Are You A Terrorist? To Harper, the RCMP and CSIS, You Might Well Be.

You might be to Stephen Harper's twisted mind, at least if you're opposed to the Athabasca Tar Sands and the associated pipelines and supertanker traffic that threaten northern and coastal British Columbia not to mention the City of Vancouver.

Just what is terrorism?  According to Wiki,  "The United States Department of Defense defines terrorism as 'the calculated use of unlawful violence or threat of unlawful violence to inculcate fear; intended to coerce or to intimidate governments or societies in the pursuit of goals that are generally political, religious, or ideological.'”

Only, in Steve's dark mind, you can substitute "oil patch" for "governments or societies."

Steve has decided to set up a domestic, counter-terrorism unit to protect Alberta's energy industry - not the government, not our society, but the oil industry.   Not against al Qaeda or any of the brand-named terrorist outfits but against opponents of the Tar Sands.

The integrated national security enforcement team will be led by the RCMP and include officers from CSIS, the Edmonton and Calgary police forces and federal border patrol.

Assistant Commissioner Gilles Michaud said the key to effectively guarding the labyrinth of oil and natural gas wells, pipelines and refineries in Alberta will be to gather intelligence to prevent attacks before they happen.

"When we look at the booming economy of the province of Alberta over the years, one would be led to believe that there is an increased threat to the infrastructure," Michaud said Wednesday.

"We are basically looking at any individuals or groups that pose a threat to critical infrastructure, to our economy, to our safety that is based on either religious, political or ideological goals."

Let's parse that last line.   "Looking at" - how?   Just what sort of intelligence-gathering machine is in the works?   Who'll watch the watchers?   We have a rich history of abuse in this sort of venture in Canada.  CSIS, really?   That pack of bloody buffoons, the RCMP?  "That pose a threat" - what sort of threat - real, probable, potential, totally imagined, deliberately made up?  Who construes just what is a threat?   Even totally legal, democratic dissent could be deemed to pose a "threat" to the Tar Sands.   Where is the threshhold?

This is "police state" shit and coming from an authoritarian thug like Harper to be implemented by dubious outfits like CSIS and the RCMP, the last thing these characters deserve is the benefit of the doubt.