>> Policing,
broadly understood, becomes a doubled universe. On the one hand, publicly known
police stations and prisons accessible to lawyers and families, publicly
recognized legal rights and processes, etc. On the other hand, secret detention
centres (like Homan Square in Chicago, various secret centres in
Santiago,Chile, and other South American cities under military dictatorships,
the ‘black sites’ set up by the US and its allies), no or little access by
lawyers and families, mistreatment of detainees, the increased likelihood of
forced/false confessions.
>> The elaboration/expansion of policing
micro-cultures with their cult-like isolation, their increasingly
internally-defined morality (constantly adjusted to deliver results given the
harrowing mission they have been assigned), their resistance to public scrutiny
let alone dialogue. We can’t plead ignorance of the results, including in Canada where the Supreme Court of
Canada has ruled that Canadian officials were complicit in the torture of Omar
Khadr at Guantánamo Bay; and former Supreme Court of Canada Justice Frank
Iacobucci confirmed that Canadian officials were complicit in the torture and
other human rights violations suffered by Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati
and Muayyed Nureddin in Syria and, in Mr. Abou-Elmaati’s case, Egypt.
>> Morality
adjusted to delivering results within the context of a harrowing mission called
variously a ‘war on terror’, ‘saving civilization’, ‘protecting public safety’
etc . This has routinely (‘routinely’ and not the state’s ‘bad apples’,
‘exceptions’, ‘mistakes were made’ claims) led into a world of lies,
fabricated/planted evidence, threats, abductions, mistreatment including
torture, etc. Morality in such contexts
has been repeatedly demonstrated to become human amorality.
>> Cultures of covert policing in the context of
‘saving civilization’ (and moralized categories like ‘civilization vrs.
barbarism’) inherently provide sanctioned working space for racists and
xenophobes – and likely attract both among their recruits. States that have turned to this rhetoric
demonstrate this clearly: Argentina under its military dictatorship, apartheid
South Africa, Israel and France (in Algeria), to name but a few. Thus the defence of ‘civilization’ (with its
ideals of cosmopolitanism, pluralism, tolerance, dialogue) comes to rely on
racist stereotypes, bigotry, etc.
>> The culture described so far - with its ‘results at
all costs’ understandings of its mission, and its milieu of absolute or near
absolute powers over suspects and detainees (withholding of ‘evidence’, absence
of public judicial forums, absence of public scrutiny) – are a license to abuse
and abusers, including (history shows) sadistic behavior and sadists. To
paraphrase Acton, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
>> As for we the people, more people – named as
‘suspects’ or ‘suspicious’ – are placed on secret ‘watch list’ databases, with
increasingly restricted means to identify or challenge their accusers.
>> The lines fade between suspected, accused and, in
effect, convicted (e.g. detained indefinitely without charge or open hearing),
especially where the requirements of state secrecy is asserted.
>> The disastrous abuse of people’s basic freedoms and
human rights as a result of such watch lists becomes more likely, e.g. the
situation of Maher Arar and the other Canadians named earlier.
>> People’s right to dissent, including various forms
of civil disobedience (assured under the Canadian Charter) are more vulnerable
to being ‘watched’, subverted and blocked by secretive agencies with a vague
and politicized mission to protect ‘public safety’ and ‘the economy’, and with
a license to act against ‘unlawful’ activities (not necessarily criminal, e.g.
blockades) and imprecisely but emotively named phenomenon like ‘disruptive’
social activism.
