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The Invasion of the Bawdy Snatchers

By M. Andre Moore, Journalist


The Security of Information Act is a slut. It has a promiscuous reputation that was righteously earned in a brothel of adulterated civil liberties. Even though it gets around a lot, it never seems to grow tired.

Ten RCMP officers raided the home and office of feature columnist, Juliet O'Neill last Wednesday, searching for the name of the endogenous fink that leaked a dossier on Maher Arar, who was deported to his native Syria by New York INS officials a year ago. Linked with suspected terrorist, Abdullah Almalki, it was alleged that Mr. Arar attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan and that damned him to a season in the abyss where he was tortured regularly.

Intense lobbying by his indefatigable wife, Monia won Maher his freedom on Oct. 5-over 12 months since his deportation. Days after his statement to the press, Juliet O'Neill, based on information provided by an anonymous source, wrote an article that would invite the Mounted Police to her home. Like Maher, Juliet has not been charged.

The same day Juliet was being violated, the CIA were pressing Congress to force syndicated columnist Robert Novak to give up the source that revealed undercover officer, Valerie Plame, in a piece he wrote last July. As far as I know, the agency hasn't broken down any doors just yet-but you can all see where this is going.

Law enforcement is suffering from a sagging image. Accusations of corruption, assault, bigotry and incompetence has bent the Thin Blue Line in ways it's not used to. They got caught on tape demonizing Native people at Ipperwash, snared by a drug squad scandal, and tripped up by racial profiling, to name a few-every gory detail spattered all over the press. Maybe the Thin Blue Line was ripe to snap?

Attorneys representing Can West and the Ottawa Citizen will challenge the search warrant this Thursday when they will learn to tiptoe around a minefield of anti-terrorist legislation. They could avoid the whole ugly mess by asking why it took so long for the RCMP (about 3 months) to react to a threat to the nation's security. Or they could go for the jugular and ask a more pressing question. Who's next?



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