V2010ISU and the VMC: The latest ATIP

BLOG POST posted on March 1, 2012 by infil00p

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I decided to ask about the VMC, and even though I know that there is a lot more information, I managed to get this from the RCMP without having to get the permission of the individual contributors.

It appears that the surveillance of the Dominion started in 2008, although this isn't clear from the document, and that the Dominion itself was a task, similar to how individuals were tasks. However, the documents just show the RCMP conducting Open Source Intelligence on the upcoming releases of the documents, which makes sense since the RCMP are probably one of the most dedicated readers of the Dominion and the Media Coop.

The redactions on this are interesting,since they hit 16(1)(a)(c), 16(2) and 19(1) of the Act. 19(2) is the familiar protection of privacy clause where other persons of interest are obscured, but here's 16(1):

16. (1) The head of a government institution may refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains
(a) information obtained or prepared by any government institution, or part of any government institution, that is an investigative body specified in the regulations in the course of lawful investigations pertaining to
(i) the detection, prevention or suppression of crime,
(ii) the enforcement of any law of Canada or a province, or
(iii) activities suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada within the meaning of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act,
if the record came into existence less than twenty years prior to the request;

(b) information relating to investigative techniques or plans for specific lawful investigations;
(c) information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to be injurious to the enforcement of any law of Canada or a province or the conduct of lawful investigations, including, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, any such information
(i) relating to the existence or nature of a particular investigation,
(ii) that would reveal the identity of a confidential source of information, or
(iii) that was obtained or prepared in the course of an investigation; or
(d) information the disclosure of which could reasonably be expected to be injurious to the security of penal institutions.

So, while we're not being slammed by the notorious 16(1)(b), we are stuck with a large amount of information that is redacted. At any rate, here are the documents. I'm hoping to get more documents detailing the surveillance of Anarchist Bookfairs, Bookstores and other infoshops, which I think is the most damning of the V2010ISU-JIG's activities. I'm trying to get more details from Normand about that, we also have 16(2), which is:

(2) The head of a government institution may refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains information that could reasonably be expected to facilitate the commission of an offence, including, without restricting the generality of the foregoing, any such information
(a) on criminal methods or techniques;
(b) that is technical information relating to weapons or potential weapons; or
(c) on the vulnerability of particular buildings or other structures or systems, including computer or communication systems, or methods employed to protect such buildings or other structures or systems.

I would bet that it's 16(2)(a), since the Vancouver Media Coop doesn't have any weapons and I don't think the RCMP would have found the security hole on the VMC's platform that was used during the Olympics and the G20.

At any rate, here are the files. I apologize for the lack of descriptiveness in these files, this is truly a case where what's not in the file is more interesting than what is actually there:

• A_4435.pdf
• B_4435.pdf
• C_4435.pdf