Privacy Act: CBSA redacts worse than the RCMP

BLOG POST posted on April 22, 2011 by infil00p

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I got a couple of requests back this week from the CBSA. I first got a request from the CBSA regarding what they shared with the RCMP when I requested files from the RCMP. It seems that the CBSA only shared the files about me with regards to the trip to Hacking At Random, and not all the other files that they had on me. Only 12 of these pages weren't the same pages that I already had, and furthermore, the files that they gave me were poorer copies, which is why I didn't bother even scanning them in.

What is more interesting is the super-redacted files I got. This appears to include my trips to the United States and overseas between 2007 and 2011, and it reveals some things, despite the fact that the CBSA went overboard with the redactions. The grand total of these files comes to 21 pages. It appears that the CBSA doesn't have files from before their existence in this current system.

The files show that a Kelly Sandhu was responsible for keeping track of every time I talked to the CBSA when I crossed the border, however the files don't appear to correspond to any sort of sane record. For example, I don't remember crossing back into Canada on July 12, 2010. Although my name is on a manifest of a vehicle that crossed on Pacific Highway. I can only assume it's from the time I came back from Seattle to check out Monochrom, but if so, it looks like this was filed late.

The Toorcamp files are a bit more interesting. They seem concerned that I'm in possession of No2010 Literature, and they use that as a basis to disrupt activities. The one thing they left redacted is that. What they redacted was how they photocopied my old Wobbly card I had when I was a member of that group (haven't paid dues in years), and how they threatened me with arrest and forced me to surrender my lockpicks that I got from the Last HOPE to the crown. It should be noted that this appears to be a HUGE event for the CBSA who have been tracking my movements in and out of the United States at that point looking to crack down on radicals. If they could kick me out of Canada, they definitely would have.

They also have a record of me travelling back from Google IO and MakerFaire 2009. Since they only held me for 10 minutes, and since I was travelling alone, this appears to be an almost non-issue. This is probably when they harassed me about the phone I got from the conference, which I went to for work reasons.

The final one is their account of the 35 minute detainment at Montreal Airport. While I got told to go to Secondary Inspection, they were unclear that I was going to HAR on my own dime, and thought I worked in Web Security (I do web shit, I don't work in Security). Also, it's clear that David Ghilarducci is colour blind and can't tell the difference between Blue and Green.

The paperwork that the CBSA presented is incomplete, has numerous errors and is often wrong. For example, the dates of the examination are inconsistent, and the associates who travelled with me back from Toorcamp were each interrogated independently, and it seems that each of our interrogations took one hour and thirty-five minues a piece, with us finally being able to depart around 3:00 AM, and the officer filing their report at this time. It seems weird that the CBSA Agent who was a pain in the ass to all of us, Dale Collins decided to wait until the next day to provide the information to the Intelligence Officer Kelly Sandhu. (BTW: I know that Kelly Sandhu is an Intelligence Officer, I also have her full name, so you can stop redacting IO).

In short, I do expect to file a complaint with the Privacy Commissioner about this to see if I can fish out any more details, because this redaction is probably the worst that I've ever seen so far. I'm also going to be requesting information about these various files to see if I can get more info if I request it, like how I got more info about the Anarchist List.

Files:

• cbsa.pdf - The CBSA's info on me that they released - SHA1SUM: 96a5ca24cc76463c45b41e54f7e10ad444bff3ce
• rcmp_cbsa.pdf - The Information that they shared with the RCMP - SHA1SUM: b4792977ef0ca8b3e62b0a1b581e8746edb35227