Irum Khan
No anti-terror law has been able to productively counter terror. Democracies oldest and largest tried the tactics of mass surveillance, police-state authority, no-fly lists, and unwarranted detention only to fail colossally and damage irrevocably.
Harper’s obsession with Terror Law has the support of Justin Trudeau and opposition of Tom Mulcair and Elizabeth May. If Harper or Trudeau wins, Bill C-51will be enacted, but at what cost?
Laws analogous to Bill C-51 in countries like India, the US and the UK prove without error that unrestrained rulings like these often fail to meet the minimum yardstick of justice leave alone security.
India, world’s largest democracy, had to repeal two of its anti-terror legislations– Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA) and Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA). The Acts were utterly misused to harass citizens, particularly the minority.
Between 1985 – 94 around 76,000 people were arrested under TADA and less than 2 % convicted. The misappropriation of law was apparent in the conviction of bomb blast of 1993.
A bomb exploded in Surat, in the Gujarat province of India. Following the incident, the government systematically targeted the minority under the TADA law. In connection with the blasts, Gujarat government arrested 11 people from the minority community, including ministers in the opposition party. All eleven were acquitted in the Supreme Court in 2014. Eleven innocent people languished in jail for minimum 12 years only to be acquitted without an apology. The apex court observed the misuse of TADA by investigating agencies to trap innocent people.
Surat’s example leads us to question whether Canada’s anti-terror law will provide checks and balances to make officers and politicians accountable, if guilty of misusing the law?
For India, Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA), then replaced TADA as rectification. The Act granted special powers to the investigating authorities.
Once the law was enacted misuse became rampant. It was arbitrarily used to entrap political opponents. Just four months after its enactment, the country witnessed arrests of 250 people under the Act. The numbers grew ridiculously. In 8 months there were 940 arrests.
POTA too tormented minority under the guise of anti-terror operations. Akshardham bomb blast of Gujarat in 2002 is a case in point. Six accused (three of which faced death sentences) suffered eleven years of imprisonment only to be acquitted later by the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court reprimanded the Gujarat government, then led by current Prime Minister Narendra Modi, for its shoddy investigation. It lambasted the government for misusing the Act to convict innocents.
The Court’s landmark statement must echo in judicial corridors of Canada before it implements Bill C-51– “There was perversity in conducting this case at various stages, right from the investigation level to the granting of sanction by the state government to prosecute the accused persons under POTA, the conviction and awarding of sentence to the accused persons by the Special Court (POTA) and confirmation of the same by the High Court. We, being the apex court, cannot afford to sit with folded hands when such gross violation of fundamental rights and basic human rights of the citizens of this country were presented before us.”
Canada’s closest ally, the US, world’s oldest democracy, through its Patriot Act narrates another failed experiment in reining in terror. Post 9/11 the government illegally kidnapped, detained and tortured prisoners. Investigations into military detention centres unraveled shocking instances of human rights violations, abuses and violations of international law.
The no-fly lists under the Patriot Act was established to keep record of people, suspected as security risks, the government prohibited from traveling.
After 9/11, the number of similar watch lists expanded to about 7,20,000 names, all with cryptic or vaguely defined criteria for naming people on the list. Innocents were left with little recourse for their names to be taken off them. Several members of Congress, including Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) and an Indian Actor Shahrukh Khan were flagged.
Apparently, Canada’s Secure Air Travel Act, is not expected to produce different outcome. As per the edict, a minister is granted the right to review an application for excluding a name in the no-fly list. Well, who defines the credibility of the minister here?
New America Foundation reviewed the significance of bulk surveillance in busting terror plots. The National Security Advisor’s (NSA) bulk surveillance of phone and email communications showed their usefulness as overblown and even misleading.
The report did an analysis of 225 individuals recruited by al-Qaeda or a like-minded group or inspired by al-Qaeda’s ideology. These were charged in the United States with an act of terrorism after 9/11. The review demonstrated that traditional investigative methods, such as the use of informants, tips from local communities, and targeted intelligence operations, provided the initial impetus for investigations in the majority of cases, while the contribution of NSA’s bulk surveillance programs to these cases was minimal.
The study led by Peter Bergen further stated that Surveillance of American phone metadata has had no discernible impact on preventing acts of terrorism and only the most marginal of impacts on preventing terrorist-related activity, such as fundraising for a terrorist group.
For Canada’s another close ally, the UK, use and credibility of anti-terror law RIPA (Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act) reached a ridiculous low. Stories of police misusing the law to spy on journalists, local councils using the law to nab dog owners whose pet pooped on the street, county councils using RIPA for making test purchases of a puppy, spying on dating agency services, house of horrors, fraudulent escort agencies and movement of pigs are reported every passing day.
Mass snooping without analysis does not work. It sabotages rationality on the contrary.
Technically too this type of snooping stands flawed. In his book Data and Goliath, Bruce Schneier argues that data-mining conducted every day only appeared to be wasting valuable resources and time that needed to be devoted to counter terrorism. With mass surveillance we might be adding little more signals but we also add much more noise.
Schneier rightly points that governments use surveillance to discriminate, censor, chill free speech, and put people in danger worldwide. Exactly what Harper is doing? Infiltrating pseudo fear among citizens which could later be traded for electoral gains?
A hero to one and traitor to another, Edward Snowden puts it accurately, “Saying you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide, is as good as saying, you don’t care about the right to freedom because you have nothing to say.”
Connect with Irum Khan on Twitter @irumkhan
