We are interesting on bp-events (Great job!!) we like colaborate (help you) to develoved new functions, we like to do the next funcionts with your permisions:

-update to Work with the last version of WPMU 2.8.6 + BP 1.1.3
-we like to make a reserved system(to the limit option per event)
-we like to make a locations table and features.
and we like integrate all with a google map v3 (no api key)
-traslate to spanish and Valenciano languajes

If you are interesting we colabored for this new features please contact us, and sure we´ll need your support and sincronice the job with you.

Thanks.

William McCuaig, Montréal, 10 November 2009.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner

112 Kent Street

Place de Ville

Tower B, 3rd Floor

Ottawa, Ontario

Canada K1A 1H3

your file 7100-04777

CBSA file 6015-3/1274

re: Events of 12 November 2008 at Trudeau Airport, Montréal

I wish to put on record the events of 12 November 2008, and register with you my formal complaint about the behavior of CBSA agents on that day. The point at issue is their threat, made and never withdrawn, to arrest me for refusing on grounds of personal privacy to give them information they demanded I give them. I re-entered Canada on that date at Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau International Airport following a vacation in Europe. My passage through primary and secondary clearing by CBSA was without incident, and I was on my way out to the arrivals area when CBSA Agent 17804 intervened.

He took me into the secondary inspection area and began to ask me questions, which I answered. He asked the reason for my trip, and I answered “personal” and then, when he requested me to be more specific, “vacation.” He asked me how long I had been away and what countries I had visited. I replied three weeks, and named five countries in western Europe. He asked me if I had really travelled for three weeks with one piece of carry-on luggage and I said yes, that’s right. Agent 17804 asked me whether I went often to Europe and I said that I did. He asked me if I knew anyone there and I said that I knew a great many people in Europe.

Agent 17804 then barked out a command: “Name three of them.”

I replied: “I refuse to tell you the names of any of the people I know in Europe, now or under any other circumstances, as a matter of personal privacy.”

Agent 17804 seemed taken aback, and tried one or two little tricks to make me nervous, like asking me why I was nervous, to which I did not reply.

Agent 17804 then said: “Have you ever been arrested, sir? And think very carefully before you answer that. Do you want me to arrest you, sir, and put you in handcuffs?”

I replied: “No, I have never been arrested.”

Agent 17804 then repeated: “Do you want me to arrest you, sir, and put you in handcuffs?”

I said: “Are you threatening to arrest me and put me in handcuffs?”

Agent 17804 said: “I have that power, sir. Do you want to see the legislation? I can show it to you in black and white.”

I said: “Yes, I do want to see it, and I want to see your supervisor.”

It is not in doubt that he uttered a threat to arrest me for refusing to tell him personal information on privacy grounds. From then until the time I left the airport and went home, he held to the position that he could arrest me for that if he wanted to. That is a stance from which he never departed. My stance, from which I never departed, was that I challenged his power to arrest me for refusing to divulge personal information, and that I intended to pursue my administrative and ultimately legal remedies to find out if he did have this power. The Agent ordered three of his colleagues to look in a copy of the legislation for the passage giving him warrant to arrest me, but they had a lot of trouble finding it. Eventually they handed me the whole book and told me to read the section on CBSA enforcement powers for myself.

Agent 17804 began his search of my bag, and as he was doing so he and his three colleagues made an insistent attempt, over the course of a five to ten minute period, to cajole me into dropping my request to see the supervisor. Their line of argument was that their powers are so extensive and so clearly defined in law that I had no grounds for complaint. The exchanges between us were civil enough, but the CBSA agents did most of the talking. I will summarize below what they said.

Their declarations to me have a certain importance, because it is actually very difficult for a Canadian citizen to discover what protection exists for his or her privacy at the Canadian border. The default position seems to be, as far as I can tell, that the only information a Canadian citizen can legally be compelled to give is the information declared on the entry card. Of course that includes a full declaration of the goods being imported, and of course CBSA has the power to search anyone’s bags anytime. I always answer their routine questions, but I would never dream of answering an intrusive demand for personal information like the one put to me by Agent 17804. I would sooner have my bag searched every single time I come home from a trip. Indeed, I would sooner stand up to an arrest threat and risk having the rest of my life hampered by an arrest record than give in to such a demand.

The CBSA view of the default situation seems to be different, but about this it is hard for a Canadian citizen to obtain straightforward information, since what they say publicly is scant and duplicitously-worded. It leaves the impression that Parliamentary legislation and Supreme Court rulings compel their “clients,” as they call them, to answer any question a CBSA agent asks. Overall they seem to prefer that personal privacy at the border be kept a grey area, for now. But not the CBSA agents with whom I spoke on 12 November 2008. They were frank and forthcoming in telling me about the operational doctrine that guides them in their dealings with “clients.” I believe they spoke more freely than usual because it was a fraught situation: they wanted to bring it to closure and get me out of the airport before it went any further, so they laid out their doctrine in full. They believe that only guilty people ever refuse to anwer their questions or obey their commands to give information, and that to cite personal privacy as a reason for such a refusal is a further sign of guilt. Innocent people have nothing to hide so they will not mind telling CBSA anything about themselves that CBSA wants to know. The agents believe that the Supreme Court rulings in their favor abolish all rights to privacy on the part of citizens. CBSA agents enjoy a range of prerogatives that are special and superior as compared to those held by other law enforcement officers. They can ask you anything and compel you to answer.

It is fair to summarize the operating doctrine of the CBSA agents with whom I spoke on 12 November 2008 this way: by going outside the Canadian border you voluntarily surrender all your rights to privacy when you want to come back in. At that point they have the same unrestricted power to look around inside your life that they do to look around inside your bag and your pockets and your computer. The agents believe they would be unable to perform their job if “clients” were able to shield their privacy, or were shielded against the power of CBSA to arrest them. They believe a refusal by a citizen, on grounds of personal privacy, to answer any demand for personal information constitutes hindrance of them in the performance of their duty and gives them legal warrant to arrest the person refusing. Agent 17804 himself finally located the relevant passage of the legislation and showed it to me, the one that says an agent can arrest anyone who hinders them in the performance of their duty. He did so, and said he was doing so, to prove his point: he could arrest me if he wanted to then and there.

But of course Agent 17804 never actually arrested me. He finished searching my bags and pockets and asked me more questions, which I answered, and then reluctantly went to fetch the supervisor. I waited a long time, and withstood a bit more cajolerie to try to get me to give it up and go home, but finally I was able to make my complaint to the supervisor, who promised to have a word with 17804 about his behavior. I then made a formal complaint in a letter to the Director of Client Services at the Customs Regional Branch in Montréal. This was answered by the Director of the Airport District, M. Provost. It seems I was wrong to believe that 17804 uttered a threat to arrest me and put me in handcuffs: it was a metaphysical clarification of the concept that he could if he wanted to. My complete correspondence with CBSA is on file with your office.

It includes two allegations by me of bullying behavior on the part of Agent 17804, which I stand behind entirely and wish to reiterate here for the record. While he was searching my bags I took a pen and a piece of paper out of my pocket and began to make notes on what was occurring. 17804 saw what I was doing and ordered me not to take anything out of my pocket until he told me to. It was an attempt to prevent me from making notes, but I ignored him and made them anyway.

When I finally got to see the supervisor the contents of my bag had been strewn on the counter for half an hour and 17804 had long since finished examining them. Then, while I was making my complaint to the supervisor, he rummaged in my bathroom kit, which was still on the counter top, took out my prescription medicines, and made notes on the labels. I protested, but the supervisor did nothing, and 17804 asserted he had the right to do so. I construe the collecting of medical information in such a way, under such circumstances, as threatening behavior.

Then there is the matter of how difficult it was even to find out that 17804 was this man’s ID number. None of the agents was wearing a badge or pin with a number on it, otherwise I would have reported their numbers along with my report of what they said to me. Proper attribution is important. I insisted several times on seeing 17804’s ID, or knowing his number anyway, but all I got was refusals of one kind or another. The supervisor did finally make him state his number, but only after I had done some insisting with him too. I should have raised the matter, but since I didn’t, I do not know exactly what their operating doctrine says about identifying themselves. I can certainly testify that their practice is to try hard not to.

Let me summarize the burden of my complaint to you as Privacy Commissioner: CBSA agents at ports of entry are attempting to establish the position, de iure and eventually de facto, that they can compel Canadian citizens to give absolutely any information that the agents demand of them under penalty of arrest. But since privacy rights at ports of entry are still a grey area, they are doing so by creating “facts on the ground.” Agent 17804 advanced a threat to arrest me, but it was a de iure threat: he was careful not to carry it out, but not to withdraw it either. The last point is important. They are trying to establish that it is legitimate for them to threaten to arrest, and eventually to arrest, citizens for withholding personal information, and that they have not been challenged when they did so. Therefore I wish to challenge them now. This is the issue I present to you in this letter. Arrest is an instant and powerful sanction, because it creates a record that can hamper one for the rest of one’s life. CBSA agents, in this case Agent 17804, are using that threat right now to try to compel Canadian citizens to give them personal information. Their superiors, in this case the Director of the Airport District, Pierre Provost, are standing behind them.

With that I have concluded. When you communicate institutionally with Parliament, you might want to ask them if the doctrine, as I have described it, by which CBSA agents are operating in the ports of entry through which Canadian citizens return to Canada corresponds to their intention when they framed the legislation. I do not know whether you communicate with the Supreme Court institutionally or not, but if you do, you might also ask them whether current CBSA operating doctrine, as I have described it, is fully in line with what they intended when they made their rulings. Because CBSA thinks it is.

Yours truly

[signed: “William McCuaig”]

If done it

Your bp-event plugin is just great! Thank you for your hard work.

Anyway, I got one simple question:
Is it possible that just administrators can build events, but all other members can’t?
(by showing the ‘create an event’ button for everyone – excluded admins?

this would be awesome.

if you got the time, let me know about this point.

thank you so much and keep it up!

sam

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Gimme a break

a favour for fellow bt’ers and a shoutout for your web business as well.

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