Where did the odour come from? Is the source to be found in Ottawa’s eagerness to capitalize on the sudden continental anxiety over home-grown terrorism? Or is it in Washington’s rush to tidy up its case files after it was discovered that the FBI interviewed Boston Marathon bomber number one — and then let him go free to kill innocent Americans?
Monday’s RCMP press conference came scant hours after the arrest of the second brother in Boston. The timing offers all the signs that Canadian security authorities were stampeded into hasty action.
The Mounties assured everyone that charges were not laid to prevent an imminent act of violence. Via Rail issued its own statement, further emphasizing there was no imminent threat.
If that’s so, why aren’t intelligence agencies still quietly pursuing leads? That’s the usual way to handle national security investigations, while preserving options to intervene if suspicious activity boils over into an active plot. If nothing overt was about to happen, how did this become an open criminal prosecution?
The RCMP filibustered its own press conference. The moderator announced it would last half an hour before it began. Three spokespeople repeated their message sequentially in English and French, as though there was no such thing as simultaneous interpretation.
The subsequent question period was aptly named, since there were few answers. Later, government MP Candice Bergen appeared on a CBC national TV panel to parrot her approved talking points. Why she was there is anybody’s guess, since the canned interventions lacked any substance, or even relevance to the questions. Even she seemed flustered at the shallowness of her responses.
Opening statements by the RCMP consisted of vapid acknowledgements of collegial solidarity in the pursuit of threats to an unnamed train destined for an unspecified platform. The same stuff fills up air space at civil emergencies and disasters nearly every day somewhere, as if simple cooperation was somehow above and beyond the call of duty. The RCMP wouldn’t provide any information about the backgrounds and the countries of origin of the accused. A complete lack of detail left the impression that they didn’t have time to ensure that their investigation had nailed down such elemental details.
Then, in what appeared to be a burst of wide-eyed candour, an RCMP spokesperson confessed that there was “direction and guidance” from Iran in the background of their investigation. This was an astonishing admission, given its diplomatic and state security implications. It is not the sort of stuff that ever finds its way into government talking points under the steely eye of communications overseers in the prime minister’s office nowadays. The admission raises the possibility that the alleged train derailment plot may have been state-sponsored. While various analysts dismissed that as unlikely, the government’s bolted-down communications style seldom lets such rabbits get loose if they can help it. So why now?
There was plenty of political incentive to move quickly after the Boston explosions, given the potential for a U.S. backlash if suspicions were raised about a Canadian connection. Nearly every U.S.-based incident has led to such claims, as if it is an automatic reflex of self-serving political interests south of the border. The mistaken belief that members of the 9/11 suicide squad entered the U.S. from Canada endured for years after the twin tower bombings.
Furthermore, was it coincidental that the government reintroduced its anti-terrorism bill this week? Maybe. But political manipulation of the public agenda by this government has reached the stage where the Harperites have used up most of their credits when they need folks to suspend disbelief on such questions.
It needs to be said that opportunities for any government to pursue an anti-terrorism agenda assertively don’t come along that often. One just has to consider what happened to the lawful access legislation. The bill, which would have given public safety and security agencies the power to intercept Internet traffic the way they have been doing with telephone communications for decades, languished in bureaucrats’ desk drawers from the late 1990s until it was introduced in the last Parliament. Not until the current government devised its tactic of burying unpopular legislation in omnibus bills were they prepared to try to smoke it through the system. Even then it proved to be too big a lump for politicians to swallow.
It is an axiom of managing the public safety and security agenda in this country that nobody wants to act unless and until public events make it virtually unavoidable to do so. With the week-long media focus on home-grown assailants, audiences in both Canada and the U.S. will be looking through the hedges to see if they can spy anyone suspicious. Opportunities this ripe do not happen often.
The anti-terrorism bill introduced this week has the support of the Liberals, who adopted a similar package in the aftermath of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks. That bill contained a five-year sunset clause that was invoked after the dust settled. Such an occasion to reintroduce it did not come along again until now, when the fear of home-grown conspirators is momentarily at a fever pitch. As well, U.S. authorities have obviously urged their Canadian counterparts to clear up any unfinished business before it proves embarassing. Either that or authorities here did it voluntarily, as good continental security partners.
The conjunction of the Boston bombings, a smouldering national security investigation, public anxiety, pathos and a pent-up desire to advance their activist national security agenda appear to have prompted authorities into laying charges against the alleged railway conspirators at this time.
In acceding to these urgings, have Canadian authorities skated too close to the edge? This may not just be opportunism at work. But the courtroom distinction between criminality and terrorism is a fine one. As such, it’s a fault line that will rally civil libertarian campaigners to the defence of this pair. This stands to become a show trial for those who believe that public safety and security agencies need no more special measures to do their jobs.
Has the government managed this issue so aggressively that it is risking its own case against the alleged railway conspirators? The Mounties clearly weren’t ready to go to air on Monday. The question is, will they be ready to go to court?
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca
Author: Phil Gibson
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