The Surveillance against Camas and Spartacus

BLOG POST posted on April 3, 2012 by infil00p

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The Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit early on did surveillance of Spartacus Books. It had the old address before the fire. We can see this get updated, and the V2010ISU made sure to grab the old ALF and ELF material that the store had. It's interesting to see what they said about Spartacus Books, namely that it wasn't a target because of the longevity of the store, but they still treated it as such anyway. Apparently someone advised against bugging the store, which I found rather interesting. Therefore, the majority of the surveillance of the bookstore was outside it.

What is interesting with this document is how I managed to get on the radar. It appears that the Victoria Anarchist Bookfair in 2008 was where they got their target list. They singled out the Vancouver and Victoria based vendors, and they show the various bookstores they visited, which included Dark Horse Books. It seems that the CBSA was involved with the V2010ISU-JIG early on with the Intelligence Officer Kelly Sandhu actively participating in the activities of the JIG. Also, it seems that the Victoria Kool Aid society knew about the JIG investigating, since the RCMP and CBSA got a tour of the venue before the bookfair occurred.

Also, the documents about Camas confirm that the first photo of me from 2008 was taken by IO Sandu, and that they were set up outside the bookfair and seeing who was going in and out of the bookfair. Later, one of the members of ISU decides to buy some zines from Camas for intelligence purposes. It seems that the CBSA was very involved in the surveillance of NO 2010 Victoria. Unfortunately, the records on Camas are incomplete.

Spartacus, on the other hand, due to my involvement has far more information. It seems that IO Sandu visited Spartacus Books. This was back in 2007 at the old 319 West Hastings location. Following this, the JIG decided to do impromptu visits of the bookstore. It seems that the surveillance of the old store was cut off on February 2008. It seems that later in 2008, the JIG took pictures of people who they believed were part of the Spartacus Collective and kept track of them.

After that, there is the lengthy file on my activities which are boring. They decide that I'm an APC member, despite the fact that I've never attended a meeting. They follow me around to Coffee Shops, take video of me going to lunch with co-workers, and even follow me into 7-11. There are other interesting facts in this, namely the fact that Special O spied on the ORN meeting that happened on June 9th at Spartacus.

There are other documents which indicate that there was video of meetings that the JIG concluded supported Black Bloc Anarchists. I'm going to have to go through the list archives and see if I can find information regarding these meetings to see what was actually surveilled. I'm also going to look into obtaining the video, since it is video taken in a public place, there shouldn't be any redactions. That being said, it does reveal who else they were watching.

In short, the tactics of the V2010ISU-JIG were designed to try and use the community infrastructure that was set up against us. The dangers of organizing in the open should not be underestimated, since it means that the people doing the above-ground organizing have to be doing it twenty-four hours a day. Wherever they go, whatever they do, they'll be under surveillance by Special O, INSET, the JIG or other agencies who work to criminalize dissent.

As usual, here are the documents.

• Camas Surveillance Files - SHA1SUM:e84a007fc5338a376e2509a8909da0eaaab33a17
• Spartacus Surveillance Files - SHA1SUM:9137b1185fe2d1d23f9e1f4e64fa3acf6c2bbdc0
• Behind the Rings - SHA1SUM:0eea4e024ba6821f580a04956ced9ee3942e1516
• More Surveillance Records of Spartacus - SHA1SUM:bbb2a9f5a81dd0fe7f1396bd67a1848d450185a3