Prime Minister Harper's Office Email Hacked..?

It seems that Alaska Governor Sarah Palin is not the only conservative being attacked by hackers seeking email addresses... it appears that up here in Canada, our Prime Minister Stephen Harper is suffering the same fate.

I'm signed up to be on the Prime Minister's Office email subscription service. For months now, I've been receiving the same official press releases, statements, transcripts of speeches and notifications of future appearances that journalists and media institutions are sent. It's not a closely guarded secret; just go here if you'd like to do the same. Every other day or so there's a new message, stating that it's from the "PMO".

Today, September 21, 2008, at 12:51:20 PM I received the following email, claiming to be from "Stephen Harper" this time, not the usual "PMO" label, with the subject heading "Why you shouldn't fear me", issued from the exact same address as the regular PMO official messages:

Hi The Average Canadian,

Stephen Harper wanted to tell you... My name is Stephen Harper. I am an ALBERTAN, here me roar! My goal is to make Canada America's 51st state and destroy health care that all Canadians cherish by infusing my propaganda with hard core ad hominem attacks. Please vote for me, because if you do, I promise you'll be able to vote for McCain 2012!

We are a tar sands level party, not a grass roots party. We consider anything with the word \"Green\" offensive, except for the almighty American dollar, which we hope to be able to implement in the coming months! We shall first have to make sure that American and Canadian jelly beans have the same standards, and then we shall proceed.

I hope everyone has a great weekend,

Take care,

Stephen \"I can lead you to Hell but not back\" Harper

The bottom of the message links to a site called "willyoubetricked". Who knows what damage visiting that site will do to computers, so visit at your peril. (there's ".ca" tag to add to the end to the above address, to reach it.)

What juvenile delinquency, coming from "patriots" whose idea of patriotism is not so much love of country, or love of much of anything, so much as it is envy of something else.

UPDATE: A second junk email has now been sent through the Prime Minister's email address:

Serbia's Southern province of Kosovo declared independence in February 2008. Harper's government recognized it's independence. Does this lead to slowly accepting sovereignty for Quebec? Here's why Canada must follow International Law, the UN Chart, UNSC Resolution 1244 and the Final Helsinki Act of 1975.

concerned citizen

Stephen Taylor explains what seems to have happened:

Somebody emailed the PMO listserve address sending this email to whoever signed
up on the Prime Minister’s government website for the email mailing list. ...

Also more at Kate O'Malley's blog at Macleans, and Steve Janke, who adds:

The email is absurd in its content, but the goal is to embarrass the Prime Minister by suggesting a major breach in security.

UPDATE II: At 9:48:19 PM, another email, this time seemingly from the government.

Subject: Unauthorized Messages Purporting to be from Prime Minister Stephen Harper
This message is being sent to you on behalf of the Office of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Government of Canada.

As a subscriber to the Prime Minister's website (http://www.pm.gc.ca/), you may have received what appear to be two emails from Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Please be advised that these were unauthorized uses of the Prime Minister's email listserv and do not represent the views of the Prime Minister or his Office. We regret these unauthorized communications.

The circumstances surrounding this unauthorized use of the Prime Minister's listserv are under investigation.

May Day Mayhem: Swiss Anarchists Riot

Armies of anarchists clashed with Swiss police following the May Day labor marches in Switzerland last week, in a very under-reported series of dramatic battles on the streets of Zurich and elsewhere.

Front and center in the melee once again were the violent vandals of the Black Block; regular Covenant Zone readers may remember these goons' barbaric behavior during the Swiss election last October, which we covered here.

My translation of the French version of the story carried by Switzerland's 20 Minutes news site on the Swiss May Day Mayhem:

<<<<<

Rubber bullets, water cannons, fiery containers, rains of bottles and stones, May 1st lived up to its reputation in Zurich. The "Chaoten ["brawlers"] of "Black Block" clashed with police around 5:00 pm in the neighborhood of Langstrasse. Calm returned in the early evening. The police proceeded with 200 arrests. The skirmishes erupted shortly after 4:00 pm between separatists and the forces of law and order. The latter had previously encircled 300 protesters of "the revolutionary alliance" in order to avoid the habitual outbursts following the official parade through downtown.
...

