I was at my friend’s house tonight, and the police dropped by…

They were nice enough about it – told him they really just came to look at his car. (He has a Ferrari.) They had left a card earlier for him, from some constable in the Saanich Police Department, asking him to contact them. Brad* hadn’t seen it until I gave it to him that evening, when a few of us came by to talk and play some pool.

But it’s not that nice, is it, when you discover that some police force, somewhere, is monitoring your email and has detected something they regard as potentially dangerous.

In this case, Brad had sent an email to a group of six people, including me, that mentioned blockading the tar sands. The cops had it with them, and they had some questions.  But my question is, how did they get that email? It went to six people; all say Of course they didn’t forward it.

The officers (three of them; perhaps they were worried they were dealing with an insane jihadist) did not mention a warrant. Does this mean that Canadian email is run through filters – put in place by whom? I don’t recall any Act of Parliament authorising domestic spying on Canadians.

And finally, why are the municipal police coming to the door? I am pretty sure the Saanich police department is not monitoring Brad’s emails. That would come from the federal police or a spy agency: the RCMP or CSIS.  Perhaps that agency wanted to send a message. As someone who received Brad’s email, message received.

You’ll notice that this site has a GGoD page, on which is a statement and a manifesto. Some of us on the planet have noticed that a few of us are making a fabulous profit at the expense of the rest of our lives, that they are smart people doing very foolish things. They are wrecking our future. There are seven original members of that group, of which I am one, who exchanged a number of emails discussing ways to stop climate change.

Two of those members mentioned, in emails, that blockading the tar sands, would certainly send a message. No action has been taken in that regard; ideas were simply being discussed.  None of us would have forwarded an email containing those ideas without telling the rest of us. So I believe, and I have asked the group to confirm.

That leaves electronic eavesdropping. Apparently, if you mention “blockade” and “tar sands” in a email,, that is picked up by some police organisation’s email filters somewhere – Canada or the U.S.? – and you may be visited in your home by the police.

Disturbing. That emails are almost certainly being monitored, and that local cops are being sent out to intimidate the citizenry into silence.

UPDATE 1: Brad emailed to say:

I can’t imagine how they got a hold of that email but the implications are certainly stunning and very concerning as it appears that the authorities can access any information which in any way might challenge their authority or threaten the evil and corrupt industries they are (indirectly) in bed with!

UPDATE 2: To those commenting on the apparent hypocrisy of owning a Ferrari and being green, Brad started going green quite recently. He has been mostly vegan for many years; that ought to ‘pay’ for a few of his Sunday afternoon drives this summer.

He hadn’t really considered climate change until recently. Less than 10 years ago I was driving an Infiniti QX4: I didn’t know anything about “global warming” or peak oil at the time, and would have spouted the usual denier propaganda had you asked me. Now that Brad is realizing the predicament we face, what does he do with the Ferrari? Sell it? Then it’s still on the road. Crush it? What?!

Except for people who have been hippies since birth, we all go through a stage where our dawning green awareness leads to the realisation that so much of what we do is harming someone and/or the planet. At that point we all have to make choices about what and when we will cut back – considering that almost nobody else is.

UPDATE 3: Changed paragraph 3 and added 4 and 5 for clarity.

*Name changed, not that it matters at this point.