Creepy surveillance tools the RCMP has likely used against Canadians:

- software to unlock social media privacy features
- facial recognition database from #ClearviewAI
- voice recognition (videos, phone calls)
- AI to detect emotion on social media https://thetyee.ca/News/2020/12/14/Privacy-Commissioner-Launches-Investigation-RCMP-Internet/

If they have these tools (and journalists have confirmed the force signed contracts with vendors like Clearview AI and Babel X) then they are almost certainly using them to monitor Indigenous land defenders, climate activists and anyone sympathetic to them on social media.

The tricky thing about talking about this stuff publicly is it achieves one of the core goals of mass surveillance programs: to stifle dissent by scaring people into silence. However, on balance it's better for people than not know.

I would argue, and many legal experts would agree, that using these tools against Canadians is violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Specifically the right to think whatever you want, express yourself freely, and gather / communicate freely with your friends.

We've seen the end point of unchecked police surveillance in other free and democratic societies, and it's very ugly. In the UK you had undercover police *fathering children* with activists whose groups they were sent to infiltrate. They ruined lives. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/20/the-guardian-view-on-the-spy-cops-inquiry-secrets-and-liars

One important insight from the #spycops inquiry is that the end goal often wasn't to gather evidence in a criminal investigation. The goal was to make these groups dysfunctional (anti-war, anti-police brutality, anti-capitalist, pro-environment, animal rights groups etc)

In other words surveillance was used as an offensive weapon. Not as an evidence-gathering tool. Most of what they gathered never went before a judge. The goal was to stifle dissent, and shatter the groups that still resisted the government's agenda.

In Canada the government's agenda is closely aligned with the oil industry's agenda, as we've seen. When we do get a glimpse of the tip of the iceberg of these covert operations, it's almost always through RCMP surveillance of pipeline opponents. More on that tomorrow.

All this to say -- remaining silent about police surveillance is not an option. Advocating for your rights, whether Indigenous rights that predate the Canadian state, or the right to live in a safe and healthy world, is not wrong. But do not underestimate the RCMP's ruthlessness.

Our best hope to expose and defund these programs through the democratic channels we have available -- journalism, the courts and Parliament. It's a game of whack-a-mole but we can't give up.

And we need more whistleblowers and whistleblower protection, to unearth information like this: RCMP in BC started using facial recognition technology in 2009 https://twitter.com/lithohedron/status/1338587645442629634