Three years ago last week, the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit was lurking around my apartment building just off Commercial Drive. Before that, they've been waiting outside Anarchist Bookfair meetings, Spartacus Collective meetings, and attending the Victoria Anarchist Bookfair. How do I know this? Because I now have my Threat Assessment from June which has a partial list of every time I was under surveillance. It seems that they weren't watching every single day, but that they've been checking up on me at least once a month, of course I had no way of knowing when or where they would appear, which also sets the paranoia.
This Supplementary Target Assessment went over their desks as part of a larger Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit Intelligence Report. The Intelligence Report discusses the methodology of the V2010ISU-JIG, and once again, clear as day, shows the criminalization of dissent, and the focus the JIG had on Black Bloc tactics as well as the criminalization of independent media such as the Vancouver Media Coop itself, as indicated on Page 6.
It seems that according to the JIG, there's a clear path to criminal action, even though when you look at the evidence critically, it's obvious that this is far from the case. The six stems are as follows, with problematic sections in bold:
If you look at the "Path to Criminal Action", it's clear that the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit takes away the rights of the Person of Interest who may attend a community consultation or a City Hall meeting because they're part of the community and twist that in such a way that they're someone looking to plot an attack. Furthermore, anyone who is planning any sort of large scale action and is working on logistics, such as finding transportation for people from out of town, or find a place for people to sleep while they are in town, or even making sure that people have access to a lawyer if they are wrongfully arrested, acts where the more vulnerable in social movements help out, are targeted. Admittedly, they did place an ugly caveat at the bottom as a "Cover Your Ass" move, however the fact that they have these very legal things in this path indicates that the goal was never about facilitating "peaceful protest" at all, and that it was instead to criminalize dissent.
Later in the document, after discussing independent media, as well as "social media", the V2010ISU then focuses on Lasers, and the fear that people may laser aircraft, busses, athletes and anything else that moves. This immediate makes the report sound absolutely ridiculous. After this, there is the fear of anyone they declare an Anarchist travelling to Europe to recruit additional people to come to Vancouver, as well as calls to fund an Anarchist "Social Space".
The more information that we uncover about the actions of the JIG, the more clear it is their intent to criminalize anyone who disagreed with the Olympics, and the fact that they still maintain these files on all the Anti-Olympic opponents. It should be noted that there are those people currently in Occupy who seem to be intent on targeting the very people who were involved in Anti-Olympic organizing, and those people should be isolated and excluded from social movements, since it is extremely likely that they are currently working with the state.
As usual, here are the files obtained through the Access to Information Act and the Privacy Act. I hope to have more documents this week to share.
The site for the Vancouver local of The Media Co-op has been archived and will no longer be updated. Please visit the main Media Co-op website to learn more about the organization.
Commentaires
heh
"Free the Geek!"
Hilarious.