JEREMY JOHNSON STAFF Writer The SPP, or Security and Prosper- ity Partnership of North America, is essentially a partnership between Canada, the US and Mexico. Lead- ers from the three countries gather to discuss ways to improve secur- ity and trade among other things. It seems like a simple idea, but it’s also something that is met with fierce opposition. Canada’s SPP Summit in Montebello saw a very grim glimpse of what else the SPP can deliver. The summit held in Montebello Quebec attracted protestors from across the country. Images and video initially reported on the media showed that the protest turned vio- lent. One report from a major Can- adian news station described the scene as “From the start, a few hun- dred protestors weren’t interested in following the rules set out by police. [...] clearly some came to simply confront and fight with police.” It’s debatable whether or not the reports would have painted the protest in such a light if a certain video never surfaced on YouTube. YouTube is a popular video shar- ing website where anyone can up- load pretty much any video at any time. Should a copyright infringing video appear on the site, copyright holders can simply file a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) notice to see the video taken down. The website is hosted in the United States, so it is subject to the contro- versial copyright laws. Some criti- cise the DMCA takedown notice system as something that is far too open to abuse. Nothing highlighted that more with the Viacom lawsuits when videos such one showing a family eating ribs at a restaurant were removed from the site because it was one of 100,000 notices from major media business Viacom — an incident being followed by the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation). Another video criticising a world leader was also taken down alleged- ly for violating copyright laws even though it was mainly original con- tent posted by the user. While a lot of focus is on copyright matters for the video sharing site, videos that expose corruption and other evi- dence that would otherwise not be viewable, as in the Montebello case, are often otherwise overlooked. The video can be quickly found on YouTube by simply running a search with the phrase ‘Stop SPP’ (the resulting video entitled ‘Stop SPP Protest - Union Leader stops provocateurs’). As of this writing, the nearly five and a half minute video is the first result. The video shows the CEP (Communications, Energy & Paperworkers Union of Canada) President Dave Coles con- fronting what appear to be three masked protestors. “This is our line!” Dave ordered, “This is for old guys, grandmothers and grand- fathers!” The protestors in the video were in a designated area meant for peaceful demonstrators only. After a few seconds of the footage, the Shortly after the video was post- ed, sharp questioning ensued, main- ly regarding who those three men were. Major media outlets caught on to the video and reported it just a day or so after it surfaced. Of course, as expected, the reports described the video as shocking. While the evidence at this point may be co- incidental, it didn’t stop questions being raised. Were the men, in fact, police officers? At this point, crit- ics of the protest who were simply disregarding the violent clashes as OVER THE EDGE September 12-26, 2007 The Guebec Montebello Summit SPP Protest Part 1 of 3 - Government Cover Up? >>See the next two editions of Over the Edge for the rest of this feature nothing more than ‘a bunch of hip- pies trying to destabilize the econ- omy’ among other things, were also watching the matter closely. Unlike many previous allegations of police brutality on protestors, this incident involves what some would suggest as ‘smoking barrel’ evidence being viewed by hundreds of thousands of people from, not only across the country, but also around the world. The other bit that may have silenced some protest critics was also the fact that media enquiries of who the men were received an ominous response of ‘no comment’. In another media report, a retired RCMP officer looked at the video and was asked what his opinion was on the matter. He figured that the likelihood of the three men be- ing legitimate protestors was “very slim”. He also suggested that this is a very “slippery slope” and this is “stretching the bounds of proper police intelligence” confrontation with three so-called protestors and union officials got heated when one of the three men was holding arock. When Dave demanded that the tock be put down, one of the men started push- ing the union officials. After some heated ex- changes right up against a police line in riot gear, they were outed as under cover police officers or- dered to cause a riot. Two things gave it away: the first was that the boots the three men wore were matching the police offi- [| cers. The other thing was the green paint on their backs which matched the shoulder pads of the officers. Stunned at the accusations, the three men backed into the police line where they were atrested. Shortly after the confrontation, union leaders discussed the incident saying that they were provocateur agents hired to incite violence in an otherwise peaceful demonstration. Shortly after the inci- dent, union leaders in- cluding Dave concluded that they were; in fact, police officers ordered to go-under cover to incite a tiot. The theory was that if the three men in ques- tion managed to get pro- testors to start a physical conflict, then that would give the police to move in to not only disperse the demonstrators, but to discredit the protest alto- gether by simply making them appear to be a ran- dom radical group will- ing to resort to violence at any opportunity. In Memory Ryan Clarke TYLER CLARKE Propucrion Coorpinator During the summer UNBC lost Ryan Clarke, DJ of the CFUR radio show Ryan Shmyans Time To Shine, and my brother. He was 19. _ Although he never attended classes at UNBC he was prom- inent on campus and in the community. He worked for a few months as a janitor for the campus, and would also show up _ every week, unless he forgot, for his CFUR show, where he’d ramble about crazy things that popped into his head through- out the week since his last show, and play music he liked, which included several groups like Pavement and The Weak- erthans. Perhaps he'll be best remembered in Prince Geuze as the drummer for local band Big Old Eyes, alongside Rob and Corbin. What seemed like the highlight of his day or week was practicing and playing with the band. Whenever the band would break up or have an argument, which happened fre- quently, he would become really concerned about the fate of the group and whether or not he’d be able to find another band with that kind of chemistry. What made him most proud was their last album together, The Hunter’s Son. They recorded a total of two albums and one EP. I remember being annoyed at his loud drumming from his basement room coming up through the rafters and floor- boards, frequently waking me up. Now I miss it. Two summers ago was probably the most exciting time o his life. He got a one-month pass for Greyhound bus trips, and traveled all the way across Canada. He hung out with murderous hobos, Ties 3 and family, and all the land be- tween both oceans. : During his service the room was packed with both family and friends. He loved his friends, and their presence and te- action showed that they loved him back. The friends seemed ‘like a gathering of Prince George musicians and music fans, and any second I expected to see Ryan with Big Old Eyes on __ stage, playing one of my now favourite songs. They didn’t. Ryan was taken from us too | p unique way. He crowd-surfed off a cliff.