Bill C-51 spooks UVic professor with “blank cheque” for CSIS spies

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      Canadians should be “spooked” by the enhanced powers spies are going to get, says a national security expert.

      Agents of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service will not just be capable of eavesdropping and opening other people’s mail, according to Reg Whitaker.

      The Vancouver Island-based academic and author of The End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance is Becoming a Reality said they’ll be able to do pretty much everything, short of murder, torture, sexual assault, and obstruction of justice.

      That’s care of Bill C-51, the federal Liberal party-backed anti-terrorism bill introduced by the Conservatives in Parliament.

      “The way that legislation is drawn up, anything,” Whitaker told the Straight in a phone interview. “I mean, it’s open ended. It’s a blank cheque.”

      A former York University professor, Whitaker is reminded of the RCMP’s former Security Service Directorate that was disbanded and replaced with CSIS.

      The RCMP unit’s activities, which included burning a barn owned by the family of a Quebec separatist, became the subject of an investigation known as the McDonald Commission.

      The commission recommended the creation of a separate intelligence collection body, and CSIS was born in 1984.

      “There were all of those elements that were put in place to make sure that in fact that CSIS was not going to do what the old RCMP security service had done, which is run around lawlessly and breaking the law, violating people’s rights and so on in secret, and without any kind of external oversight,” Whitaker recalled.

      “And now [with Bill C-51] they want to go back to that,” he added.

      Currently an adjunct political science professor at UVic, Whitaker was one of 100 Canadian professors of law and related disciplines that signed an open letter outlining to members of Parliament several concerns about the legislation.

      In the phone interview, Whitaker expounded on one of the points raised in the letter, which is judicial oversight over some of the activities of CSIS.

      Under the current set-up, CSIS has to apply for a warrant before a judge prior to undertaking such things like electronic surveillance, covert searches, and opening people’s mail.

      “The judicial warrants that are now in place for intrusive surveillance do constitute a form of judicial review,” Whitaker noted.

      He even recalled that during the early years of CSIS, its director at that time resigned after it was revealed that an application for a wiretap was based on falsified information.

      After that, CSIS put in place a series of elaborate steps before an application actually goes before a judge, according to him.

      “What they’re talking about now is something entirely different,” Whitaker said.

      “And in fact, they’re turning that on its head because what they’re saying is not that a judge is there to make sure that what CSIS does is lawful,” Whitaker continued. “In fact, they’re saying that the judge can give a blank cheque to CSIS to break the law and violate Charter rights and do whatever they consider, you know, that they would want to do in order to achieve their purpose.”

      “It’s kind of like they’re giving them a get-out-of-jail free card in advance,” Whitaker added.

      According to Whitaker, the bill will “turn the judiciary from being the arbiter of what the state can do and what it can’t do…into being enablers of law breaking and Charter violations, which is just unbelievable”.

      He granted that it could be that federal judges faced with this are going to say, ‘No, we can’t, we will not do this’.

      “Now somewhere along the line, we’re going to have to have a court challenge about the constitutionality of the whole thing,” Whitaker said.

      Meanwhile, the bill is making its way through Parliament. And according to Whitaker, Canadians should feel one thing: “Spooked indeed.”

      Comments

      7 Comments

      Mr.Soft

      Mar 13, 2015 at 3:22pm

      Bill C-51 is an excellent example of how your life can be totally destroyed by career politicians.
      Did you really think you could afford to ignore Canadian politics forever?No,not this time.
      Bill C-51 is a product of sick twisted people who have no business existing.
      Canadians deserve far better than this.

      Hah

      Mar 13, 2015 at 6:28pm

      Hey Carlo, Is he a "national security expert" or is he a professor and author? You show no proof of his "expert" credentials so I will surmise he is just another person who doesn't like what's going on. That's ok, but you should really not try to pass him off as an "expert".

      Martin Dunphy

      Mar 13, 2015 at 6:43pm

      Hah:

      Thanks for the comment. Here ya go:

      Reg Whitaker is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at York University and Adjunct Professor of Political Science at the University of Victoria. Recent books include The End of Privacy: How Total Surveillance is Becoming a Reality ( 1999) and Canada and the Cold War with Steve Hewitt (2003). He served on the Advisory Panel to Justice O’Connor on the Commission of Inquiry into the Maher Arar affair; chaired the Advisory Panel to the Minister of Transport reviewing the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Act in 2006; and is currently advising the Commission of Inquiry into the Air India bombing on the aviation security aspects of the Air India bombing.

      And the reporter's name is Carlito.

      Stephen

      Mar 14, 2015 at 8:16am

      @Martin Dunphy

      I doubt "Hah" is interested in the facts. After all, he implicitly accepts the "expertise" of Peter MacKay, Rob Nicholson, and other great minds of the Harper cabinet.

      Sukmi Wang

      Mar 14, 2015 at 12:17pm

      Here's to you Hah. When the government is looking for a convenient scapegoat, they'll piece together a story of all of your innocent moves from the past, and have greater capability of making a coherent story that'll make you the bad guy. So what do you say? You're either with us or with the terrorists.

      jamaicajoe

      Mar 16, 2015 at 11:23am

      Sukmi Wang;
      Exactly same concern we have here in the US with the vast govt snooping going on, The NSA creating huge data bases (Total Information Awareness) of every communications and other transactions.

      Little Miss or Mister "why should I care, I have nothing to hide" is going to learn later in life, when she/he achieves a position of importance or power, that the government will piece together a dossier of all the nefarious people she/he associated with and her/his world will come tumbling down.

      Now we learn that FBI techniques of identifying ammo is flawed, and DNA evidence can be grown in a lab.

      Sukmi Wang

      Mar 16, 2015 at 5:27pm

      Exactly, it'll be more of a concern to those with importance and power. After this bill, the government will have their balls in a vice, manipulating them to do their bidding. Any dissenters, will quietly be brought to their knees - weighing the option of losing face, embarrassment, suicide.