Terrorism, Censorship & Illiberalism

• Are there any circumstances under which the government should suspend civil rights in the name of national security?

  • Pandemics/proliferation/terrorism/war/natural disasters: which causes examination of public safety acts.

October / FLQ Crisis - 1970

• FLQ: Federation de Liberation du Quebec

  • destruction of Canadian symbols

  • mail bombs

  • kidnapping

• In October 1970, James Cross, a British Diplomat; and Pierre Laporte, the Quebec Labour Minister; were kidnapped.

  • Cross was rescued.

  • LaPorte was murdered.

• The army was deployed to protect politicians & buildings

• Insurrection & the War Measures Act

  • enabled Warrantless arrests without lawyers and charges being laid

  • Invoked by Pierre Trudeau

  • Suspended civil rights in Canada

• 440 were arrested and released without charges.

Emergencies Act - 1980

Scope

• Public welfare emergencies (natural disasters)

• Public order emergencies (national security)

• International emergencies (sovereignty & security)

• War emergencies

  The repeal and replacement of the War Measures Act

9/11 & liberal democracies

• Concerns issues of mobility, legal rights & the freedoms of speech and religion. Freedom vs. security.

Patriot Act & the Anti-Terrorism Act

• Passed in the wake of 9/11: public security legislation.

• Patriot Act Scope:

  • enabled wire tapping

  • searches without probable cause

  • monitored library records

  • 7 day incarceration without charge

    • indefinite detention if charged

No Fly Lists

• National security & privacy risks → the redress list.

COINTELPRO → late 50s - 1971

• The FBI and other security agencies spy on suspected threats.

  • e.g. monitoring Socialist congressman Church & Martin Luther King

  • A program led by J. Edgar Hoover: his “secret files”

    • Leads to the introduction of oversight over the FBI.

Case Study: Maher Arar

• What can go wrong with intense surveillance and restricted liberties?

  • FBI/CIA/NSA → intelligence agencies in the USA

  • GHQ/MI5/MI6 in Britain

  • CSIS/CSE in Canada

  • USA/UK/CAN/AUS/NZ → the Five Eyes alliance of intelligence sharing

• Maher Arar is travelling to Montreal; disappears in JFK and is tortured and incarcerated because he was on a US terror watchlist.

  • He is arrested and detained per the provisions set by the Patriot Act.

  • He is renditioned and sent to Syria.

  • Canadian officials say that Maher Arar’s arrest was completely inaccurate and that he should not have been on a government watchlist.

• Guantanamo Bay: an off-shore prison in Cuba, which means the U.S. can keep terrorist suspects off-shore and not have an obligation to follow the U.S. Constitution or Bill of Rights.

Mass Surveillance

• Edward Snowden → exercises to privacy and speech

  • hacking ISPs and websites with subpoenas

  • analysis of metadata like needles and haystacks

  • Are we entitled to privacy on the internet? Are we willing to relinquish the right to privacy to stop terrorists?

• Freedom of the press is threatened by this idea of mass surveillance.

• FISA Court: a secret appeals court established by the PATRIOT ACT that ended up approving everything.