Your Protests Are Under Surveillance ｜ A Critical Compass Discussion
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Summary
A strange piece of equipment was found at the Million March for Kids protest in Edmonton, Alberta on September 20th, and it may have been used by the police to monitor and record the protest and the people on the other side.
Transcript
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Today, James and I are going to be discussing a kind of a weird thing that we saw at the
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Million March for Kids protest in Edmonton, Alberta, on Friday, September 20th.
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Yeah, we came across this interesting piece of equipment on our walk to where the protest
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is. I'll just pop it on the screen right now. And if anyone's ever seen this before, we
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hadn't. When we looked at the closer, it looks to be sort of a, it's a video monitoring and
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audio monitoring device that has some text on it. I'll switch over to the image with the
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text. And if you take a look, this is on the opposite side of where that previous picture
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was taken. And it says, this area may be monitored and recorded. And I'll, we'll read the text
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on it later. But for now, James, why don't you, you've been doing a little bit of looking
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into this. So what, what are your thoughts on what we saw at the protest?
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Well, this wouldn't be the first protest that, that has some kind of monitoring. And we know
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that there was a lot of video and like surveillance of Ottawa during the trucker convoy. But for
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a small protest like this, that's not even that huge. So usually on one side, you have
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parents protesting SOGI or sexual orientation and gender identity, um, that framework in
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schools. So these parents are not happy about that. This protest was divided by a road. And
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then on the other side, you had, um, like LGBT activists and at Antifa and sitting, one thing
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to note, sitting closest to the Antifa side, um, was this, uh, was this monitoring device.
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So the most charitable interpretation of this is that while the police want to be able to
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have document anything, if violence does occur and the fact that they put it closer to Antifa,
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you could say that, well, well, the, maybe they are legitimately concerned about the people in
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head to toe in all black with their face covered. And some of them are wearing gloves and helmets and,
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uh, and tactical vests. So, uh, that, that is a, that's the most charitable interpretation.
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Yeah. And a lot of these things come from a standpoint of, well, it, it's rooted or it's
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grounded in a, it's filling a need and maybe there's some good in, maybe there's some kind
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of functionality. Either we, you have convenience or you, you have some sort of a tool that makes
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something easier or you have some kind of a tool that can be used for good, but I can also see this
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being used, um, more of a malicious way. Um, and the fact that a year ago, the same protest,
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the police did not, they weren't treating everybody equally. They, you got pushed in the road.
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You were on the other side. We have, you have this documented, we have a video on our channel.
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Um, people can watch it. You were surrounded by protesters on the Antifa side and some of them
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were Antifa. They're dressed in the black. They were pushing you onto the road almost with their
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hands up. Like, I'm not touching you. I'm not touching you. And, um, they were being the aggressors.
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And in that case, the police talked to you and stop, they told you to stop, stop antagonizing
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them. So in that case, we have examples and there are no shortage of other examples and
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other protests of police, not, not doing what they should with Antifa members. So they're not
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even, they've had plenty of opportunities. And even with video footage, um, of activists or
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protesters being harassed by Antifa and the police do not do their jobs. So this is why I'm doubting
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that the surveillance device will not be used for justice. It may be used for, um, targeting
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protesters or targeting people who are maybe not speaking. They're not, they're not saying the
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Right. Yeah. That's, you know what? I, I kind of had that feeling too. I mean, yeah, like you say,
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it was, I suppose not comforting, but somewhat like, you know, at least reassuring that it
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was, the device was more closely on the side with the, the people very visually more likely
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to be the ones to pop anything off. Uh, but yeah, I just, yeah. I mean, at least based on
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my experience last year, I just doubt that that was, you know, that was a serious consideration.
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They also didn't really have too much of a police presence at this one. I mean, they were
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there, but like, I don't know, maybe we saw, you know, two or three squad cars and just a
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couple officers sort of like very in the distance last year. I mean, it was a much bigger protest
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last year, but there was a lot more officers. They were kind of lining that, um, the, like
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the, the grass, the grassy area between the roads there. And it was lots on bikes and like
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just a much bigger presence. So I think they scale based on, like, I think they have obviously
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marked police cars and then they have their SUVs and stuff and they were kind of parked
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in some of the parking lots behind. And I think they were there ready to get out as like, as
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the size grows, I'm sure they have kind of a framework of saying like, Oh, okay. Well,
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if there's this many people, we try to get a certain amount on the ground and like, yeah.
