I wish to attempt to discuss the ethics and moral implications of police investigative techniques.
The current scenario I would like to start with is the following:
Recently a terrorist suspect, after his arrest on other charges, has had his child seized by the Ottawa protection team and his wife is being hidden in a abuse shelter, the evidence for the charges has come from microphones hidden in the family home since APRIL.
The child in question was seized due to "Failure to provide the necessities of life". In short this child "allegedly" was being slowly starved to death, suffers from seizures and the wife was also "allegedly" being beaten on a regular basis.
I would like to dispense with the topic of the hidden microphones in a person's home, that is whole other issue, while very important, not what I would like to explore in this particular thread, it is the actions or in this case the very in action of the authorities with respect to this woman and child that were allegedly being severely abused by this man.
Number One: It is currently illegal for a person to even just "merely suspect" abuse of a child and NOT report it to Protection authorities. Should the authorities in charge of the investigation be charged with failure to protect? If not why not?
Number two: Do the authorities not have an obligation to serve and protect everyone? Do they serve and protect individuals or at the pleasure of the state's goals only?
Number three: What kind of human beings (several human beings of varying ranks up the ladder to the top officials) could know that a child is slowly starving to death and a woman was being beaten ( since April apparently until arrest at Augusts end,that is four long months they allowed the situation continue)and sit by and not attempt to do anything to alleviate the situation for those that they have sworn to serve and protect? Anonymous tips are accepted constantly by protection workers and must be acted upon by law with in 24 hours. Surely someone could have called one in and it would not have hampered their investigation, if anything I would think it would have hardened the resolve of the suspect to have had his two alleged victims taken from his control by the very state he was trying to destabilize/terrorize.
If anyone is willing to allow that this woman and child were just collateral damage, a sad but necessary sacrifice to the cause of combating terrorism I have the following question for you:
Is that because this particular child/woman are brown and Muslim and knew what they had signed up for culturally or in your estimation is any man,woman or child open for sacrifice to the noble cause of the state's police.
They other question I have is: If it were your daughter and grandchild caught in that allegedly abusive situation would you still be willing to buy the cause of them being sacrificed for the greater good of catching more "terrorists"?
I am not sure I have set the plate correctly, I have tried very hard to to leave my usual sarcastic interplay out, I have even tried to be fair, but I doubt I actually have accomplished that feat.....I am frankly pissed by the hypocrisy at play here, I'm disgusted by their actions/inactions.
What say you all?
1 comment:
Wow I had not heard about this. It seems to me that they were holding back reporting this man until they had more evidence of his possible terrorist connections... yes in the long run the man could have hurt more people than 'just' his wife and son, but come on! This is happening right here in Canada, not abroad. I thought we were in the land of human rights? I understand that the man could have hurt more people however, they knew he was hurting two people all along, by the sound of things, so taking him down for that would also help save the lives of future victims too, right? I suppose they didnt want their secret network of hidden microphones to alert others in this alleged terrorist group to be alerted but still, it just seems so awful to let a woman and child be harmed repeatedly for the sake of other Canadians. I don't want my freedom to come at the price of that boy's health and safety!
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