For all the cheerleaders for the expansion of invasive powers for the security services like CSIS and the RCMP with the help of Wikipedia and the net I’ve put together a little primer on the reasons why you might think hard before you hand broad powers over to these “paragons” of Canadian protection. Just a little history: we can probably skip recounting proven RCMP activities relating to its suppression of the Winnipeg general Strike in 1919 or the On-to-Ottawa Trek in 1935. Let’s just start with the RCMP Security Service’s activities in the 1970s… • Justice David McDonald heads a four-year Royal Commission from 1977-81 which found: o In April 1971, a team of RCMP officers broke into the storage facilities of Richelieu Explosives, and stole an unspecified amount of dynamite. A year later, in April 1972, officers hid four cases of dynamite in Mont Saint-Grégoire, in an attempt to link the explosives with the FLQ (Front de libération du Québec). This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 31, 1977. o A series of more than 400 illegal break-ins by the RCMP were revealed by Vancouver Sun reporter John Sawatsky in his front-page exposé headline Trail of break-in leads to RCMP cover-up on December 7, 1976. The story won the Vancouver Sun the Michener Award that year. o It was uncovered that the October 6, 1972, break-in at the Agence de Presse Libre du Québec office, had been the work of an RCMP investigation dubbed Operation Bricole. More than a thousand significant files stolen or damaged. One RCMP, one Surete du Quebec and one Montreal police officer pleaded guilty on June 16, 1977, but were given UNCONDITIONAL DISCHARGEs. o A similar break-in occurred at the same time, at the office of the Mouvement pour la Défense des Prisonniers Politiques Québécois. o In 1974, RCMP Security Service Corporal Robert Samson was arrested AT A HOSPITAL AFTER A FAILED BOMBING - the bomb exploded while in his hands, causing him to lose some fingers and tearing his eardrums - at the house of Sam Steinberg, founder of Steinberg Foods in Montreal. While this bombing was not sanctioned by the RCMP, at trial he announced that he had done much worse on behalf of the RCMP, and admitted he had been involved in the APLQ break-in. o On April 19, 1978, the Director of the RCMP criminal operations branch, admitted that the RCMP had entered more than 400 premises WITHOUT WARRANT since 1970. o On the night of May 6, 1972, having failed to convince a judge to wiretap a suspected meeting between members of the FLQ and American radical activists from the Black Panther Party, the RCMP Security Service BURNED DOWN A BARN where they suspected that separatists were planning to meet. with members of the Black Panthers from the United States. This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 31, 1977. o In 1973, 30 members of the RCMP broke into the offices of the separatist but perfectly legally constituted Parti Quebecois and stole computerised members list. o Lest you think RCMP duplicity is ancient history: in October 2008, it was revealed that the RCMP had USED TAXPAYER MONEY to pay individuals to write negative, politically biased reports about the Vancouver safe injection site, Insite. In addition to this, memos were distributed referring to British Columbias Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS - a nationally renowned repository of some of the top AIDS research in the world - as the Centre for Excrements, and SUGGESTING STACKING RADIO SHOWS with callers against Insite. • Justice McDonald’s commission recommendations in 1981 led to the disbanding of the disgraced RCMP Security Service and the establishment of CSIS in 1984. o 1988 CSIS destroys 381,096 security files relating to the activities of its predecessor RCMP Security Service and the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that CSIS can impose a total blackout of information in its files about citizens in the name of national security. o The judgment in 2000 concluded a 14-year battle by lawyer Clayton Ruby to gain access to CSIS files involving his lifelong civil-liberties crusades and political stands. Mr. Ruby has NEVER been charged with a criminal offence. The ruling makes it virtually impossible to investigate o CSIS agents POSING AS DIPLOMATS interrogated 13-year-old Omar Khadr, a Canadian arrested in Afghanistan, at Guantanamo Bay; the Canadian government was later accused of violating international law. o CSIS considers opposition to Enbridge’s pipeline project a potential national security threat. The Vancouver Observer also obtained internal National Energy Board emails under the Access to Information Act that showed the agency “coordinated the gathering of intelligence” on opponents of the Alberta tar sands with CSIS, the RCMP and energy firms Enbridge and TransCanada. o RCMP speakers claim Michael Zehaf-Bibeau’s mother told them he wanted to go Syria to study Islam… Ms. Bibeau denies the statement and maintains her son wanted to go to Saudi Arabia to study Islam… The RCMP has back tracked and said it gave Syria as the destination because many radicals going to Syria have to travel through other Arab countries first… The RCMP has already begun to manipulate the truth to meet its own ends….
Posted on: Sun, 26 Oct 2014 14:41:25 +0000
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