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And something that we noticed too, I don't know if we said this in the, uh, in the clip
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we posted the other day, but they're in the kind of the businesses surrounding the area
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that the protest was in. If you remember, they were, there were like, they weren't even
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like disguised as security guards or anything. They were just straight up like police officers
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kind of monitoring the parking lots of the businesses that were, uh, nearby. And, and
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actually I remember there was one that was sort of standing at the entrance to a parking
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lot that was, I assume was monitoring for people who would park in it to go walk across
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the way, you know, adjacent to where that lot was to where the protest is. And actually
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further down that road, there was a, um, not quite a blockade, but sort of a, almost like
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a checkpoint it looked like. So yeah, there was definitely, uh, uh, I don't know what the
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word would be like, um, a perimeter set up, I suppose. Uh, but yeah, so you know what,
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let me just throw this on the screen here. This is the closeup that I took of that sign
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that was on the, on the unit here. And I'll just, I'll switch my, uh, screen over and I'll
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read this here. So it says closed circuit television camera system. This area may be
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monitored and recorded. Uh, and smaller text says this information is being collected for
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the purposes of law enforcement as authorized by section 33 of the freedom of information
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and privacy act. And further down, it says for further information, contact the Evan police
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service information and privacy coordinator at, uh, an address here and, uh, and the telephone
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and a telephone number actually prior to this recording, uh, earlier in the day today, uh,
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when we decided that we were going to be, uh, uh, talking about this, I did call that line
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and it, um, it went to a, uh, just went to a voicemail. So I left a voicemail, but I didn't,
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uh, I didn't hear back on anything. So we'll see if they call me back. I mean, um, I don't
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suspect that they have any reason not to. Um, but, uh, if they, if they put the number out there,
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unless they're just putting the number out there to see who, who would call, maybe they can,
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you know, gather some information that way. But the message that I left was just, I, I did a,
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I made a recording of the message that I left for just for posterity. But basically I said,
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uh, yeah, I was just, uh, you know, I was, uh, at the, at the protest that day and I was just curious
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what the, uh, you know, but some information about what that, what the equipment was that, uh, you
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know, there was a sign on it. They had a phone number and if, if you had any questions you could
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call. So that, that's all I'm doing. And, uh, yeah, we'll see what they say. If, if they say
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anything or if they just put me on a list. Here's the thing where, uh, if, if you're
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not already on a list, then you're doing something wrong. And I think people should
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not fear about being on a list because, um, as these things change, what is deemed acceptable
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gets smaller and smaller and smaller. So if you're afraid of ever being on the list or you're
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afraid of ever being put in that territory, then you're going to be pushed into a corner of
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a smaller, smaller, more acceptable range of what you can, can and cannot say.
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So my, my biggest, my biggest concern about this is that, well, we have not a whole lot
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of evidence to trust that any of these things will be used responsibly. We, I don't think
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we have the mechanisms for quite the contrary, actually. Yeah. Like we, we don't have the
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mechanisms for accountability. And even in other cases in government, the accountability
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seems to be sidestepped. Either there's plausible deniability or they push it off to a third party
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and they seem to find a way around ever after ever actually being able to pinpoint who's
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responsible for any of these things. Um, and we have new bills coming in that at the time
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of this recording, it's still being debated in parliament. Uh, we have bill C 63, which
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is expanding what's an online, online harms act. We, we have talked about this in the past,
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but, um, part of the bill is like safety for like pornographic images for children and websites
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and reporting and that, but they've also expanded the def they're expanding the definition and
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penalties for hate speech. Right. So how does that interact with this increased surveillance
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is well, you have what people are saying on online, but you also have these deterrents
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of, well, if there's going to be penalties for what people are saying and are doing, or
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is hate speech, what if you have a sign, is that, is that punishable by any of these frameworks? Like
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is, is somebody going to be, is there going to be facial recognition? And then, well, maybe they
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don't deal with you at the protest, but they have you on camera and they took a recording of your,
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they have a picture of you and your sign and they have your face and they have your phone
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GPS and they say, you're at this protest and you, and this is hate speech and they show up at your
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house later and they, so these things may like, we, we literally just saw that happening in the UK.
