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Freedom Convoy judge questions why Ottawa police officers had phone data wiped during protest

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Justice Heather Perkins-McVey noted that it was ‘unusual’ that the officers knew ‘they had to have their phones upgraded and yet did not take the responsible steps to ensure that all the evidence and disclosure was preserved.’

The trial for Freedom Convoy leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber resumed Thursday this week, seeing Justice Heather Perkins-McVey note that it was “unusual” that two Ottawa Police Service (OPS) officers who interacted with protestors had their phone data wiped during the protests.  

Perkins-McVey said in court that the OPS officers “knew they had to have their phones upgraded and yet did not take the responsible steps to ensure that all the evidence and disclosure was preserved.” 

The Democracy Fund (TDF), which is crowdfunding Lich’s legal costs, noted in a Day 22 trial update that Perkins-McVey found it “interesting that two PLT [Police Liaison Team] officers had their phones wiped” of important Signal chats between them and protestors.  

“She questioned how many other officers had experienced the same,” noted the TDF. 

Last Thursday, during Day 20 of the trial, a second police witness, Nicole Bach of the OPS PLT, testified her police-provided phone was “wiped” of all information when asked by the judge if she had copies of vital information of conversations between her and protesters.  

Bach was the second police officer in less than a week to testify that their phone was suddenly “wiped” of all data. 

OPS liaison team officer Isabelle Cyr testified last week that her contacts were “wiped” clean from her phone between January 27 and February 9, 2022, which was when the main protests took place. 

She noted to the court, however, that she had some text message exchanges with Freedom Convoy organizer Chris Barber printed out before her information was “wiped.” 

Yesterday in court, defense counsel Eric Granger referred to an email from an Officer “Li” which was made to Bach, and suggested that by May 2022, it was evident that the “PLT officers were seeking evidence that might have been lost while highlighting the absence of an email response from Bach in the disclosure.” 

Diane Magas, counsel for Chris Barber, “reiterated her request for a response regarding when Bach was directed to update her phone and why she updated it when she did, leading to the phone’s wipe.” 

Last Friday, during Day 21 of the trial, Bach was again cross-examined which resulted in disclosure concerns pertaining to her testimony on Day 20 about her phone getting wiped.  

As per the TDF, the “defense team requested disclosure about the reasons behind the ‘wiping’ of Officer Bach’s cell phone. The Crown and defense left the courtroom together to discuss the issue.” 

Documents requested by the defense given to them in ‘blacked out’ form  

Lich and Barber’s defense has thus far only received completely blacked-out documents concerning the phone wipes of the OPS officers.

On Thursday in court, lawyers for Lich and Barber noted to the court they got copies of five internal emails they had requested, which were said to be communications between officers, but they were heavily redacted and wondered why this was the case.  

The OPS had claimed the emails were protected by solicitor-client privilege.  

Lawyer Vanessa Stewart, who was in court on behalf of the OPS, claimed that some of the emails have evidence from the Crown, which was shared between officers.  

The TDF noted that “Granger pointed out that solicitor-client privilege typically does not exist between the police and the crown, leading to discussions about the involvement of the crown in such legal discussions with the police.” 

Perkins-McVey inquired to Crown lawyers if the “Ottawa police were in a position to waive privilege, assuming privilege existed in the first place.” 

Stewart replied with a “No.” 

The TDF noted that Perkins-McVey questioned how communication “between two officers could trigger solicitor-client privilege.” 

In response, Stewart “maintained that the conversation was about legal advice received from the crown, justifying the privilege.” 

Perkins-McVey “noted that it was not clear whether solicitor-client privilege had been sufficiently established.” Stewart after this, “then made submissions on the waiver of privilege.”  

Lich and Barber’s trial has thus far taken more time than originally planned due to the slow pace of the Crown calling its witnesses. LifeSiteNews has been covering the trial extensively. 

Last week, bail-related charges placed against Lich for attending an awards ceremony were stayed by the Crown in a move that comes during her weeks-long trial for leading the convoy, which is separate from her bond charges. 

In early 2022, the Freedom Convoy saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government enacted the Emergencies Act in mid-February, leading to Lich’s arrest two days later on February 17, 2022. 

After the protesters were cleared out, which was done through the freezing of bank accounts of those involved without a court order as well as the physical removal and arrest of demonstrators, Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23. 

