Aboriginal Affairs shared wide range of information with spy agency to bolster Idle No More surveillance: documents

Idle No More rally in Ottawa, Dec 21, 2012.

by Jorge Barrera, APTN National News, March 18, 2015

The federal Aboriginal Affairs department shared information with Canada’s spies and other federal law enforcement agencies to bolster surveillance of the Idle No More movement, internal government documents show.

The documents, obtained under the Access to Information Act, also reveal how easily Canadian authorities assume the possibility of violence when it comes to monitoring First Nation demonstrations.

The Harper government’s proposed anti-terror bill, Bill C-51, would make it easier for federal departments and agencies to share information on widely-defined national security grounds.

Feds put protest activity under microscope in compiling national ‘risk forecast’

Drum group at Sarnia CN rail blockade, Dec 23, 2012.

‘In a true democracy, protest and dissent should be celebrated, not investigated’: Paul Champ

The Canadian Press/CBC News, March 18, 2015

Use of social media, the spread of “citizen journalism,” and the involvement of young people are among the key trends highlighted by a federal analysis of protest activity in Canada over the last half-decade.

A growing geographic reach and an apparent increase in protests that target infrastructure such as rail lines are also boosting the impact of demonstrations, says the Government Operations Centre analysis, obtained under the Access to Information Act.

CSIS helped government prepare for expected Northern Gateway protests

Logo of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

Release comes amid heightened concern over new powers proposed in anti-terror bill

By Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press/CBC News, March 17, 2015

Canada’s spy agency helped senior federal officials figure out how to deal with protests expected last summer in response to resource and energy development issues — including a pivotal decision on the Northern Gateway pipeline.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service prepared advice and briefing material for two June meetings of the deputy ministers’ committee on resources and energy, documents obtained under the Access to Information Act show.

The issue was driven by violence during demonstrations against natural-gas fracking in New Brunswick the previous summer and the government’s interest in “assuming a proactive approach” in 2014, says a newly declassified memo from Tom Venner, CSIS assistant director for policy and strategic partnerships.

Anti-terror bill would widen powers for Canadian border guards

by Steven Chase, The Globe and Mail, Feb 23 2015

Canadian customs officers will have another reason to comb through travellers’ computers because Ottawa’s new anti-terror bill will empower them to confiscate anything falling under the broadly defined category of “terrorist propaganda” at border checkpoints.

A little-noticed amendment in C-51, the Conservative government’s Anti-Terrorism Act, adds the broad category of “writings, signs, visible representations or audio recordings that constitute terrorist propaganda” to the list of things Canada Border Services Agency officials can seize without a warrant from those entering Canada.

NSA helped U.K. spies hack Dutch firm to get cellphone eavesdropping codes

Spy agency hackers breached network of SIM-card maker Gemalto, Snowden documents show

Thomson Reuters, CBC News, Feb 20, 2015

U.S. and British spies hacked into the world’s biggest maker of phone SIM cards, allowing them to potentially monitor the calls, texts and emails of billions of mobile users around the world, an investigative news website reported.

The alleged hack on Gemalto, if confirmed, would expand the scope of known mass surveillance methods available to U.S. and British spy agencies to include not just email and web traffic, as previously revealed, but also mobile communications.

Canadian mounties’ secret memo casts doubt on climate change threat

Intelligence report identifies anti-petroleum movement as a threat to Canadian security and suggests those concerned with climate consequences occupy political fringe

by Suzanne Goldenberg, The Guardian, Feb 18, 2015

The US security establishment views climate change as real and a dangerous threat to national security. But Canada takes a very different view, according to a secret intelligence memo prepared by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).

The memo, stamped “Canadian eyes only”, repeatedly casts doubt on the causes of climate change – the burning of fossil fuels – and its potential threat.

9 weirdest things about this RCMP intelligence report on the “anti-petroleum movement”

by Press Progress, Feb 17, 2015

The Mounties always get their man.

But a newly disclosed intelligence assessment from the RCMP looking at the “anti-Canada petroleum movement” suggests the same might not always be true about their facts.

First reported in La Presse, and again Monday in the Globe and Mail, the RCMP report dated January 2014 warns of “a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels.”

Anti-Oil Activists Named as National Security Threats Respond to Leaked RCMP Report

Protest against Enbridge’s proposed Line 9, in Toronto.

By Michael Toledano, Vice.com, Feb 17, 2015

As the Harper government’s Bill C-51 moves to extend anti-terrorism legislation to include anyone who interferes with the “critical infrastructure,” “territorial integrity,” or “economic and financial stability of Canada,” a leaked report from the RCMP’s Critical Infrastructure Intelligence Team demonstrates how aboriginals and environmentalists are already being targeted by law enforcement for these reasons.

‘Anti-petroleum’ movement a growing security threat to Canada, RCMP say

Protest in Comox, BC, against Enbridge pipeline, 2012.

by Shawn McCarthy, The Globe and Mail, Feb. 17 2015

The RCMP has labelled the “anti-petroleum” movement as a growing and violent threat to Canada’s security, raising fears among environmentalists that they face increased surveillance, and possibly worse, under the Harper government’s new terrorism legislation.

In highly charged language that reflects the government’s hostility toward environmental activists, an RCMP intelligence assessment warns that foreign-funded groups are bent on blocking oil sands expansion and pipeline construction, and that the extremists in the movement are willing to resort to violence.

“There is a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels,” concludes the report which is stamped “protected/Canadian eyes only” and is dated Jan. 24, 2014. The report was obtained by Greenpeace.

“If violent environmental extremists engage in unlawful activity, it jeopardizes the health and safety of its participants, the general public and the natural environment.”

CSIS is about to become more ‘kinetic.’ Bad idea

Editorial, The Globe and Mail, Feb. 16 2015

In the bad old days, before there was CSIS, the RCMP did some dangerously goofy things, such as burning down a barn that belonged to an FLQ terrorist’s mother.

In contrast, the “I” for “intelligence” in CSIS was meant to say the new agency would only gather information. It would not, for example, try to discredit radicals by employing agents provocateurs.

Professors Kent Roach and Craig Forcese of the University of Toronto and the University of Ottawa respectively are right to worry about Bill C-51, the Anti-Terrorism Act, and specifically about some of the bill’s alarmingly vague wording.