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History of police investigations of terrorism spotty at best Michael Nenonen - The Republic VIA TheFilter.ca June 27, 2006 By now we all know that 17 Muslims have been arrested in Toronto for plotting a series of ludicrously ambitious acts of terrorism. We’ve been told that these would-be terrorists wanted to attack sites like the Parliament Buildings and the CBC, and even behead Stephen Harper. Canadians were well-prepared for such revelations. In the weeks leading up to the arrests, CSIS issued warnings about home-grown terrorist cells, while the National Post whipped up anti-Muslim hysteria by running a bogus front-page story, complete with Holocaust references, about Iranian plans to force religious minorities to wear distinctive clothing. In the meantime, the US media flooding our airwaves continued giving ample time to Islamaphobic hatemongerers like Ann “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” Coulter. In the midst of this kind of demonization, it seemed somehow natural for the accused to be led to the courthouse in leg-irons beneath the watchful eye of rooftop snipers and submachine-gun wielding tactical squad officers. It was easy to overlook the fact that these measures have fouled the jury pool, stigmatized the accused for the rest of their lives, and terrified Canada’s Muslim community. The theatrics accompanying the August 2003 detentions of 24 Muslim men suspected of planning a terrorist strike against the Pickering nuclear power plant weren’t half so grand. Of course, none of those men were convicted of anything to do with terrorism, even though most of them were deported anyway. Will the charges against the 17 in custody today prove any more substantial than the accusations of yesteryear? There are, after all, good reasons to question the solidity of the crown’s case. Why, for example, did the prosecution fail to give defense attorneys full disclosure of the evidence against their clients before their first court appearance? Is the evidence less compelling than we’ve been led to believe? Or will it be withheld from the defense under the auspices of Canada’s new anti-terrorism legislation? Could this pageantry be the opening act of a show trial? That the accused have been denied such basic considerations of due process, like adequate access to their lawyers, certainly casts doubt on the fairness of the proceedings. I’m also interested in finding out just how involved the RCMP was in the accused’s purchase of three tonnes of ammonium nitrate. Was this a simple “sting” operation, or did the RCMP have a mole in the group who encouraged the others to plan operations they wouldn’t have considered otherwise? Noam Chomsky said that during the Vietnam era’s anti-war protests, the easiest way to spot an FBI mole was to look for the person advocating the most violent strategies. Is it possible that the same thing has happened here? Given the checkered history of anti-terrorism activities in Canada, such suspicions can’t be dismissed as simple paranoia. During the 1970s, as part of the police action against the FLQ, the RCMP monitored election candidates, stole a Parti Quebecois membership list, opened mail without authorization, engaged in 400 break-ins, electronically spied on at least one member of Parliament, and even burned down a barn in Quebec. The responsibility for national security was thereafter transferred to CSIS, but in the post-9-11 era the RCMP has again taken a leading role in anti-terrorism activities. Article Posted at www.KnowledgeDrivenRevolution.com This record of “dirty tricks” underscores the concerns expressed in 2004 by Shirley Heafey, the chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP. Heafey stated that, "The recent security legislation gave the RCMP new powers to combat terrorism. . . . However, the new security legislation did not provide the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP with similar new oversight powers to review the RCMP's anti-terrorism activities." It appears that a national police force that has grossly abused its powers in the past has now been given new powers whose use can’t be adequately monitored by its appointed watchdog. Unfortunately, CSIS’s record also leaves much to be desired, as their involvement with Grant Bristow so amply demonstrates. Bristow was a CSIS mole within Canada’s white supremacist movement. While he was working for CSIS, Bristrow played an important role in the formation of the virulently racist Heritage Front. Following this story’s exposure in 1994 by the Toronto Sun, CSIS came under heavy criticism for apparently colluding in the Heritage Front’s development. With precedents like this, it amazes me that so many Canadians have such faith in claims made by our authorities about terrorist threats in our country, and so blithely dismiss the possibility that those accused of terrorist plotting may in fact be innocent. Regardless of the merits of the case, the government and our corporate media will undoubtedly use the arrests to bolster Canada’s sagging support for the “War on Terror.” The news from that war has been pretty bleak lately. On May 2, CorpWatch released a report documenting the corruption plaguing reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. The report talked about such debacles as, “A highway that begins crumbling before it is finished. A school with a collapsed roof. A clinic with faulty plumbing. A farmers’ cooperative that farmers can’t use. Afghan police and military that, after training, are incapable of providing the most basic security. And contractors walking away with millions of dollars in aid money for the work.” In late May our erstwhile American allies bombed Aziz village in Afghanistan, killing 16 civilians and dozens of Taliban fighters—though how they separated the Taliban from civilians and from non-Taliban resistance fighters escapes me (perhaps they carry membership cards). Shortly thereafter in Kabul, the city that serves as Afghanistan’s “Green Zone,” thousands of people rioted in opposition to the occupation. While we were digesting this information, we learned that last November, American marines massacred 24 innocents—including a one year old child—in the Iraqi city of Haditha. What better way is there to purge stories such as these from our collective consciousness than with a trumped-up terrorism scare? What better way is there to silence Muslims who are concerned about Canada’s acts of aggression in Afghanistan than by publicly stripping a group of Muslim men of their most basic civil rights? In the end, it may turn out that the accused are as guilty as sin. If so, we can expect their verdict to be deafeningly trumpeted throughout the land. It may also turn out that they’ve been subjected to an unnecessary and unjust ordeal by a police force that’s a little too intoxicated by its newfound power. If this happens, then the trumpets will be silent, and most of us, eager for forgetfulness, will hide the memory in a place where we know it will be secure, within the embittered hearts of 17 men and the hundreds of thousands of Canadian Muslims who identify with them. About KDR \| \| Home \| \| Weekly Features Archive	Weekly Weekly Features Archive
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History of police investigations of terrorism spotty at best

