(Share widely) Canada’s spy agency and an RCMP anti-terror unit carried out an intelligence campaign against Ottawa-based punk band The Suicide Pilots, documents obtained through Access to Information requests show.
Following the arrest of the band’s drummer, bones (aka Jeffrey Monaghan), the RCMP’s anti-terror unit opened a file on the band, alleging their logo “depicts an airplane flying into the Peace Tower on Parliament
Hill.” A copy of the frightened-looking airplane caricature was included in the 184 page file.
“If you want an example of bloated police powers, this is it,” says Ottawa-based lawyer Yavar Hameed. Hameed notes that the investigation seems to be completely unrelated to the arrest of Mr. Monaghan. Monaghan was alleged to have leaked the Tory Green Plan last spring. The anti-terror investigation appears to have surfaced after media coverage of Mr. Monaghan denouncing the Harper regime’s actions of climate change. Monaghan has never been charged. The investigation is organized through the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSET), and the documents reveal an explicit coordination with Canada’s spy agency, CSIS.
Hameed notes that this case illustrates the unaccountability of police agencies in their efforts to catalog and criminalize activists. The Suicide Pilots have commented that the intelligence effort is another example of state-lawlessness in the so-called “War on Terror.” “The explosion of security culture over the past few years has cost countless innocent people very dearly, in ways we can’t even begin to fully appreciate - but this just straddles the line between disturbing and silly. What’s next? A tag-and-release program for
social activists? We already have a make-work program for creepy, paranoid voyeurs,” says the band’s vocalist NaCl.
It is unclear why, precisely, the band has been targeted. The documents indicate that investigators believe the band compares “Harper to Hitler” — a reference to the band’s song entitled Harper Youth. It notes that the band has “anti-Harper songs” and a “9-11 type drawing showing an airplane crashing into the Parliament.” The documents also make several references to the recently-opened Anarchist infoshop, Exile, in Ottawa.
“Transforming artistic expression into a terrorist thought-crime is outrageous” declares University of Victoria Canada Research Chair in Modern and Contemporary Art Allan Antliff. “I would be interested to learn more about the definition of terrorism under which the police justify their actions. I define terrorism as the illegal use of violence for the purposes of influencing someone¹s behaviour, inflicting punishment, or seeking revenge. By those criteria they should be investigating the CIA, not a Punk Rock band.”
This is only one more example of Harper¹s “War on Terror” gone mad. If a no-name punk band in Canada can have a domestic terrorism file opened on them for promoting an anti-statist message, it sets an alarming precedent for the Harper government to monitor and censor all dissenters that voice their politics through art. All art, all music, is threatened by such RCMP and CSIS monitoring.
KEY FINDINGS:
-The investigation seems to be unrelated to the alleged Green Plan leak.
-The investigation is organized through the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSET). INSET is a recent amalgamation of intelligence and security agencies. It was created with the mandate to coordinate information flow between Canadian, US, as well as other policing and intelligence agencies.
-A PDF of the ATIP is available from thesuicidepilots@gmail.com and Yavar Hameed
Contact:
Yavar Hameed, Legal Council, 613 853 0840 (cell)
Allan Antliff, Canada
Research Chair, Art History, University of Victoria (allan@uvic.ca)
TheSuicide Pilots thesuicidepilots@gmail.com
Matthew Brett is the Canadian Dimension weblog editor and a Montreal-based journalist at a weekly newspaper. Read other posts by Canadian Dimension.