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COVID-19

Leaked documents: German gov’t lied about shots preventing COVID, knew lockdowns did more harm than good

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Berlin, Germany – 24 March 2020: The sign in front of the Robert Koch-Institut in Berlin.

From LifeSiteNews

By Andreas Wailzer

Germany’s top health agency privately admitted that the idea of a ‘pandemic of the unvaccinated’ is ‘not correct’ but supported it because it ‘serves as an appeal to all those who have not been vaccinated,’ leaked documents revealed.

Leaked documents from a top German health agency show that politicians knew the experimental COVID shots did not prevent the transmission of the virus but advocated for jab mandates anyway.

On July 23, independent journalist Aya Velázquez published the un-redacted miutes of the German Robert Koch Institut (RKI, comparable to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) from its meetings regarding the COVID crisis between 2020 and 2023. Velázquez said she received the un-redacted documents from a whistleblower who used to work for the RKI. Parts of the so-called “RKI files” had already been published in March this year, after the RKI was forced to publish them due to a lawsuit. However, many key parts of the files had been redacted.

Velázquez wrote that the now fully un-redacted files show “that the RKI unfortunately spoke out in favor of both facility-based and general compulsory vaccination despite the knowledge of the lack of protection from transmission and serious side effects.”

The minutes from an RKI meeting on November 5, 2021, demonstrate that the idea of a “pandemic of the unvaccinated” that was propagated by politicians and mainstream media members was made up and not based on any facts.

“The media are talking about a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” the minutes state. “From a factual point of view this is not correct, the entire population is contributing. Should this be taken up in communication?”

The document noted that this phrase, although factually incorrect, “serves as an appeal to all those who have not been vaccinated to get vaccinated.”

It furthermore states that the minister of health “says it at press conference, presumably deliberately, cannot be corrected.”

During the fall and winter months of 2021 and early 2022, German politicians repeatedly used the term “pandemic of the unvaccinated” to blame those who refused the experimental COVID jabs for “the pandemic” and all COVID-related measures. The government also used this line of reasoning to ban the unjabbed from participating in many parts of society, including having certain jobs, attending restaurants, shopping at stores, and many other areas.

Epoch Times Deutsch said that during this time, the unvaxxed faced “a level of exclusionary pressure that is unprecedented in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany.”

During the press conference held by the team around the journalist Aya Velázquez, Professor Stefan Homburg said an entry in the documents from March 19, 2021, showed that the RKI already knew that the AstraZeneca COVID shot had caused several cases of sinus vein thrombosis, barely 11 weeks into the “vaccination” campaign.

Homburg is an emeritus professor of economics who was the head of the public finance department of the Leibniz University in Hannover and who became one of the most well-known and formidable critics of the COVID tyranny in Germany.

Homburg furthermore said that the RKI files showed that the RKI and the Paul Ehrlich Institut (PEI) deliberately gave false testimony in court, for instance, in regard to protecting German soldiers against transmission of the virus. “In this respect, they could now be charged in court for unsworn testimony with reference to these minutes,” said Homburg.

According to the available data, Homburg said that the overall situation can be described as a “deception of the public.”

He told the Epoch Times that “the authorities deliberately deceived the public for years at the behest of politicians.”

Journalist Bastian Barucker told the Epoch Times that the documents showed that when Health Minister Jens Spahn announced school closures in November 2021, the RKI “had long known that this was not correct.”

In parts of the RKI files that were already released in March, the minutes of a meeting from January 11, 2023, show that the RKI knew that lockdowns cause more harm than good. “The consequences of the lockdown are sometimes more severe than Covid itself,” the document stated.

At the conclusion of the press conference, Velázquez said, “The RKI protocols prove it: Our corona policy was not based on rational, scientific considerations.”

“Numerous political decisions, such as 2G [full participation in society only given to vaxxed or recovered individuals], the facility-based and planned general vaccination mandate, or the vaccination of children, were purely political decisions for which the RKI, as an authority bound by instructions, provided an alleged scientific legitimation,” the journalist said

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Brownstone Institute

The Media Refuses to Accept Covid Reality

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From the Brownstone Institute

By IAN MILLER

By late 2020, the media and public health establishment had two obsessions. One of their obsessions involved forcing the public to wear masks, even though the mountains of data and several studies had already confirmed that they don’t stop the transmission of respiratory viruses. The second obsession was forcing everyone to take Covid vaccines, regardless of their actual efficacy, risk of side effects, age or underlying health, or the vaccines’ rapidly waning efficacy.