Michael Nenonen - The Republic VIA TheFilter.ca
June 27, 2006

Commentary By now we all know that 17 Muslims have been arrested in Toronto for plotting a series of ludicrously ambitious acts of terrorism. We’ve been told that these would-be terrorists wanted to attack sites like the Parliament Buildings and the CBC, and even behead Stephen Harper.

Canadians were well-prepared for such revelations. In the weeks leading up to the arrests, CSIS issued warnings about home-grown terrorist cells, while the National Post whipped up anti-Muslim hysteria by running a bogus front-page story, complete with Holocaust references, about Iranian plans to force religious minorities to wear distinctive clothing.

In the meantime, the US media flooding our airwaves continued giving ample time to Islamaphobic hatemongerers like Ann “We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity” Coulter. In the midst of this kind of demonization, it seemed somehow natural for the accused to be led to the courthouse in leg-irons beneath the watchful eye of rooftop snipers and submachine-gun wielding tactical squad officers.

It was easy to overlook the fact that these measures have fouled the jury pool, stigmatized the accused for the rest of their lives, and terrified Canada’s Muslim community.

The theatrics accompanying the August 2003 detentions of 24 Muslim men suspected of planning a terrorist strike against the Pickering nuclear power plant weren’t half so grand. Of course, none of those men were convicted of anything to do with terrorism, even though most of them were deported anyway. Will the charges against the 17 in custody today prove any more substantial than the accusations of yesteryear?

There are, after all, good reasons to question the solidity of the crown’s case. Why, for example, did the prosecution fail to give defense attorneys full disclosure of the evidence against their clients before their first court appearance? Is the evidence less compelling than we’ve been led to believe? Or will it be withheld from the defense under the auspices of Canada’s new anti-terrorism legislation? Could this pageantry be the opening act of a show trial? That the accused have been denied such basic considerations of due process, like adequate access to their lawyers, certainly casts doubt on the fairness of the proceedings.

I’m also interested in finding out just how involved the RCMP was in the accused’s purchase of three tonnes of ammonium nitrate. Was this a simple “sting” operation, or did the RCMP have a mole in the group who encouraged the others to plan operations they wouldn’t have considered otherwise? Noam Chomsky said that during the Vietnam era’s anti-war protests, the easiest way to spot an FBI mole was to look for the person advocating the most violent strategies. Is it possible that the same thing has happened here? Given the checkered history of anti-terrorism activities in Canada, such suspicions can’t be dismissed as simple paranoia. During the 1970s, as part of the police action against the FLQ, the RCMP monitored election candidates, stole a Parti Quebecois membership list, opened mail without authorization, engaged in 400 break-ins, electronically spied on at least one member of Parliament, and even burned down a barn in Quebec. The responsibility for national security was thereafter transferred to CSIS, but in the post-9-11 era the RCMP has again taken a leading role in anti-terrorism activities.

Article Posted at www.KnowledgeDrivenRevolution.com

This record of “dirty tricks” underscores the concerns expressed in 2004 by Shirley Heafey, the chair of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP. Heafey stated that, "The recent security legislation gave the RCMP new powers to combat terrorism. . . . However, the new security legislation did not provide the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP with similar new oversight powers to review the RCMP's anti-terrorism activities." It appears that a national police force that has grossly abused its powers in the past has now been given new powers whose use can’t be adequately monitored by its appointed watchdog.

Unfortunately, CSIS’s record also leaves much to be desired, as their involvement with Grant Bristow so amply demonstrates. Bristow was a CSIS mole within Canada’s white supremacist movement. While he was working for CSIS, Bristrow played an important role in the formation of the virulently racist Heritage Front. Following this story’s exposure in 1994 by the Toronto Sun, CSIS came under heavy criticism for apparently colluding in the Heritage Front’s development.

With precedents like this, it amazes me that so many Canadians have such faith in claims made by our authorities about terrorist threats in our country, and so blithely dismiss the possibility that those accused of terrorist plotting may in fact be innocent. Regardless of the merits of the case, the government and our corporate media will undoubtedly use the arrests to bolster Canada’s sagging support for the “War on Terror.” The news from that war has been pretty bleak lately. On May 2, CorpWatch released a report documenting the corruption plaguing reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan. The report talked about such debacles as, “A highway that begins crumbling before it is finished. A school with a collapsed roof. A clinic with faulty plumbing. A farmers’ cooperative that farmers can’t use. Afghan police and military that, after training, are incapable of providing the most basic security. And contractors walking away with millions of dollars in aid money for the work.”

In late May our erstwhile American allies bombed Aziz village in Afghanistan, killing 16 civilians and dozens of Taliban fighters—though how they separated the Taliban from civilians and from non-Taliban resistance fighters escapes me (perhaps they carry membership cards). Shortly thereafter in Kabul, the city that serves as Afghanistan’s “Green Zone,” thousands of people rioted in opposition to the occupation. While we were digesting this information, we learned that last November, American marines massacred 24 innocents—including a one year old child—in the Iraqi city of Haditha.

What better way is there to purge stories such as these from our collective consciousness than with a trumped-up terrorism scare? What better way is there to silence Muslims who are concerned about Canada’s acts of aggression in Afghanistan than by publicly stripping a group of Muslim men of their most basic civil rights?

In the end, it may turn out that the accused are as guilty as sin. If so, we can expect their verdict to be deafeningly trumpeted throughout the land. It may also turn out that they’ve been subjected to an unnecessary and unjust ordeal by a police force that’s a little too intoxicated by its newfound power. If this happens, then the trumpets will be silent, and most of us, eager for forgetfulness, will hide the memory in a place where we know it will be secure, within the embittered hearts of 17 men and the hundreds of thousands of Canadian Muslims who identify with them.

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