BC Civil Liberties Criticize Police Tactics at City Hall

BCCLA wants Vancouver 2010 police out of City Hall

Vancouver – The B.C. Civil Liberties Association has released an open letter to the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (ISU) asking them to stay out of City Hall for intelligence gathering purposes.

A report obtained by the BCCLA indicates that three plain-clothes members of the RCMP coordinated ISU attended City Hall on January 22, 2009 to gather information about individuals attending a City Council meeting to speak against municipal Olympic intiatives. The report, released by the Vancouver
Police Department, indicates that two Olympic-related agenda items were “items of interest” to the ISU, as were the names of three anti-Olympic
activists on the speakers’ list.

“Having this activity occur in the context of a meeting of publicly elected officials where members of the public are entitled to attend, hear what is
said and, at the appropriate juncture, speak out about matters that concern
them, is troubling,” writes BCCLA President Robert Holmes in his letter to
the ISU. “We would not want, and we assume that the ISU would not want,
there to be any suggestion of intimidation by the presence of such officers
at that kind of meeting.”

Following the public Council meeting, the three ISU officers stopped
individuals who had spoken against the Olympics during the meeting
ostensibly to invite them to a “consultation” process. The BCCLA has asked
the ISU to stop monitoring City Hall proceedings and to approach activists
for the purposes of consultation through less potentially intimidating
methods.

“We call on the ISU immediately to cease its practice of monitoring the
public democratic process that takes place at City Hall,” says the letter
from BCCLA President Robert Holmes. “We also urge the ISU to establish
contact with organizations through their established channels, rather than
through spontaneous contact in venues traditionally viewed as protected from
police monitoring.”

No response from the ISU has yet been received by the BCCLA. The BCCLA’s
letter , which includes the full VPD report, is available on their website
at www.bccla.org .

MEDIA CONTACTS
Robert Holmes, President – 604-681-1310
David Eby, Acting Executive Director - 778-865-7997

Civil libertarians criticize Olympic police tactics

By BOB MACKIN, 24 Hours, Feb 19, 2009

The president of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association says the 2010 Winter Olympics security squad should stop sending undercover cops to city council meetings.

"We call on (RCMP Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit) to cease its practice of monitoring the public democratic process that takes place at city hall," wrote Rob Holmes in a Feb. 17 letter to ISU chief Bud Mercer.

Holmes was reacting to an incident after a Jan. 22 Vancouver city council meeting where Olympics Resistance Network members Garth Mullins and Alissa Westergard-Thorpe spoke in support of Coun. Geoff Meggs' motion to kickstart community security consultations.

After exiting city hall, Mullins and Westergard-Thorpe were approached by constables David Marchand and Jeff Chartrand and civilian Derek Mcklusky, who sought a private meeting. Mullins and Westergard-Thorpe told 24 hours they would only meet with police in an open, public forum.

"We would not want, and we assume that you would not want, there to be any suggestion of intimidation by the presence of such officers at that kind of meeting," Holmes wrote. "As we understand it, there was no security concern for the meeting itself and council has its own arrangements for that purpose."

Holmes said BCCLA supports ISU engagement with activists, but "even if the officers had the best of intentions in approaching the speakers, their conduct during the meeting sent a message of surveillance and scrutiny rather than openness, transparency and communication."