March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

At last, a Western politician is aware of the looming threat posed by poor food security planning. Britain’s David Cameron is apparently pressing for measures that would foster the local production of food. His reasoning, which is quite correct, is that with increasing demands on food due to consumption and some types of biofuel production countries which depend upon other regions to feed them might find their citizenry are a whole lot hungrier than before. This isn’t rocket science, it’s a simple numbers game - so why haven’t other leaders come to the same conclusion? 

In a country such as Canada with a limited growing season, one would think that we would have a thorough national food security policy. A plan that encourages Canadians to stockpile should something nasty like a flu pandemic hit in the dead of winter, shutting down borders and airports effectively cutting off our winter food supply. Such a plan might have supported the small family farm, a now nearly extinct mode of production, to generate produce and livestock purely for local consumption. Or it might have put limits on factory farming techniques which aren’t flexible enough to cope during emergencies and are thought to heavily pollute the environment (to say nothing of its impact on human health). Heck, maybe it would just have any old plan, something other than telling the people through commercials to be prepared for a 72-hour period? Alas, it’s the local grocery store or nothing.

Food Security, I am afraid, like Pandemic Preparedness is lost on most Westerners. Few in the West, if any, can remember a real tangible crisis which threatened their lives. A couple brushes with recessions, outbreaks of disease and water contamination do little to smarten the bureaucrats and political leaders up.  It’s all easily forgotten when in the next minute they are on to the latest issue for which none of them were prepared.

Until we step back and see the bigger picture, we will be doomed to run around after each event trying our best to cope in the aftermath. We have been fortunate in a country like Canada that none of these issues has ever really spiralled out of control, too much, at least not in living memory. How much longer can we rely on the resiliency of the international system to maintain the current status quo? 

I certainly hope we don’t find ourselves only just rethinking things at the point of starvation. 

Posted in Food Security, North America, Europe, Politics | No Comments »

March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

After having not reported on the subject for a couple of weeks, I’d like to share a number of articles worthy of a read on what now appears to be a full-blown recession in the U.S. It’s only a matter of time before this economic crisis spreads elsewhere.

Robert Farrell has published a wonderfully insightful article on the growing economic crisis in the U.S. In it, he clearly explains what led to the crisis and what might be expected down the road. 

In Nouriel Roubini’s article, “Anatomy Of A Financial Meltdown“, he delineates how what was a sub-prime mortgage fiasco is spreading rapidly to other financial sectors causing a serious recession in the U.S. market. 

The Baltimore Sun has reported that inflation is rising. As a result Americans spent more in January on less material. As David Shvartsman noted on his blog back in October:

“The dollar is no longer the world’s reserve currency…expect continued deterioration in the dollar’s purchasing power and increases in inflation over the longer term. Inflation will not be confined to the US; it has appeared and will continue to appear in countries across the globe. Every government will try their damnedest to paper over their monetary inflation with ridiculous explanations and reconfigured price indexes which purport to show “low inflation”. Still, worldwide inflation is here and it is only a question of which fiat currency will depreciate at the fastest rate against relatively hard currencies and gold.”

Finally, in his recent article, Simon Caulkin analyses the root cause of the crisis as being greed, taking the analogy put forward by a colleague “of finance as the stomach of the country from which all other organs take their tone” diagnosing the entire corpus as having a gross eating disorder that no regulations can fix.

If anyone knows of other articles worthy of sharing, please send them in!

Posted in Economic Issues, North America | No Comments »

March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

At the end of January, we posted the latest Indonesian death toll which at that time was 100.  As of February 16th the toll was at 140 - that’s 4o deaths in under 20 days! Where is the global concern, folks? At any time Bird Flu can become the next Human Flu, rapidly spreading across the globe. Perhaps we firmly believe that the ever under-stocked Tamiflu will save us. Or maybe it’s just that a vaccine for a strain of influenza whose make up we have no way of predicting will be developed in advance. It’s likely, however, that as we haven’t faced a threat of such magnitude for so considerable a period of time we have forgotten what the impact on our social stability might be and as a result are content to rely on drugs as the answer.

