Some nine months ago, I asked the following questions:
Considering A) the propensity of the current Canadian (neocon) government to not only follow in the footsteps of the Bush administration, but to actually emulate it; B) the clearly established propensity of the Bush administration to spy and monitor (illegally or not) and, as in many other things, lie and lie about it, then ask for more; C) the demonstrated stance of the Bush administration to demand full information-sharing from Canada and yet arrogantly refusing to disclose all its knowledge (if it really has any) concerning Maher Arar in support of its decision to keep him on the terrorist watch list; D) the demonstrated propensity of the RCMP and CSIS to unquestioningly share data with the FBI and the CIA; E) the still remaining lack of oversight of the RCMP and CSIS; F) the fact that the Canadian Security Establishment (CSE) — the functional equivalent of the NSA — may be authorized once again to perform the same kind of domestic spying in Canada as in the U.S.A., as it was authorized before; and G) the now-apparent primacy of the Third-Party Rule in Canada;
I) 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?
II) 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?
These questions stemmed from an earlier one I asked here:
Considering the propensity of Harper and his Harpies in mimicking and integrating with the Bushies, and considering how said Bushies have no qualms about illegal surveillance operations on their own citizens, I find myself asking this dreadful question: to what extent has the Harper government been allowing similar illegal electronic surveillance on Canadians (presumably by the RCMP and CSIS), and to what extent is such data shared with the U.S.A.?
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.
Remember this instance, whereby anti-war, environmental, gay rights and animal rights advocacy groups were put on a terrorist watch list by the Alabama Department of Homeland Security, because these were automatically assumed suspect to include terrorists?
Or the numerous instances of American peaceful, grass roots anti-war advocacy groups being infiltrated by agents of law enforcement (local sheriff departments, local city police, Military Intelligence, or FBI) to spy/report on them (if not actually trying to goad them into performing "direct action" protests)?
Such things are now par for the course in America, these days.
It is no small wonder, then, that the U.S. no-fly list is an ever growing, bloating database containing more than 900000 names (!).
Just think for a moment about that number and the absurdity of it.
For yes indeed - the U.S. watch list is now nearing one million "suspected terrorists" - like this nefarious thug, or this shifty bastard, or this evil mastermind, or this sonsofbitch, or this anti-American, or this terrorist sympathizer, or this definite islamofascist, or this scar of evil, or all others of their evildoing kind (I could go on and on and on with more examples).
That is not taking into account the National Security Letters (NSLs) abuses, gratuitous wide-net data mining of personal information programs, illegal warrantless surveillance activities, and so on and so forth.
Anything and nothing can - and will - be held against you.
Because in the mindset of governmental security agencies, everyone is suspect, everyone is guilty. Period.
Aided and abetted by the secretive and authoritarian Bush administration, the U.S. agencies have had free reign in letting loose their rampant paranoia, seeing enemies domestic in every public library, gathering and expression of dissent - whether in real life or online.
And as things are going in the U.S., so they are coming to in Canada - slowly but surely.
A few cases in point:
Canada has its own no-fly list, which is shared with the U.S. (and the U.S. shares its own with Canada) - more "efficiency" in snaring "suspected terrorists", I am sure;
The Canadian military is keeping tabs on peace advocacy groups;
CSIS has been monitoring Olympics protesters (and definitely other kinds of advocacy groups), all the while doing everything it can to escape public scrutiny and accountability;
The RCMP has been keeping secret files on Canadians in a highly secretive database meant for criminal intelligence information - in fact, more than 60% of the data stored therein is related to innocent Canadians;
The RCMP has also been keeping files on Canadians in a highly secretive database meant for national security investigations - in fact, more than half of the data therein was found "inappropriate" (i.e. relating to innocent Canadians);
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, as I am left to wonder: "what's been happening since then? What has been implemented outside of proper legislation, if anything?"
Some eight 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;
The Harper government has unilateraly and quietly clamped down on a free database of all the requests it is answering under the Access to Information Act, using a most duplicitous excuse after being found out.
Stephen Harper - the Canadian Nixon indeed and an authoritarian definitely bent on secrecy and lack of transparency, although I still call him Mini Leader for his persistent emulation of Bush's tactics, policies and neoconservatism.
Which brings me back to my questions posed at the begining of this post.
While I am not one bent on conspiracy theories, I do find myself wondering in alarm at some facts which, when put together, paint a very bleak and disheartening picture:
1) As FISA currently stands, U.S. security agencies can monitor phone calls, emails and whatnot outside of the U.S. without the need of warrants - this of course, includes Canada;
2) Similarly, current Canadian laws do not require that Canadian security agencies obtain court approved warrants in order to monitor phone calls, emails and whatnot outside of Canada - which includes, of course, the U.S.;
3) If anything, the Maher Arar affair has shown to which extent American and Canadian security agencies have been freely sharing information compiled into databases for quite some time now;
and 4) the Security and Prosperity Partneship of North America (SPPNA) aims at full integration/cooperation of security measures, police activities, anti-terrorism policies, and even use of armed forces domestically - including, of course, the complete sharing of intelligence databases, such as no fly lists, private citizen files, private citizen informations, etc. And by the way: the establishment of the SPPNA keeps on advancing slowly but surely ...
Taking all of this together, along with the demonstrated propensity of governmental security agencies (both American and Canadian ones) to use indiscriminate, wide-net data gathering/compiling approaches, I guess I now have the answers to my questions above.
American security agencies are most likely spying on Canadians.
But at the same time, Canadian security agencies are most likely spying on Americans.
All of which means that, thanks to the free sharing of intelligence databases, American security agencies are spying-by-proxy on Americans, whereas Canadian security agencies are spying-by-proxy on Canadians.
And its all legal, since the sharing of intelligence databases circumvents law requirements currently imposed on American and Canadian security agencies with regards to domestic spying in their respective countries.
Just do the math, as I just did.
Now think about American databases containing files of private information on Canadian citizens and Canadian databases containing files of private information on American citizens - each in the end legally accessible by both American and Canadian security agencies.
And that is not taking into account that such free sharing between American and Canadian databases allows, if not encourages, the dumping/shuffling of illegally obtained information between the databases, thus bypassing appearances of (or de facto) improprieties.
So - welcome to the Security State of North America, my friends.
Food for thought, eh?
(Cross-posted from APOV)