The situation degenerated at Lausanne as well. Some 200 anarchists took on a McDonald's in St-Laurent around 5:00 pm. The fast-food restaurant had three windows and two garbage cans broken. It had to be evacuated and closed, said the ATS. The clashes continued around the Place de la Riponne and de la Cité. "The police proceeded to make many arrests and identifications", explained Anne Plesz, spokesperson for the Lausanne police. No rubber bullet or tear gas was fired.
....>>>>>>

McDonald's. It's always McDonald's.
In their perennial targeting of harmless little McDonald's restaurants for their pathetic McAnarchism, I think we see the real target of these feral brats: the bond of family.

Say what you want about the food, but McDonald's caters its business to Families, offering a family-friendly environment for parents to take their kids; parents can be confident that the restaurant has taken pains to be of support and service to the challenge of parenthood itself.

How many members of Black Block have spouses and children, I wonder? How many would be capable of the kind of commitment to self-discipline, self-sacrifice and self-awareness necessary to form a family and attempt to function as the societal unit it is meant to be?



How many have the minimal skills required to even work in a McDonald's?

They must see the multitude of citizens meeting more civilized objectives, and envy them their ability to place enough faith in themselves in order to start businesses, let alone families... what other motives beyond simple envy could account for their summoning such fury to smash so innocuous a target as a McDonald's restaurant?
They must see that the bridge of hope that family life offers, requires undiminished effort and unending renewal of purpose if it is to lead to a far better world than the self-imposed dark age paralysis the nihilists select for themselves.

They must see it, and somewhere under their masks acknowledge the truth: that for all their puffed-up rage, they are simply scared to grow up. For all the "guts" they portend to put on display, they don't have the fortitude to achieve the simplest of goals: to be a husband, a father... a Man.

Just who are they hiding from, as they cower behind their cowls? From us... or from themselves..?

Building a family, like running a restaurant, takes a degree of courage and faith that must truly frighten these juvenile delinquents if they feel they must participate in such theatrical performances in order to avoid surrendering to the obvious truth: that they cannot measure up to the simplest standard expected of them...

...to grow up and act like adults.

Young Belgian Criminals Freed Because Prisons Are Full

Belgian juvenile detention centers are so full the police are being forced to regularly release teenage criminals soon after they are arrested, the Belgian papers report today, after 15 young thugs were released over the weekend, no matter the severity of their crimes.

My partial translation of the account carried by the major French Belgian paper Le Soir:

The public prosecutor of Brussels had to release no less than 15 minors (9 Saturday and 6 on Sunday), over the weekend, due to lack of space in detention centers. It is a "dramatic" situation, according to Brussels' francophone magistrate.

"Some cases are sufficiently serious that they require a place in detention centers", the prosecutor's spokesperson said. "But if we cannot find a solution to the placement within 24 hours, we are obligated to let them go. It's a recurring problem, but it is once again painfully illustrated this weekend.
There is no room anywhere: not at Everberg, nor at Fraipont, nor at Braine-le-Château. It's really dramatic and it's a serious problem that the French community needs to address urgently.
...
The latest serious act was committed Saturday night. A 16-year old youth grabbed a 79-year old's purse in Rhode-Saint-Genèse. In falling, she fractured her writst, her shoulder and her hip. The pursesnatcher, well known to police, was arrested and put in custody.

After his preliminary hearing by the judge, he was seemingly freed.

Two other juvenile delinquents were released last week, shortly after being arrested for having dropped a block of concrete from an overpass, onto the driver's compartment of a passing truck. Translated from the Belgian media source 7Sur7:

The two 14-year old adolescents who had thrown a concrete block weighing 30 kg [approx 60 pounds] from the top of the E411 bridge at Vedrin (in Namur), onto the windshield of a truck that was driving along the autoroute, were freed Thursday due to lack of space in detention centers.
...
By a miracle, the driver of the 18-wheeler was not injured.