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Pastimes : Rarely is the question asked: "is our children learning" -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Sladek who wrote (1859)	1/23/2004 5:19:45 PM
From: John Sladek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2171

23Jan03-James Travers-A search they'll come to regret JAMES TRAVERS OTTAWA—Along with foolish, insensitive and stunningly self-destructive, the RCMP raid on a respected Ottawa journalist's home and office was also predictable. The consequences will now be enormous. By figuratively kicking down Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill's door, the RCMP did two things it will regret: It pushed Paul Martin's new government into its first home-grown crisis and focused public attention on intrusive security measures that the country had until Wednesday chosen to largely ignore. Only hours after the raid, the first results landed with a thud. Speaking to reporters in Davos, Switzerland, the Prime Minister again promised to get to the bottom of the case that sent Canadian Maher Arar to a Syrian jail and the RCMP to O'Neill's doorstep. Then he went a significant step further, suggesting security legislation written in fear and haste after Sept. 11, 2001, may need revision. None of that is good news for the RCMP and its keenly political commissioner, Giuliano Zaccardelli. An independent inquiry into the Arar affair is now all but inevitable. It will almost certainly embarrass the RCMP and perhaps other agencies, raise difficult questions about the cross-border exchange of information between government agencies and strain relations with the U.S. that Martin has been trying hard to repair. Chances are the result will be more controls on a force that too often has been unable to control itself. The RCMP can expect to soon get at least some of the scrutiny now reserved for CSIS, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. And the government will be under enormous public pressure to tighten sweeping anti-terrorism legislation that too easily trades privacy for the illusion of security. Demonstrating how fast that pressure is rising, Martin was forced into an awkward denial that Canada is becoming a police state. He was more comfortable arguing that the RCMP has every right to plug leaks that have helped keep the Arar case in headlines. Fair enough. But while stopping leaks and recovering sensitive information is important to the force, what should concern Martin most is the role the RCMP played in fingering a Canadian citizen to U.S. authorities. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- For more than three years the RCMP has been sliding down a slippery slope -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- That concern spiked again this week when CBS television reported that law enforcement officials here approved Arar's deportation to Syria at the same time foreign affairs officials were trying to bring him home. Along with earlier suggestions of Canadian complicity, that contradicts statements by Martin and others that Ottawa was not involved in a decision that led to Arar's 10-month imprisonment and interrogation in a country with an appalling human rights record. Equally embarrassing is the sense that Ottawa is getting much of its information from top U.S. officials, particularly U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell. Along with the RCMP's earlier and far from forthcoming testimony to a parliamentary committee, that suggests patterns identified by the 1981 McDonald Commission are repeating. That should be no surprise. For more than three years the RCMP has been sliding down a slippery slope toward the swamp it finds itself in today. That slide began when Jean Chrétien's administration, determined to reassure a traumatized Washington that Canada is secure, overruled experience, common sense and the royal commission to put the RCMP back in the spy business. That decision recrossed a line Ottawa drew more than 20 years ago when it recognized the fundamental difference between police and intelligence work. What it learned then and forgot in 2001 is that the RCMP has a disturbing history of human rights abuse and political deception. In its watershed report on barn burning, burglary and theft, the McDonald Commission found the RCMP's elected masters were kept in the dark as it broke laws and rules in the name of national security. In a conclusion that now sounds like a forecast, the commission stated: "The common thread which we have detected through these incidents is that of a willingness on the part of the RCMP to deceive those outside the force who have some sort of constitutional authority of jurisdiction over them and their activities." Ottawa responded by stripping the RCMP of its security responsibilities. It created CSIS and its watchdogs in an effort to counter threats to national security without recklessly sacrificing human, civil and legal rights. As attorney-general in 2001, Anne McLellan effectively reversed that decision by giving police new tools to fight terrorism. But she and others working on the security file chose not to impose on police forces the oversight the McDonald Commission considered essential. That error of omission or commission is now haunting McLellan in her new public safety portfolio. Along with the Prime Minister, it now falls to the former constitutional law professor to restore public confidence not just in the RCMP, but also in this government. McLellan will have to quickly demonstrate that the RCMP is in check, that Canadian agencies are not putting citizens at risk by feeding information across the border and that freedom of the press, guaranteed in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, is not in jeopardy. Nothing less will do. torontostar.ca