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So it's not like it's, and, and sorry to interrupt, but just on that thought, that's what I was going
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to say. In addition to the thing that we got to watch out for the usage of these things in the future
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is that we don't become a dystopian shithole, like somewhere like London where there's, you
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know, more closed circuit cameras than people almost. And, uh, and you know, if, if this, I, I
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think, I think we both sort of maybe unspokenly, uh, acknowledge this when we saw that, um, device
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there that we can't not talk about it because it can't be a thing where it's just accepted
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that. Okay. Well, anytime there's a gathering of people, it's monitored and recorded and who
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knows how that information is used. Yeah. Uh, unless there is a certain amount of reform
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or trust, uh, like I, I could see a place in a high trust society, maybe something like
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this would actually play the role of providing safety for a protest potentially, but we are
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not in that scenario by, we're not there. Yeah. Yeah. No, because we know that the types
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of people who would be most interested in knowing the identities of people at these protests are
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not, like you say, they're not doing it because they're, you know, trying to keep law and order
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what they're, what they're actually, what they actually would be most concerned with is,
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uh, making sure that nothing outside of the party line is allowed to go unchallenged.
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So, yeah. So yeah, I mean, without this, you, you, uh, and I mentioned before of examples where
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somebody has an assault at a protest recorded and somebody's the face of the person assaulting
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and the police are there and they have a chance to deal with it. And we have example after example
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of the police not doing anything about the person who committed assault. But if you flipped,
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if you flipped the script and the example is a different demographic against a different
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demographic, you would, you would see that assault being, you'd see somebody in, in handcuffs
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instantly. So, um, I think all we're asking is like, well, we haven't seen equal treatment.
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And, and so we have an absence of evidence that, that these, the police are actually doing,
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actually they're doing their job and that this would actually be used in a responsible way.
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Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, um, yeah, that's essentially it. I think, uh, we'll, uh, we'll make sure to,
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uh, you know, add a, add another, another video here, you know, as a followup, if, uh, if I hear
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back from, uh, that department, uh, I'll make sure to record that call too. Um, I don't actually
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know, I should have looked it up if, if Alberta or if Canada is a, uh, a one-way consent state for,
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uh, for, um, recording of phone calls. But the way that my phone does it at least is it makes a,
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it makes a statement like it, it automatically plays a statement that this call is being,
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is now being recorded. So I'd be curious if they say anything about that once, once I do it,
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if I have somebody live on it as it was, I just gonna, if they don't phone back purely for that
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reason. Yeah. Well, I hit the, um, I don't know if, I don't know if a call to a, to a police department
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is, is recorded all the way through from the beginning, or if you get a voicemail, uh, cause I
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started the, I hit the, uh, the recording and then it, it played that disclaimer as the recording,
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as the voicemail message was playing. So I don't know if that would be, if they would have,
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if they would hear that or if they would only hear my recording. So I don't know. We'll see
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anyway, but we'll, we'll, we'll update you guys if we, if we hear anything, but, uh, yeah, uh, James,
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any other thoughts before we kind of wrap up this short idea? Well, um, I'm just curious if we'll
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see more of these or if people have seen other examples as well. So hopefully on X, maybe,
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um, maybe we get some examples in the comment, like comments. I, I doubt this is the first use
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of this. It's just some, the first time that I've seen it. Yeah. Yeah. It's, uh, yeah, it seemed like
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too, they had it ready to go. It's a tiny protest. And I'm like, this is not like they, they had it
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ready to go. This is not, this is not a, uh, the first time. Yeah, that's right. Okay. Well,
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we'll, uh, we'll keep you updated. Thanks for listening guys. As always, uh, you can follow
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us on YouTube, uh, rumble, Spotify, uh, X obviously. And, uh, we'll have links below.
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Uh, we'll have, uh, we'll have these images uploaded too for reference for anyone who's curious
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and, uh, thanks as always. And we'll see you in the next one. All right. Cheers. Cheers.