The Canada Border Services Agency is in the process of deploying new hi-rez cameras in customs-controlled areas of airports across the country. What makes these cameras different is that they will also be equipped with a microphone so that not only will security agents be keeping a watchful eye on actions but will also be able to listen in on your conversation; that seems one intrusion too many.
Now, as a society we have given up a lot in the name of ‘security’ from terrorism. However at a some point you have to ask, what is the point of being secure in a country that has eliminated the meaning of freedom? Okay, that may be slightly overstating the situation but there is a great need for a cost benefit analysis on what we have given up for what gain in security. The money spent globally on enhanced security could have literally wiped out hunger, the climate change with enough left over to put a manned station on Mars.
We have been told by our current government that we need to cut back on luxuries like health care for refugees, the environments, and retirement because there is just not enough money to go around and yet the Harper government found enough to deploy this Orwellian security enhancement.
Now on the surface, this may not sound such a big deal. However it takes an ominous turn when you hear that the first airport to have this new invasive surveillance is Ottawa’s MacDonald Cartier Airport. If you are attempting to avert terrorist type attacks you would have chosen Vancouver or Toronto airports, the nation’s busiest. Ottawa’s is Canada’s 6th busiest…but only 6th…at least for people, for politicians it is our busiest.
We have seen that politics in this country have taken a dramatic and worrying turn since our last election. So much so that what I am about to say would have sounded like a crazy conspirator’s theory at one time but not so much now.
I don’t think I would be wrong if I said every MP at one time or another has taken a flight out of Ottawa Airport and likely more often than less. Now that government security forces have the ability to listen in on these conversations, it leaves open the possibilities at least for sensitive information being leaked to the public or perhaps to foreign nationals. And at worst, provides the overseer of the border agency, the Minister of Public Safety, with a channel to listen in on opposition MP’s conversations at the airport…perhaps to help in their election campaigns? Not that the Conservatives have ever been accused of breaking the rules to win an election.
As a skeptic, I would normally not give in to such theories and if this was an isolated event I would have dismissed it…well as a conspiracy, but this is yet another piece of data and one must go where the evidence leads them. Now, maybe this is just an attempt to ensure Canadians remain fearful of the terrorist bogeyman…maybe it is simply graft to one of the many corporations the Conservatives “owe a favour too”…maybe it is someone in the agency who truly believes a terrorist strike is imminent…but you can no longer rule out the thought that Harper is pulling a Nixon at the airport.
Reference:
Border agency to eavesdrop on travellers’ conversations
