January 13 2003 NEWS Gov't spies turn campus cloak-and-dagger New book details 80 years of RCMP spies on campuses By Caitlin Crawshaw, Gateway EDMONTON (CUP) Spying is not necessarily the stuff of James Bond movies: it might be happening on your campus. A new book by professor Steve Hewitt reveals how the RCMP has been spying on Canadian universities for over 80 years and argues that the secret service in Canada is alive and well in universities today. Hewitt’s book, Spying 101: The RCMP’s Secret Activities at Canadian Universities 1917-1997, shows that the government has a long history of keeping tabs on students, faculty members and student organizations. “Essentially my book is a study of what was called in the Cold War ‘counter-subversion. .. [The RCMP] were looking for subversives on Canadian campuses,” said Hewitt. The Security Services of the RCMP were responsible for Canadian intelligence activi- ties for most of the century, gathering information on potential threats to national security. At Canadian universi- ties, this division collected a great deal of information on the activities of individuals and organizations deemed “sub- versive,” using methods that included taping phone conver- sations, planting spies in uni- versity classes and using paid informants. Many of the activities were not legal by Canadian law, but the RCMP was never disci- plined for its illegal actions. Interestingly enough, Hewitt found that such illegal meth- ods weren't necessarily main factors in raising red flags for the RCMP. “When it came to universi- ties, the biggest source of information was not through telephone taps or mail-open- ings or hidden microphones, but through people-your friends, other members of your group, your organization-who were co-opted by the police and used to supply informa- tion,” said Hewitt. “It included students, it included faculty, it included staff. There’s a clear indication in terms of the University of Alberta that people in the Registrars Office were allow- ing police access to student files.” Not until the 1970s did things start to change, Hewitt explained. Internal questioning of the illegal activities led to the government instituting a specific mandate for the secu- rity service, restricting what the RCMP could do to collect information. In spite of this, however, the RCMP continued to break the law, and a number of scandals occurred in rela- tion to RCMP investigations of Québec separatists. , “The most infamous involved a barn burning by the RCMP security service because they were worried about members requirements: Candidates t a mininvum of three years of study (15 fu re sity, including six p {re at an accredited uni ~ Application deadline the September 2003 prograr is ry 31, 2003 of the FLQ [the Front de Libération du Québec sepa- ratist group] meeting up with Black Panthers from the U.S. They were going to meet at this barn, [and the RCMP] couldn’t plant a microphone, so they burnt the barn down,” he said. But in reality, most campus- es were so conservative no real information was gathered, said Hewitt. Most of the infor- mation collected over the years was never used and most of it was ultimately destroyed, he said. “[The RCMP] were really good at collecting information,” Hewitt said. “They were pack- rats but they couldn’t really analyze what was significant or insignificant.” The author describes his work as the first academic work on Canadian domestic intelligence activities, and says it is largely due to the Access to Information Act, enacted in the early 1980s. The act allowed Hewitt to view many of the documents compiled by the government from their sur- veillance activities. But he explains that many documents continue to be censored. Hewitt was only given access to approximately half of the 33,000 documents pertaining to his research. Nevertheless, this was a tremendous number of docu- ments, and sorting through the material was the trickiest part of Hewitt’s project. Obtaining funding and getting published was much easier, Hewitt explained. “One of the reasons | got the funding was because of the subject. There was the sense that it was a little bit sexy, and it could dig up some dirt” In 1984, a federal act creat- ed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and removed. the RCMP’s role in intelligence, an attempt to separate intelligence work from law enforcement. But while CSIS has taken over most of the duties of the old RCMP security service, a great deal has _ changed. Informants, for instance, can- not be used without permis- sion from the _ Solicitor General, and the agency does not have access to student records as the RCMP once did at many universities. Anti-terrorism legislation from after Sept. 11, 2001 also altered the focus they now take. There is new justification for government surveillance of post-secondary _ institutions. This includes investigating groups that have “the potential for violence,” says Hewitt, and certain students from “nations that support terrorism ... in the eyes of the United States” are given more attention. The Access to Information Act has also been affected: there is a greater justification for the government to restrict information under the new laws. However, Hewitt adds that in spite of this possible justifica- tion for surveillance, CSIS is a far cry from the old RCMP security services on campus. “It’s certainly not to the same scale of the old RCMP, and there’s more in the way of checks and balances in terms of what they can do,” said Hewitt. “[But] one of the things that concerns me, is that the RCMP still has a domestic intelligence role to play, which doesn’t have the same checks and balances, the same review, as does the work of CSIS. The RCMP, for example, was active during the APEC conference at UBC.” STRIKE ZONE University are $2.50 Tuesdays!!! Cheap Bowling! Cheap Tap! 2366 Westwood Drive 563-BOWL(2695) Over The Edge Page 5 continued from page 4 duces Bill 5 in the Ontario Legislature. Instead of chang- ing the province’s definition of spouse, the government cre- ates a new same-sex catego- ry, changing the province’s Family Law Act to read “spouse or same-sex partner.” It also makes the rights and responsibilities of same-sex couples mirror those of com- mon-law couples. 2000 February 11 Prime Minister Jean Chretien’s Liberals introduce Bill C-23, the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act. The act would give same-sex couples who have lived together for more than a-year the same benefits and obligations as common-law couples. On April 11, 2000, Parliament passes Bill C-23. 2000 March 16 Alberta passes Bill 202 which says that the province will use the notwithstanding clause if a court redefines marriage to include anything other than a man and a women. 2000 July 21° British Columbia’s Attorney General Andrew Petter announces he will ask the courts for guid- ance on whether Canada’s ban on same-sex marriages is constitutional. 2002 May 10 Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert McKinnon rules that a gay stu- dent, Marc Hall, has the right to take his boyfriend to the prom. 2002 July 12 For the first time a Canadian court rules in favour of recognizing same- sex marriages under the law. 2002 July 29 On July 29, the federal government announced it will seek leave to appeal the Ontario court ruling “to seek further clarity on these issues.”