Pubdate: Fri, 08 Nov 2002
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2002 The Province
Contact:  http://www.canada.com/vancouver/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Joey Thompson

THE BAD NEWS: THEY'RE STILL NOT SCARED OF US

When the RCMP special drug section finally made the arrests, the heavies in 
the Asian crime syndicate displayed an astounding familiarity with Canada's 
lite brand of justice.

"They feel rather safe in this area and subsequently were freer . . . than 
they find themselves in other parts of the world," said a member of the 
Vancouver Island District Drug Section upon seizing 54 kilos of heroin in 
an underground operation of global proportions.

"They are not scared of us."

How right they were. Three years after the heroin sweep, all trafficking, 
conspiracy and proceeds of crime charges against 10 of the suspected drug 
lords were wiped out. A B.C. judge laid to waste the RCMP's entire 
investigation and interception of a quarter of a million taped telephone 
conversations that had been the Crown's case against them.

Two years of senior police time, 15 publicly paid informants tattle-telling 
to cops, 11 extensive warrant applications before Justices of the Peace 
allowing for police bugging of 39 individuals' phone lines and 250,000 
intercepted calls, 50 days of legal argument before a judge . . . down the 
drain.

How could such a massive, costly investigation into contract killers, 
counterfeiters and heroin importers have been so flawed?

I'll tell you how: bad judgment -- by the senior investigating officers, by 
the court-appointed officials who rubberstamped the warrants and by the 
judge who let them off.

Let's start with the RCMP who commenced illegal activities in their pursuit 
of the suspects. Affidavits detailing an investigative strategy that was 
designed to curry favour from the magistrates were less than truthful.

A B.C. Supreme Court judge said officers fibbed to get the go-ahead to 
snoop on telephone chats, a manner of crime detection so invasive it caught 
the Supreme Court of Canada's attention in 1990: "One can scarcely imagine 
a state activity more dangerous to individual privacy than electronic 
surveillance."

Instead of employing conventional methods of investigation first, as they 
were legally required to do, Mounties immediately stepped in to tap 
personal phone calls. They continued to spy on those who had no information 
on the importation and conspiracy.

Indeed, their surveillance of choice was much like a fishing expedition: 
cast a huge net and see what/who surfaces, a clear violation of civil 
rights and one that our top court has repeatedly warned our best crime 
detectors to stay away from.

But what did these Mounties do? Repeatedly eavesdropped on cellphone chats 
without authorization. To top it off, they intercepted and recorded more 
than 2,000 conversations of a suspect's family who weren't even in the 
target group. "Less than one per cent" of these calls were related to the 
investigation, police sheepishly admitted later.

These are our highly skilled members of a special drug unit, cherry-picked 
for their investigative abilities and knowledge of laws regarding the 
gathering of evidence.

Heads should roll.

Next problem: the warrants, some of which gave officers the go-ahead to 
breach privacy rights. How many times does a B.C. court magistrate reject a 
police request for a search warrant? Unknown -- there's no statistical 
research available. But if their workload is like the rest of the world's, 
it's unlikely they have the time or appetite to question the actions of the 
country's top intelligence gatherers who stand before them.

That takes us to Justice R.D. Wilson's ruling, which led to the release of 
the heroin suspects. Wilson did so on the grounds he believed you, the 
public, would be appalled at the officers' intrusions on personal privacy. 
To prosecute on unlawful wiretaps would bring the administration of justice 
into disrepute, he concluded. They had to be tossed.

I say the opposite: In my books, for every one of you apt to disrespect a 
system which let police run amok, two of you are certain to disrespect a 
system that lets 10 major drug suspects walk. What do you say?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom