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Comment by aboutus | Hacker News Reader

In Canada, environmentalists are being labeled as a "growing threat to security" and face increased surveillance (and worse) under the government’s new terrorism legislation[1].

Basically, if you get in the way of big business in Canada, you're in danger of being labeled a terrorist.

[1] http://m.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/anti-petroleum-mo...

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This is exactly the sort of ill-informed, partisan nonsense that such a submission is guaranteed to draw out.

This Globe and Mail article conflates an RCMP position statement on emergent threats (and anti-oil groups are a legitimate law and security threat, some of which are given substantial foreign funding, including hilariously by the Saudi government) with CSIS and then somehow tries to draw it into C-51.

CSIS doesn't care if you protest oil. If you plan on sabotaging oil pipelines, though, yes, law enforcement does and should care.

Surely it's not hard to imagine an intelligence analyst linking oil protests to an increased likelihood of sabotaging pipelines. Since surveillance agencies are seeking to grab more power than they should have, are we to expect restraint in how they choose targets as well?

The problem is that if you are part of an activist group that has "members" who are extreme enough to commit criminal acts, law enforcement does not discriminate. Once a couple of members commit criminal acts, the entire group is guilty by association. We see this with race and religion, why would it be any difference with ideologies?

For example, if you go to enough Animal Rights protests, I've heard that you start to get a "profile" in law enforcement databases (at least in the US). Just look at how "AgGag" laws are passed specifically to "protect" specific industries from activists that want to film what goes on behind closed doors (and bring it to light).

As another example, look at the way that law enforcement in Canada dealt with the G20 summit.

C-51 has nothing to do with that, though. It doesn't tell CSIS to start investigating environmental groups.

C-51 gives law enforcement and intelligence some slightly more modern tools. For instance, they can demand that "terroristic" material is removed from the internet (where jurisdiction applies), which is a right that they already have for child pornography and hate material, with the agreement of a judge and the minister of justice. If they become aware of a subject, they can ask that the subject's ISPs capture data pending a warrant (versus waiting for the process of the warrant and perhaps miss things).

And so on. Remarkably few who comment on C-51 have any idea what it entails, or the scope changes it offers. But they ply, ironically, exactly the sort of rhetoric of fear that the right wing plies about terrorism -- somehow having an advance ability to request data capture == All lefties are going to be locked up.

"But they ply, ironically, exactly the sort of rhetoric of fear that the right wing plies about terrorism -- somehow having an advance ability to request data capture == All lefties are going to be locked up."

Drumming a rhetoric of fear is exactly what is going on now to push this bill: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/isis-recruiter-in-edmonton-enli...

and labeling inconvenient speech as "terroristic" is page 1 in playbook. This whole thing seems so ham-fisted that I'm amazed their are defenders of it.

So actual reality is "drumming a rhetoric of fear" now? Reality reported on by a fairly left news organization?

Fascinating.

One nuanced difference is the intents: CSIS was intended to capture "Foreign signals", it wasnt ever supposed to be used on Canadians. the CSE iirc does.

I think they're analogous to the NSA and FBI respectively.

Or the way the Canadian government dealt with the October Crisis in 1970, deploying the military and arresting 497 people, most without charge or bail.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Crisis

ehhh... this doesn't sound so extreme given the FLQ kidnapped and killed a Member of Parliament, and kidnapped a foreign diplomat, after, over many years, planting a hundred bombs, including a large one at the Montreal Stock Exchange which hurt over 20 people.

The alternative could have been a permanent increase in military presence.

That said unjustified arrests are extremely stressful for the victims (those being arrested for no cause), so I certainly think that's terrible too.

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