Journalism wanted

I have a number of questions about recent G20 happenings. In more or less chronological order:

1. On June 16, it was announced that health cards wouldn't count as ID for the security zone. Why not? What does this achieve from a security perspective? What aspect of health cards makes them inadequate as ID? Why did they announce this too late for anyone to acquire ID that was considered acceptable in time for the summit? The nature of health cards hasn't changed. Why didn't they know they would be unacceptable earlier? What do they want people who don't have a driver's licence or a passport but do legitimately need to access the security zone to do? What are the intentions of the people who made this rule?

2. Why were the new laws not announced and widely publicized before the first person was arrested under them? What is the security/law enforcement benefit to doing this? Presumably laws are made because they want people to follow them, and to get people to follow them they have to tell people about them. If this is not the case, why not? What were their intentions?

3. I have heard a number of reports from actual journalists (including the Toronto Star's G20 blog and Steve Paikin's twitter feed) that police were banging their batons against their shields. What is their intention in doing this? I'm not in the crowd in question, but it seems like the sort of thing that could escalate.

4. Who exactly are these black bloc people? What are their goals? Why do they think their goals are best achieved through violent action? Why did they choose to take violent action in a way that would be detrimental to the safety and reputation of peaceful demonstrators? Are they opposed to what the peaceful demonstrators stand for? I would very much like to see an extensive interview with some black bloc people, and I think protecting the sources' anonymity if necessary would be appropriate. We have a right to know at the very least the reasoning, goals, and intentions of the people who are hurting our city's body, soul and reputation and setting legitimate activism back decades.

5. What was the ratio of black bloc people to legitimate demonstrators to police? How does this compare to demonstrator/police ratios at demonstrations? I've heard reports that the police weren't doing anything to stop the black bloc people from destroying property. Is this true? If so, were the ratios such that it would not have been possible to do so? Is there another law enforcement reason? Where else were the police deployed and why?

6. I've heard from a number of eyewitness sources via twitter that the police seemed to be attempting to rather aggressively drive protesters out of Queen's Park. But Queen's Park is the designated protest area. What's the story here? Did something change? Why wouldn't you want to keep protesters inside the protest area? What triggered the aggressiveness?

I have a couple more things that are really more ideas for long-term research rather than journalism, so I'll be making another blog post either tonight or tomorrow.

I'll close with a conspiracy theory. If you're just tuning in to this blog, I like to make conspiracy theories - it's a bit of a hobby. (Maybe I should give them their own blog category?) I tend not to actually believe the conspiracy theories I make, I just find it an entertaining intellectual exercise to assemble the elements of a situation in a way that produces a good conspiracy theory.

So here's my conspiracy theory for today's events: the black bloc people are ultimately operatives/tools of the powers that be, sent into today's protests for the express purpose of making the unprecedented security measures look justified, and perhaps also to distract from what the G20 actually is or is not doing.

I'm sure no one involved likes that conspiracy theory. I'm sure even those not involved want it to be false. Therefore, I hope everyone will be absolutely scrupulous in disclosing and reporting all the facts and all the truth in order to disprove me beyond any doubt, and the unanswered questions won't be left to slide just because the barricades have come down and the rainbow flags have gone up.