Domestic Spying In Canada: Here We Are

Why am I not surprised at all by this (emphasis mine):

Ontario Provincial Police used emergency wiretaps to eavesdrop on four people during last summer's Aboriginal Day of Action, skirting the normal need for court approval, the CBC has learned.

(...) Under the law, most wiretaps need a judge's approval but police can act on their own in extreme emergencies if they suspect the targets of the surveillance are about to commit serious crimes.

(Edit/Addendum: I noticed that the CBC article I link to here has been extensively re-written since first writing the current post, effectively destroying the two paragraphs I highlighted herein. Nevertheless, the same relevant information can be found sparsed throughout the re-written version now being displayed by CBC. In any case, the extensive additional information provided in this re-written version further corroborates/supports my points and questions outlined below.)

Sorry folks - but I told you so:

Let me put it in other words: because something/anything deemed potentially disruptive (even remotely or not at all) to "the safety and security of Canadians or the integrity of Canada's critical infrastructure" may or may not happen, this warrants the full use and deployment of the government's terrorism monitoring apparatus to spy on lawful citizens.

Let this reality sink in for a minute or two ... or five ... or ten.

Do you get it now?

This means that anything can and will be viewed by our security agencies within the narrow, paranoid prism of terrorism and threats to security.

Anything.

From blogging to writing a dissenting letter to a newspaper editor to a journalist trying to do investigative work to gathering at a coffee shop to rant about politics to reading "suspicious" stuff (books, blogs) to organizing/participating in activist actions (letter/phone/email campaigns, peaceful protests), etc., etc., etc.

Because any such activities may or may not - immediately or at some point in time or never at all - lead to acts which may or may not "threaten the safety and security of citizens or the integrity of the country's critical infrastructure".

So just in case and to be safe, let's monitor and survey and spy away on the citizenry.

And that is the ever convenient rationale of authoritarian security states for spying on their citizens.

In the present case, the specious excuse used to bypass a court warrant was the suspicion that "the targets of the surveillance are about to commit serious crimes".

See? Just a variation of the ever "convenient rationale". Anything goes, however paranoid-driven or mendaciously justified after-the-fact.

Police and security agencies will always suspect possibilities of crimes, violence, vandalism, etc., etc., etc., thus always justifying to themselves the need to bypass court warrants because of "extreme emergencies" - and now we have yet another concrete example of this among many ... not counting all those we are not even aware of.

Once again: it is a given fact that governmental security agencies are not seekers of truth, but seekers of guilt. Whenever they are given any powers to spy on their own citizens, they will do so - for reasons frivolous, paranoid or (apparently very rarely as demonstrated so far) actually justified.

This ludicrous backdoor in our laws must be eradicated.

I repeat yet again: as long as such a backdoor remains, under such circumstances, no one is safe from warrantless domestic spying by our police and/or security agencies.

Anything and nothing can - and will - be held against you.

Because in the mindset of police and, especially, governmental security agencies, everyone is suspect, everyone is guilty. Period.

Since apparently I'm good at asking questions on such matters, allow me therefore to indulge further:

A) About one year ago, the Harper government announced that it was planning to institute extraordinary anti-terror police powers of "investigative hearings" and "preventive arrests" as part of a series of major security initiatives, including beefing the powers of CSIS - then the matter disappeared completely from public view and consciousness. Therefore, I am left to wonder: "what's been happening since then? What has been implemented outside of proper legislation, if anything?"

B) Some nine months ago, it was revealed that the Harper Government was conducting "behind closed doors" discussions in order to create legislation that would force telecommunications providers to cough up personal information about their clients to authorities, without the need for court ordered warrants - the revelation forced the hand of the Harper government to open said discussions to the public. Since then? I keep hearing crickets chirping through the overwhelming silence on this matter. Consequently, I am left to wonder once again: "what's been happening since then? What has been implemented outside of proper legislation, if anything?"

C) On the same matter as B) above, I remember the following disturbing tidbit in the news item which sparked a blogburst on the subject (emphasis added): "(...) Due to a current lack of legislation, the document states, some telecommunications companies choose to provide customer information to police when it is requested, while others demand a court order before releasing any information at all." So my question here is this: which companies effectively broke our privacy laws by complying to the warrantless demands for private data from our police/security agencies, and which ones lawfully (and righteously!) refused? And since then, have all companies now been complying with such illegal demands (you know, keeping in line with what happened/is happening in the U.S.)?

D) For good measure, I reiterate: to which extent is the privacy of Canadian citizens being illegally invaded, through indiscriminate sharing of private information and data, for the benefit of the FBI and CIA - in clear violation of our privacy of information laws? And to which extent Canadian citizens are being illegally spied and monitored, either by the RCMP, CSIS, the CSE, the FBI, the CIA or the NSA, in clear violation of our constitutional rights?

And the most important question of them all: E) will we Canadians accept to be spied upon by our police/security agencies without warrants, as well as to have our privacy being freely betrayed by companies and corporations to our guilty-seeking police/security agencies?

More than ever, we Canadians are indeed riding fast down the same road to perdition as our American neighbors with regards to our human rights, our civil liberties and our constitution.

All in the sacrosaint name of Holy Security.

I say we must draw the line once and for all.

Let us keep asking those questions of vital importance to our privacy, civil liberties and constitutional rule of law. Even better: write about this to the newspapers and to your MPs.

We Canadians either stand up for our civil rights or lose ourselves for good.

Or perhaps we will content ourselves worshiping at the altar of our false God of Security - as long as it remains "always those others" who get sucked in by our awakening Authoritarian Security State?

So - which will it be, folks?

Are you a true patriot or a false one?



(Cross-posted at ACR)