Enemy of the State, Part II

Last week I wrote about how the 1998 movie Enemy of the State was prophetic in its tale of a nation-state's ability to monitor individual citizens. We get the uneasy feeling we are being watched.

It was no surprise, therefore, when this week to have, as CBC put it, John Forster, chief of the Communications Security Establishment Canada, defending the cybersecurity agency over revelations contained in a document released by U.S. National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The Mother Corp. paradoxically reported, "Forster was appearing before the Senate national defence committee along with the head of CSIS and the prime minister's national security advisor days after CBC's report that CSEC used airport Wi-Fi to track the movements of Canadian passengers, including where they'd been before the airport."

Think about that for a second. The state broadcaster exposed the state's most secret intelligence agency for tracking people passing through airports via their smartphones. The irony is dripping.

In chatting with my sounding board on all things defence, intelligence, conspiratorial, vegetable and mineral, he pointed out a few things. First off, has there been a serious terrorist attack in Canada since 9/11? No. How is it they captured the Toronto 18 terrorist suspects in 2006 so quickly?

All the granola eating whiners who protest at the drop of a hat, want their post-secondary education for free and think that freedom doesn't have a cost, are out to lunch, he said, paraphrasing.

As my sounding board said, "They want instant gratification with little or no perseverance, power and privilege without responsibility. If they don't get it, they are horribly affronted. There is no rationalization disparity between expectations and reality. They want their rights and freedoms, but they want to be left alone. They can't defend themselves with a five round clip and a PAL (firearms possession and acquisition licence)."

At this point I threw in one of my favourite references, Jack Nicholson's brilliant speech in A Few Good Men, where he said, "Son, we live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns. Who's gonna do it? You? You, Lt. Weinburg? I have a greater responsibility than you could possibly fathom … I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way. Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon, and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a damn what you think you are entitled to."

Yes, I know, I'm quoting Hollywood on matters of much more pressing urgency in real life like privacy, state surveillance and possibly repression. We may not have a secret police, per se, but we do have government agencies watching over us. Our current generation has little use for the mechanisms of government except to find them repulsive. This generation has forgotten why they exist.

We did not fight two World Wars. We have forgotten the utter madness of the Cold War, when mutual assured destruction could occur at any time, and on occasion, almost did. We have no memory of radar outposts, like the one near Yorkton, whose job was to detect Soviet bombers coming over the pole to wipe out our cities. These days, with so few Canadians having ever worn a uniform, it's no wonder there's little concept of collective good and security.

They want their gizmos, smartphones, smart TVs and always-on Internet. They also want their subways to be safe and planes to stay in the sky. Yet there are people in this world, who, for whatever reason, want to bring all that crashing down, and will gladly expend their last breath to make it happen. We have to be ever vigilant against those who would do us harm.

Yes, it is possible for the state to track our movements, observe our habits, profile our behaviours and record on video our comings and goings. These also happen to be things our banks, credit agencies, social media and Walmart do every day.

"Everyone thinks they're special, with a utopian dream of human rights and equality. Those rights must be defended, and those people who defend them must do distasteful things. That includes watching people, i.e. through mining metadata," my sounding board said.

"Do you want to live in a country where terrorist attacks are thwarted? That has to be done."

"Verbal abuse will not be tolerated. Well, why should we tolerate stupidity?"

Stupidity would be believing the world will be a safe place if we just all held hands. Some people don't want to hold hands, and we have to know who those people are, before they bloody our collective noses.

- Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at [email protected]