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Secret Police Wire Taps without Parliamentary Accountability

by albertacowpoke | June 29, 2009 at 04:21 am

261 views | 84 Recommendations | 11 comments

The normal procedure for obtaining authority to use wire taps for police forces across Canada it to get the approval of a judge after presenting evidence as to requirement.

This procedure involves accountability by reporting to Parliament on the number of times this procedure has been used.

After 9/11 Parliament passed a new law to make the process easier to enable wire taps in emergencies without reference to a judge. There is no accountability provision in this law, i.e reporting it to Parliament.

Since the inception of this law, there have been at least 267 instances that this provision has been invoked. It is widely believed that it has been used more often than that.

This issue raises real questions as to the privacy of Canadians. With recent events on particularly RCMP misconduct, this issue needs to be adressed and corrected. No police force should operate without oversight.

At minimum, police forces should be mandated to report each and every instance of emergency wire tapping.

The CBC article below makes interesting reading.

Bob McMynn knows first-hand how Canada's laws allow police to eavesdrop and use emergency wiretaps without a judge's approval.

He says Section 184.4 of the Criminal Code helped to save his son Graham's life after a group of young men abducted the then 23-year-old university student at gunpoint in April 2006, in what turned out to be a kidnapping for ransom.

"[The emergency wiretap] was paramount in solving where my son was," McMynn told CBC News. "Without that and other fantastic police work, we may never have got him back."

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Barbara McPherson

at 09:03 on June 29th, 2009

Emergencies should be defined, otherwise this practise can easily lead to abuse of citizen's rights.

albertacowpoke

at 09:37 on June 29th, 2009

What bothers me most about this, is the fact that they don.t even have to account to parliament about this. Secondly what constitutes an emergency? If you.re using wire taps for a lengthy time why can.t they get a warrant from a judge. I can.t see very many cases where life and death warrants this.

tikun

at 10:11 on June 29th, 2009

Ah yes wire tapping. Can't live with it and can't live with out it. Need clear legal direction from Parliament.

albertacowpoke

at 10:15 on June 29th, 2009

That is exactly what we need. Intelligence agencies or the RCMP shouldn't get a free ride on this.

Scrivener

at 13:07 on June 29th, 2009

This is a symptom of a global-wide "program" of extrajudicial targeting and punishment that involves pervasive warrantless surveillance, surreptitious home entries, and organized "community stalking" conducted by citizen vigilantes, including off-duty public and utility workers affiliated with government-sponsored volunteer programs and "town watch" stype community policing organizations.

It appears to be coordinated by secretive security agencies close to the seats of power in many industrialized nations -- chief among them, the U.S. Canada, and Great Britain. Victims think they are being targeted by local "gang stalkers," but the evidence convinces me that this is a global phenomenon with involvement of powerful and secretive security and intel agencies. Some parts of Canada are actually affiliated with surveillance "fusion centers" in the U.S., raising serious sovereignty issues. For more:

http://nowpublic.com/world/gestapo-usa-govt-funded-vigilante-network-terrorizes-america

OR (if link is corrupted / disabled):

http://NowPublic.com/scrivener RE: "Gestapo USA"

albertacowpoke

at 13:37 on June 29th, 2009

Thanks for commenting Scrivener, much appreciated.,

The_Cynic

at 18:04 on June 29th, 2009

Slowly, ever so slowly Canada is seeing its civil liberties curtailed exactly the same way they have been in the UK.

If this isn't stopped then you will find out just how bad it is to have every movement watched, every email monitored, phone call, IM discussion...oh wait.

albertacowpoke

at 19:52 on June 29th, 2009

I tend to agree with you. Big Brother, as discussed in Orwells 1984, has arrived. We have the power though in our democracies to stop this nonesense. The population has to quit meeting political decisions with apathy and start getting engaged.

The media for the most part is not helping. People get their news from sound bytes.

tikun

at 22:49 on June 29th, 2009

I must sadly agree with you Poke. Just look across your border and America is in the hands of Big-Brother-Big-Government under the guise of "liberal activism". My My just read the book once again and you will just weep. BTW, it has been 60 years since it was written and it is still relevant. Power is the goal, power is the vision, power is all they want including Obama. Just watch all the spin doctors and hangers-on gloating over their victory from the Republicans. Another shoddy bunch of characters.

We are being led down a path that only a miracle will free us from. Slowly the use of the political climate, and economic chaos is spreading this disease. We all lose. Rant on. Enough.

albertacowpoke

at 02:36 on June 30th, 2009

It may be more evident across the border, but we're certainly not exempt from it in this country. This wire tapping without accountability is a form of power and control.