Posted in Health Preparedness, Asia | No Comments »

March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

Anyone interested in the different types of Identity Theft should read Lanny Britnell’s article entitled “The Changing Face of Identity Theft” originally published in the American Chronicle. In it, the author outlines several types including, “True Name”, Medical, Criminal and Synthetic Identity Theft.

Posted in Identity Management, Cyber Crime, North America | No Comments »

March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Jerusalem Post has reported that Israel is considering new legislation to restrict the use of wiretapping as an investigative tool.  Among some of the ideas currently being considered by the Parliamentary Inquiry Committee on Wiretapping are compelling ”the police to report to the court that approved a wiretapping at the end of its investigation,” restricting surveillance to only those conversations of a target relevant to the investigation and appointing a commissioner to oversee the entire practice of wiretapping.

Israel, like every other country tackling the issue of wiretapping, should consider implementing some sort of mechanism that would ensure long-term oversight and review of the measure. It’s always remarkable to find out how little analysis there is of data surrounding the use and success rates of wiretapping that could indicate the effectiveness of the tool. We certainly don’t have such statistics in Canada.

According to the article “Israeli courts approve about 1,200 wiretaps a year, compared to 1,800 in all of the United States. The authorities made 1,255 requests for wiretapping permits to the courts in 2006. The courts turned down seven.” 

Posted in Wiretapping & Surveillance, Middle East | No Comments »

March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Daily Mail published the following article recently:

“Mass fingerprinting, biometric passports, identity cards and international identity databases will not protect Britain and other European countries from terrorists or criminals.

This startling admission comes in a leaked European Commission report prepared for Home Secretary Jacqui Smith and other EU Home Affairs Ministers.

The report undermines Gordon Brown’s claims about the need for controversial new passports and identity cards to protect the country from terror attacks.

It raises new questions about the true purpose of Government databases, which will store intimate details of everyone in Britain, including their picture, fingerprints and confidential personal information.

The EU report, obtained by The Mail on Sunday, says most people behind terror attacks in the UK and Europe were living in the EU legally and so would not be affected by increased security measures.

It says: “None of the policy options contribute markedly to reducing terrorism or serious crime.”

In view of the latest terrorist acts in the area of the EU… the perpetrators have mainly been EU citizens or foreigners residing and living here with official permits.”

But it does say that the new technology could save money by using automated checks at borders.” 

Finally, someone is talking a bit of sense regarding the use of identity-based measures as a preventative approach to security. Unfortunately, their reasoning doesn’t go far enough as the leaked report goes on to indicate that the use of automated document checking points at borders makes sense.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - automated scanners at borders are a sieve. Allowing people to scan travel documents without the watchful eye of an alert border guard will only facilitate the entry of threats. Although every government assures its public regarding these programs that only those individuals who have been pre-approved will be allowed to use such machines consider this, electronic identity document programs cannot detect the following threats: Those travelling under legitimately established identities that have been registered under false pretences and those travelling with official documents based on a false identity established by the issuing state for espionage or terrorist purposes. At the very least, an alert border guard might notice that the person carrying a legitimate passport, who appears to have no known criminal record, is unduly nervous and escalate the matter. Whereas the scanner, well, it will probably flash “go” to the relieved threat.

Posted in Identity Management, Biometrics, Europe | No Comments »

March 4 2008 by The Systemic Analyst.

The Toledo Blade reported recently that Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania may have hit a road block in ratifying an agreement that would limit water withdrawal from the Great Lakes. If four states within the same country can’t adopt an agreement after 4.5 years of negotiations, why should Canadians expect that their “gentlemen’s agreement” is enough to protect our interests regarding the Great Lakes basin?

We might start minding our own interests by first looking past the many layers of bureaucracy which are so conveniently blamed for our lack of initiative around security measures (“oh, that’s provincial jurisdiction,” or “U.S. states and Canadian provinces can’t enter into binding agreements”) and finally do something that will protect the future of precious fresh water resources. Environmental degradation certainly won’t stop because this department or that province has been deemed responsible for what happens on an issue.

Perhaps we just need a reason to take fresh water resource depletion seriously. How about the plans of the Governor of New Mexico to have resources “shared” among the states - after all, he believes, that Great Lakes region is just “awash with water.” Care to share valuable water with green lawns in deserts, anyone?

Posted in Water Issues, North America, Politics | No Comments »