Maybe it's because there's sun in the sky and the forecast said rain, or maybe it's because my triple berry muffin had extra berries in it. Whatever the reason, brace yourself: I am about to compliment the Ottawa Police Service.
Yesterday afternoon, I attended the Anti-Harper (or Anti-Tory) rally in Ottawa's downtown core to protest Harper's speech at the tory convention. Holy impressive demo, activists! Well led (individual shout-outs to uOttawa student and rogue page Brigette DePape for speaking at the park, uOttawa grad student Taiva Tegler for co-organizing and speaking to media, Carleton Ph.D. student James Meades for carrying the speakers [literally, the sound equipment] and NOII from out of town for the extra leadership help), well attended (endorsed by most of the human rights groups in Ottawa I know of, including POWER), peaceful, angry and solid. At one point, when we were entering the intersection of two major traffic arteries, I heard some shouts behind me and saw a hoard of police officers darting horizontally into the crowd. A protest leader spoke calmly into a megaphone asking us to please sit down. We sat, the police left the crowd, whatever anxiety-causing behaviour had been happening ceased. What a neat tactic! Power in a sit-down!
Anyway, my police compliment. There were dozens of officers lining the march and surrounding streets and, for the most part, I was impressed by their passive presence. It was a little daunting to see officers on motorcycles manning street corners hours prior to the march, but most of the officers who started at Dundonald Park were wandering around with their coffee mugs, donning bike helmets and nerdy black running shoes. This helped me see them as members of the community enforcing law within a passionate climate of civil disobedience. Sure, there were the usual puffed up white guys who looked like they were about to burst out of their vests at the first sign of trouble, but even they didn't freak me out too much. Something about bicycle helmets and neon traffic jackets...
So of course I'll conclude a little flippantly with a dose of cynicism directed toward our blessed OPS. I saw about a dozen officers perched on ladders and street curbs filming the protesters. See my twitter feed for some shots. I felt weirdly proud, angry, horrified and sad about having close-ups of my face captured under police surveillance (so I took photos of them taking photos of me, of course!). I've told a few people about the filming and reactions have been as disparate as "No way!!" and "So what? Good for them." I think police surveillance of anti-government activism is scary and always unsettling upon sight for a host of reasons, but the simple one that comes to mind this morning is as follows. It was the (protected) job task of those officers to shoot the videos last night, so my capturing camera-carrying officers on my personal camera is of no consequence to them. Not so, the other way around.
Care to weigh in on your thoughts about police filming protests? I'd be curious to hear. Enjoy a sunny day ♡
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ReplyDeleteI'm uncomfortable with the police using video surveillance at a legal civil protest. Video surveillance produces an archive that could be tapped for the purpose of political profiling of individuals. The police's mandate is not to protect the public; it is to uphold the law. Because possession is 9 tenths of the law, 9 tenths of police's mandate is to protect the interest of the affluent, who "possess" the most. Profiling could lead to a denial of someone's rights simply because their ideology presents a threat to the political status quo, which supports the affluent. There are laws in place already, for example, the "no-fly list" which deny mobility to people, even if they have no criminal record. I could imagine a scenario in which rights could be denied simply because a person expresses support for a certain political ideology.
ReplyDeleteI say I'm uncomfortable, but truth be told, I think video surveillance has to be allowed. The only difference between video and eyewitness surveillance is that video creates a permanent, uninterpreted image for the record. In this sense, video footage is a more reliable witness, and therefore can protect its subject from misrepresentation. What we need is freedom of information, which allows any interested party to request access to any video that is being used to indict them. And of course, video profiling in the absence of any indictable offense by the subject must not be admissible as just cause to limit their freedom in any way. The fact that the affluent would benefit from laws that criminalize political ideology is very chilling.
I see the disposition to criminalize ideology as a real threat. PM Harper's efforts to limit political contributions by individuals is an example of his disposition in this matter.