Neither of those obsessions has abated, though even the most extreme, hardened Covid extremists have acknowledged that the vaccines were flawed, mandates were a mistake, and side effects should be acknowledged.

The media, unwilling to give up on the increased power, influence, and moral judgment it gained during the pandemic, has refused to accept that it effectively ended years ago.

So it’s no surprise that media outlets have noticed that, as we’ve seen every single summer since 2020, cases have increased, predominantly across the Western and Southern United States. Thankfully though, Los Angeles media, of course it had to be Los Angeles, has determined the culprit.

The Media Refuses to Accept Covid Reality

Turns out it’s not seasonality causing the increase, it’s outdated Covid vaccines and a lack of public masking, of course!

NBC Los Angeles “reported” that Covid cases in California and Los Angeles have “doubled” in the last month. This sounds horrifying and scary, doesn’t it? Yet it again, as is so often the case with Covid coverage, is misleading.

Let’s take a look at the current daily average of new cases in Los Angeles County:

Cases are so low they’re functionally indistinguishable from zero.

You can see why the media is scared, given how dramatic this surge appears to be compared to those in the previous four years. And thanks to NBC’s crack reporting and expert analysis, we know why this terrifying increase is happening. Spoiler alert: it’s all your fault that you haven’t controlled an uncontrollable respiratory virus with individual behavior that has no impact whatsoever on the spread of the coronavirus.

“People aren’t necessarily wearing masks; they’re not required to in certain places,” nurse practitioner Alice Benjamin, referenced as an expert by NBA LA said. “We’re traveling, we’re getting out for the summer. We also do have some reduced immunity. The vaccines will wane over time.”

Nowhere in the story is it mentioned that the massive jump in Covid cases in late 2021 and early 2022 happened immediately after LA County Public Health issued a press release celebrating the county for achieving 95+ percent masking rates at indoor businesses. No one seems willing or able to ask this nurse practitioner why she believes wearing masks would reduce this “surge,” if it failed so spectacularly in previous surges.

Endless Misinformation from ‘Experts’

She wasn’t done with the misinformation though. Benjamin warned that not enough Angelenos are getting the “updated” vaccine, which explains the summer increase.

“If you got it in October and later, that’s generally the updated vaccine,” Benjamin said. “If you got it prior to October, double check because if you did get the bivalent which has not been phased out, we recommend you do get an updated vaccine.”

And according to her, everyone should get it. Because the CDC said so.

“Per CDC recommendations, anyone 6 months or older should have at least one of the updated Covid vaccines,” Benjamin said.

Though, of course, no one on the crack NBC Los Angeles team thought to ask Benjamin why the “updated” October vaccine would help against the now common FLiRT variant when it emerged six months after the “updated” vaccine was released. Especially when the “study” process for booster doses is effectively nonexistent anyway. Pfizer and Moderna churn out a “targeted” dose that is supposed to protect against a variant that’s no longer circulating, never has to show any real-world benefit, and the regulatory agencies sign off on it, while the CDC recommends everyone get it.

Rinse, repeat.

Nor did anyone ask her what possible rationale there could be for forcing six-month-old babies to get vaccinated with a booster that has no studied efficacy against the currently circulating variant.

Her comments and the media reaction exemplify the problems with Covid discourse that started in 2020 and will apparently continue forever. A complete and purposeful ignorance of the facts, the data, and the evidence base. A willingness to advocate for the same sort of restrictions and interventions that have already failed. Ignorance of the booster process and endless appeals to public health authorities. Even though those authorities have made countless mistakes and refused to update their findings after being proven wrong.

The obvious question is: How does this type of absurdist discourse ever end? The answer, as we continue to see, is it doesn’t.

Republished from the author’s Substack

Author

Ian Miller is the author of “Unmasked: The Global Failure of COVID Mask Mandates.” His work has been featured on national television broadcasts, national and international news publications and referenced in multiple best selling books covering the pandemic. He writes a Substack newsletter, also titled “Unmasked.”

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