Pubdate: Tue, 23 Aug 2005 Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 Times Colonist Contact: http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481 NO PLACE FOR TEXAS RANGERS Increasing Presence Of American Agents Is Making A Mockery Of Canadian Values Canadian cops have become used to co-operating with their American counterparts over the years, but it's beginning to look as if co-operation is turning into reliance -- reliance on U.S. agents to track down criminals in this country, and reliance on U.S. courts to give them a punishment that in Canada they wouldn't deserve. A cursory reading of the newspapers in the past few weeks would lead Canadians to believe Texas Rangers are patrolling our highways and that the streets of Vancouver are swarming with agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Secret Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Department of Homeland Security. We're not allowed to know how many of these agents are here, and we're assured they have only "observer" status and are acting under the supervision of Canadian police officers in joint investigations. We Canadians are notoriously law-abiding; we'll do anything someone in a uniform tells us to do, and we're a little in awe of the resources the Americans have to combat crime. But the zeal with which American authorities are pursuing suspected drug offenders in Canada is, naturally, making us a little uneasy. Some civil libertarians warn that we're surrendering our sovereignty by helping them do it. Four recent cases illustrate this trend. - - An off-duty Vancouver police officer was stopped in the Fraser Valley by Texas state troopers working with the RCMP to detect drivers under the influence of marijuana. - - Canadian police, acting on a request from U.S. agencies, arrested Marc Emery, Vancouver's "Prince of Pot," for selling marijuana seeds over the Internet -- an activity that police in Canada ignored for years. - - A Seattle judge is being asked to seize a property in Langley containing the entrance to a tunnel under the border allegedly used by drug traffickers. - - An FBI agent based in Canada has been identifying American victims of telemarketing fraud so that Canadian suspects can be prosecuted in civil actions in the U.S., using evidence that wouldn't be admissible in a Canadian criminal court. According to Emery's lawyer, Canadian police try to get suspects in Canada into the U.S. to be prosecuted and face penalties higher than Parliament has assigned. What we don't know, of course, is whether American agents are operating in Canada without the knowledge of Canadian police. In 1999, DEA agents and a confidential source entered Canada to operate a "reverse sting" operation to lure Canadian drug purchasers into the U.S. to be prosecuted. A B.C. Supreme Court judge accused the agents of "blatant acts in disregard of Canadian sovereign values and law," and refused an extradition application for a Canadian caught in the sting. Justice J.R. Dillon said the operation, "without the knowledge or consent of Canadian authorities, in defiance of known Canadian requirements for legal conduct, with the express purpose to entice Canadians to the United States to commit criminal acts in that jurisdiction and acting illegally to offer to sell cocaine in Canada is shocking to the Canadian conscience. "It is a serious violation of the sense of fair play and decency that has been established in co-operation agreements for mutual assistance in criminal matters," she declared. If this sort of thing is still going on today it is still "shocking to the Canadian conscience." If Canadian cops are sitting back and giving U.S. agents a long leash to further their anti-drug campaign in this country it still offends our sense of fair play and decency. Mutual assistance in pursuing common goals of law enforcement is desirable. But it must not be used to usurp the rule of law and standards of justice set by Parliament in order to further a political anti-marijuana campaign in the U.S. And it must not subject Canadians to punishment they would not receive in Canada. If sovereignty is to mean anything, we will determine what is illegal and set the penalties we judge appropriate. And we will expect our cops to remember that even those of us who run afoul of the law deserve the law's protection. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth