IS RCMP AGAIN SPYING ON LAW-ABIDING ACTIVISTS?

Documents list HIV status and intimate info about protesters

OTTAWA -- Scanning RCMP mug shots of people sympathetic to anti-APEC
protesters, it's hard not to think we've slipped into a time warp.

The documents, obtained by NOW, are secret intelligence briefs liberated
from the shadows by the current public complaints commission probe -- and a
jolting reminder that the RCMP still hasn't broken its addiction to
cataloguing dissidents.

Decades back, the RCMP targeted unionists and peaceniks as if they were
enemies of the state. The Mounties had their hands slapped by the McDonald
royal commission in the 1980s, and passage of the CSIS act was meant to end
politically motivated domestic spying.

But suddenly, here we are again. The intelligence briefs feature row upon
row of head shots used in the weeks and days leading up to the APEC summit
to identify and arrest those considered potential troublemakers by
something called the "APEC threat assessment joint intelligence group"
(TAG), which included the RCMP, local Vancouver police and possibly CSIS.

One TAG brief page obtained by NOW is titled No To APEC Activists and
contains eight photos with names and physical descriptions.

Another page labelled Other Activists has 10 thumbnail photos of
individuals, with names, dates of birth and descriptions. It notes that the
individuals are an "HIV-positive AIDS activist" or a "Lesbian activist" or
an "Anarchist."

Green Party of Canada leader Joan Russow had nothing to do with organizing
the protest, but was still placed on the RCMP hit parade.

Russow had been assigned to cover the summit by the Oak Bay News, a weekly
community newspaper on Vancouver Island.

However, two days before the leaders met, Russow had her press pass
stripped by the RCMP.

According to statements given to an internal RCMP investigation into the
matter after Russow complained, her pass was revoked because the proper
security check had not been completed before she was issued a pass, and she
could not produce a copy of the newspaper or any press identification
on-site.

Media credentials

"They were saying that everything had been done according to protocol and
that I was rude, which was not true at all,'' Russow says of the RCMP probe
into her complaint.

The paper's editor-in-chief, David Lennam, says he prearranged Russow's
media accreditation prior to the summit without incident.

"What I remember doing was sending everything over as requested and sending
a covering letter introducing Joan on our behalf," Lennam recalls, and the
RCMP never called to say there was a problem.

Russow decided not to pursue the matter further after the RCMP internal
investigation dismissed her claim of unjustified use of powers.

But then somebody gave her the threat-assessment brief with her picture on
it. She's listed on the Other Activists page as a "media person" and "UBC
protest sympathizer."

But Russow also obtained what is perhaps a more telling brief labelled APEC
TAG Daily Bulletin For 1997-11-24. The bulletin states that "two members of
the media attending UBC last night as invited observers were noted to be
overly sympathetic to the APEC Alert protesters. Both subjects have had
their accreditation seized. The first subject is Dr. Joan Russow, federal
leader of the Green Party."

The other media rep who had his pass stripped November 23 is Dennis Porter,
at the time a Simon Fraser University student who was filming an APEC
protest march in downtown Vancouver for a labour show called Working TV
that aired on the local Rogers cable station.

Porter recalls that he was shooting the protest when an RCMP officer tapped
him on the shoulder.

"It was kind of spooky because I'm just walking around downtown and this
big police officer comes and knows me by name and brings me away," Porter
says.

The officer told him he had been instructed to take away his pass. When
Porter asked why, he says, he got a runaround. He was directed to the APEC
media handlers, and they directed him back to the RCMP.

At one point, he says, he was told by the RCMP that the reason he'd lost
his pass was that he was observed at the tent city outside the UBC student
union building where a group of protesters had camped the week before the
summit.

Another TAG brief page, also obtained by NOW contains 18 passport-size mug
shots along with names, dates of birth and physical descriptions of those
involved with the student protest group APEC Alert. There is no indication
in the documents that they were potentially violent, had records or posed a
significant security threat.

Not violent

"They basically concluded that our group was nonviolent, and yet they
continued surveillance," charges APEC Alert organizer and UBC student
Jonathan Oppenheim.

Oppenheim, who is included on the brief page, was arrested and charged with
mischief on November 24, the day before the summit, for blockading a
motorcade route on campus. The charge has since been dropped.

The same TAG brief also includes a photo of Jaggi Singh. The APEC Alert
activist was arrested by police without warning, thrown into a police car
and whisked away, also on November 24.

He was charged with assaulting a UBC patrol officer at a protest action on
campus two weeks earlier. But Singh did not strike the campus cop. The
police charge that his megaphone was too loud and thus assaulted the
officer's eardrums.

Released on condition that he stay away from the university campus, Singh
was rearrested after he attended a protest shortly afterward. He was jailed
for four days.

Police had apparently been watching him for months. Singh, who had no prior
criminal record, says one TAG brief refers to an APEC Alert meeting he
attended on April 25, 1997, seven months earlier.

Singh, quoting this brief, reads that he "spoke at a public forum organized
by the International of Hope (a Zapatista solidarity group). Several
different groups were attempting to form a coalition in resisting APEC.
Singh was the most militant speaker. He talked about doing things as
opposed to talking about them. Anti-police sentiment was quite evident in
his talk."

"There's evidence of surveillance of talks that I had given months before
APEC," Singh says. "There are also many pages of reports from events that I
was at, with descriptions and things like that."

Protest threat

The joint APEC intelligence operation wasn't limited to student protesters.
Documents released to the commission early this week reportedly show that
Canadian security forces also assessed the threat of harmless protest
groups and nongovernmental organizations including Amnesty International,
Greenpeace and even the Raging Grannies.

The RCMP would not comment on any of the documents obtained by NOW. And
they would only comment generally when asked what would warrant monitoring
peaceful demonstrators.

"Inherent to what we do, there is an information-gathering part of it, and
that may be on determining to what extent people do things," says RCMP
sergeant Mike Gaudet. "It depends on the nature of the job we're doing.''

Checked-by: Joel W. Johnson