A 2012 presentation by a U.S. intelligence analyst, a copy of which was obtained by The Globe and Mail, includes a list of corporate networks that names Royal Bank of Canada and Rogers Communications Inc. The presentation is among the NSA documents taken by former contractor Edward Snowden.Dado Ruvic/Reuters
Control of NSA, not Internet users, needed for security
Re Governments must join fight against digital spying, think tank says (April 16): So Washington-based cybersecurity analyst Avivah Litan believes the "only way" to ensure privacy and security on the Internet "is to control access to it." Instead, how about controlling the massive anti-democratic violations of Internet users' privacy and security by governments, including the likes of his own government's National Security Agency, as revealed by Edward Snowden? If that's politically impossible in today's America, how about making use of the incredible snooping capabilities of the NSA to track down trillions of dollars in offshore tax evasion by giant corporate scofflaws, and other socially useful surveillance?
Barrie Zwicker, Toronto
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Wheat Board deal unfair, no matter how you slice it
Re Canadian Wheat Board deal with U.S., Saudi group ends an era (April 15): The 100 per cent Whole Wheat Board gets sliced not quite in half so the 1 percenters, with 50.1 per cent, can control the whole loaf. Another half-baked idea cooked up by Stephen Harper.
Ken DeLuca, Arnprior, Ont.
Considering the fact that Saudi Arabia beheads scores of people every year, I advise CWB employees not to take the severance package.
Doug Paul, Toronto
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Carbon pricing will make Ontario more competitive
Re Ontario's businesses awaiting final details of cap-and-trade climate plan (April 14): A well-designed carbon-ricing system encourages cleaner forms of production, making our economy more competitive by preparing us for a lower-carbon future. It also ensures that emissions don't "leak" to jurisdictions that maintain dirtier forms of production and do not have a carbon price. If imports from states or provinces with no price on carbon rise, displacing domestic production, we are considerably worse off environmentally and economically.
Michael McSweeney, president and CEO, Cement Association of Canada
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Gains of renewable energy far outweigh detriments
Re Power Shift (April 11): I thought there was a disconnect between the prominent front page tag line for the article, and the article itself. The short tag line highlighted that renewables "comes with a heavy cost," but the article points out that Germany has had the strongest economic performance of any major European country while implementing their renewable energy transition.
Yes, German industry will lobby for lower energy costs to compete with jurisdictions that pay no premium for their greenhouse-gas emissions, but I'm glad that Germany has risked being a northern industrial proving ground for renewables. The world's oceans and thin atmosphere cannot continue to absorb 123 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions every 24 hours (global 2014 GHG data from US EPA website).
Bob Landell, Victoria
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Merchants should be able to charge credit card fees
Re Ottawa to expand credit card code of conduct to cover mobile transactions (April 13): We have seen constant complaints from merchants about credit card company fees they are required to pay. One of the underlying reasons for these high fees is that there is no alternative to the credit card except cash. The credit card companies recognizing this have a clause in their contracts which forbid the merchant from offering different pricing to customers using cash versus cards.
If these clauses were forbidden then the merchants could charge the customer a fee for the use of a credit card. Eventually, the fee would find a level that both the merchant and the customer felt that there was sufficient convenience to justify the cost of the card.
Modern cash registers have the sophistication to be able to do that calculation on behalf of the merchant. Problem solved.
Alex Doulis, Toronto
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