Angela Merkel warns David Cameron over freedom of movement

David Cameron has been warned by German chancellor Angela Merkel that she would rather see the UK leave the European Union than change freedom of movement rules, according to reports.

Downing Street on Sunday did not deny that the conversation had taken place, after German newspaper Der Spiegel said Merkel had rejected Cameron’s demands for a cap on unskilled migrants. Sources told the newspaper that the chancellor said demands for any changes to freedom of movement rules represented a “point of no return” and that this would be it for the UK’s membership.

Big Business Winner of Harper-Obama Border Deal

Key features of a Canada-U.S. perimeter security pact were unveiled today in Washington by Prime Minster Stephen Harper and President Barack Obama and have already elicited sharply different reactions. The alleged goal is to streamline trade and hasten transit time for people and goods as they cross the border while at the same time, protecting the continent from terrorist threats.

My view all along has been that these are two different goals and should not be merged. In seeing the outline of the deal, I now feel that more strongly than ever.

No one I know objects to finding ways to hasten the border crossing process for ordinary people or cut unnecessary red tape for business, particularly small business. But in merging these two issues, Canada is essentially giving up policy control in the key areas of privacy, security, immigration and surveillance in order to entice the U.S. to loosen controls at the border.

I fear this deal will have just the opposite effect. The added security measures will add layers to the existing process and may actually add to the so-called thickening of the border -- at least for ordinary people. More ominously, it is likely to lead to a wholesale replacement of Canadian privacy and security standards with American ones, set by Homeland Security. Who will gather and house all the information on people entering and exiting Canada, even to and from other countries? How will this information be used? There are millions of Americans on Homeland Security lists now. Will this information be used as a form of social control, to identify not terrorists, but activists and dissenters of government policy? Once your name is on a list, how will you challenge it?

British human rights activist denied entry to Canada

A well-travelled British human rights activist and former Guantanamo Bay detainee said he was barred from boarding a direct flight from London to Toronto Friday because of concerns the aircraft could be diverted to the U.S.

Moazzam Begg was to speak at a Saturday conference on Islamophobia organized by the Canadian lawyer for Omar Khadr, 24, the Toronto-born Guantanamo prisoner convicted last fall of war crimes.

Begg said airline agents told him Canada’s High Commission in London informed them the issue was one of security. “They said to me the reason why they would not board me and take me to Canada is because, in the unlikely event they were rerouted to America, there could be a security concern,” Begg told the Star by telephone.

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