Memo to Canadians

Memo to Canadians: your government will throw you under a bus if they feel like it.

Quote:

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada's principal intelligence agency, routinely transmits to U.S. authorities the names and personal details of Canadian citizens who are suspected of, but not charged with, what the agency refers to as "terrorist-related activity."

The criteria used to turn over the names are secret, as is the process itself.

Quote:

In at least some cases, the people in the cables appear to have been named as potential terrorists solely based on their associations with other suspects, rather than any actions or hard evidence.

Quote:

The first stop for these names is usually the so-called Visa Viper list maintained by the U.S. government. Anyone who makes that list is unlikely to be admitted to the States.

Given Washington's policy of centralizing such information, though, the names also go into the database of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Centre. Inclusion in such databases can have several consequences, such as being barred from aircraft that fly through U.S. airspace.

Or, as Canadian Maher Arar discovered in 2002, the consequences can be worse: much arrest, interrogation, even "rendition" to another country.

Quote:

"We don't want another Arar," said the security official. But at the same time, he said, CSIS is acutely aware that if it did not pass on information about someone it suspected, and that person then carried out some sort of spectacular attack in the U.S., the consequences could be cataclysmic for Canada.

U.S. authorities, already suspicious that Canada is "soft on terror," would likely tighten the common border, damaging hundreds of billions of dollars worth of vital commerce.

A former senior official, who also spoke to CBC on the basis of anonymity, put it more bluntly: "The reality is, sorry, there are bad people out there.

"And it's very hard to get some of those people before a court of law with the information you have. And so there has to be some sort of process which allows you to provide some sort of safeguard to society on both sides of the border."

Furthermore, he said, "it's not a fundamental human right to be able to go to the United States."

No, it's not a fundamental human right to be able to go to the United States. It is a fundamental human right not to be kidnapped and tortured.