquiry into the things the trial is not even looking at. Unless Bill was carrying out a double secret investigation into that stuff I don't see why he would be a target of anyone high up in the Liberal party.

And if they did want to send a message that would actually intimidate him it wouldn't be messing up his office.

James

That would include all parties, both left and right.

My position is that the Left should choose its spots with care. Fight over what's important and not waste energy and credibility tilting at every single windmill.

Let the Right be the crazies fighting for Intelligent Design and making gay-bashing legal, we don't have to mirror their stupidity over here.

Frank: I think it's a lot more complex than that

There are other reasons why Bill Tieleman may have been targeted - reasons that have as much to do with the LIBERAL PARTY OF BC as they do the actual defendants in this case.

I suspect Bill has, or was thought to have, information about an informant who has been spilling beans from the beginning of this whole affair.
An individual we only know as Tip # 47. {Ref: Notice of Application for discovery - February 2007 - you can find the pertinent sections of the document at Bill's blog in a comment}

Bill, don't forget, is seen as the most up-to-date authority on this trial that there is – and his office is a much easier target than the RCMP evidence room.

If anyone had info on who the mysterious 'member of the public' was...I'd say it would be Bill.

I don't think it's any coincidence that the trial was rumoured to be going into 'in camera' hearings on discovery this week and that, in all probability, some of the things to be discussed in camera were: the identity of and the evidence from tip #47 as well as the identity of the two crown witnesses to whom the ‘notice’ (cited above) also pertained.

In fact Judge Bennett's courtroom has been and is off limits to ALL except the legal team and (possibly) not even all of them as we speak.

I think there are some very worried people in the party and they may have decided to take matters into their own hands to see if Bill actually knew who was behind Tip #47.

Anyway, something to think about...remember the government (and by implication the party) actually paid an observer to sit in court last spring and send twice daily reports to Victoria about what was going on while court was in session.

I thought that was pretty bizarre at the time and, in the light of what happened at the weekend - well, you'll get the picture.

I never found the AG's (or the Finance Minister's) explanation for that little wrinkle was very persuasive.

What about the feds?

Remember the money that was reported as being laundered and sent to the Liberal party of Canada? Back right after the RCMP raid. There was $80,000 in phony membership fees that went from I think one of the Basi boys, didn't it? The story had people's dogs and so forth signed up without their knowledge.

Where did that come from, and where did it go, exactly? Has anybody heard?

Good question Bailey

I'd forgotten about that...as far as I know there's nothing in the Notice of Application for discovery that that would impinge on.

BCMary might be a better source and if she happens by I'm sure she might recollect.

Bailey

I'd forgotten about those membership fees too.

Basi was angling for a federal job wasn't he?

I'm still waiting to see if a guy who bribes BC politicians can be a lawyer in Ontario.

Also, the Province sure doesn't spend a lot of time discussing how one of its most vocal critics of anything related to the NDP was found to be involved in this thing and won't be facing jail time for bribing gov't officials either. Something tells me that if this was an NDP scandal old Brian Kieran would have been attacking them every day for the last 4 years.

linked interests

If that story was accurate, that would point to a link between this deal and the Feds, wouldn't it?

It seems unlikely that two illegal or improper deals by the same group of people at the same time would be entirely seperate. And if that link exists, then it also would link any organized crime connections that might be exposed here with the Federal Liberal Party, at least circumstantially.

I admit circumstances are sometimes misleading, but sometimes they're not.

Anyway, as a speculation, this increases the possible suspect list for the break in under discussion here dramatically, and the possible motives as well.

It's sheer co-incidence

I do remember that whole circumtance surrounding the Basi Boys, the block voting juggernaut composed largely of Indo-Canadians who were so compliant that, when asked by some early (haha) investigative reporters about their memberships in the BC Liberal Party, didn't know they were members of the BC Liberal Party even though their $10 fees had mysteriously been paid to a total of $80,000. ... as they were trucked off in school buses to out-vote the locals in choosing The Right Candidate.

I have thought, ever since, that this was a crime in itself impinging drastically upon the electoral process. They ousted a federal cabinet minister, Herb Dahliwal. They remodeled Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca to suit the defecting Keith Martin. I've read that no electoral riding escaped their ministrations.

But like so much else in the Basi Virk / BC Rail Case, the topic was left hanging there ... no further questions, and no answers. Which in my view brings us to another major question: why aren't there investigative reporters -- any reporters -- really and truly at work on this?

Quite apart from Basi-Virk, why hasn't any CanWest newspaper reported on the violent break-in of a fellow-journalist's office? I've heard that the Province interviewed Bill Tieleman about the break-in, then killed the story. I thought this kind of thing happened only in dictatorships and banana-republics.

Why hasn't there even been an editorial about this criminal effort to silence an honourable journalist when we all know that an assault on reporters is an assault on a democratic society.

It's a co-incidence, of course, that Bill is the only major independent journalist in Vancouver. It's certainly a co-incidence that Bill was once Chief of Staff (I think) for NDP Premier Glen Clark. Isn't it?

So I doubt we'll ever read about that $80,000. in a CanWest newspaper. If they get their druthers (and they usually do), there will be nothing to report about the Basi-Virk / BC Rail trial either.

BC Mary

Exactly, the real story in my opinion is all the stuff that no one is investigating.

Like you say, its the kind of crap you see in a dictatorship.

And lies tend to contaminate others

Others who may not be linked directly, or even implicitly, to the action in the court, which is, in a strange kind of way, still struggling to be born.

They are tied because they've compromised their own behavior and standards in ways they probably don't even understand themselves.

Bailey mentions 'retiring' cabinet ministers but of course it doesn't stop there. There is a whole list of compromisers among the political appointments of this government on the one hand and the 185 (or more) members of the public affairs bureau who, as they say, run interference for their masters and get things like that little pander in the Globe and Mail into print. There is a professional sleight of hand operation going on all the time.

A quick look at CGI and the Mulroney/Schreiber affair isn’t a bad idea too. The lobbying connections to the sale of BC Rail must be there – certainly in Pilothouse’s books – but I’d bet elsewhere as well. I would not be surprised if this BC Government is the most lobbied in history (registered and NOT registered). There’s a long list of stories there too – including (I’ve heard) one about Kinder Morgan not being willing to comply with certain openness requests concerning the new lease contract for Vancouver Wharves…another piece of the BCRail treasure that’s recently been passed off and moved out of public ownership.

when the oppostion is void

when the oppostion is void of ideas and constructive policies, like the ndp has been for so many years, molehills turn into mountains. until it is actually proven that the gov't is in bed with organized crime that's the bottom line on this story.

Very informative thread.

Very informative thread. Good going, people.