#police spies

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

Administration of the Defence of Canada Regulations (DOCR)

"Administering the DOCR proved to be a boon to the careers of RCMP men. At the start of World War II, the Intelligence Section of the RCMP was a six-man operation at headquarters, attached to the Criminal Investigation Branch. By 1943, there were now 98 in the headquarters operation of the Intelligence Section, with important increases in the field: twenty more men working in Toronto, nineteen in Montreal and nine in Vancouver.

The effect of World War II on the overall size of the RCMP was also impressive. The RCMP force was immediately increased by 700 at the start of the war. On June 6, 1940, the list of police officers who could enforce the DOCR was expanded to include all RCMP officers from the rank of inspector and up, and officers of similar rank in the provincial police forces in Quebec and Ontario, as well as chiefs of police in municipalities with populations of more than 10,000. There were still not enough police. 

On June 24, 1940, RCMP Commissioner Wood wrote Ernest Lapointe to complain that he could no longer meet demand, especially in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Wood went so far as to express concern for the health of his men, so busy and over-extended were they. So, on August 30, 1940, authority to administer the DOCR was extended once again to include almost all police officers in Canada, whether at federal, provincial, or municipal levels.

One of the products of the increased RCMP workload were the monthly security bulletins issued by the Intelligence Section to senior federal officials and the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). Right from the beginning, some of the recipients of the bulletins were wary of the value of the reports. Jack Pickersgill, second-in-command in the PMO, analyzed the bulletin of October 30, 1939. His comments reveal some of the deficiencies in the RCMP analysis; they bear summarizing:

no distinctions between fact and hearsay;

no distinctions between subversive doctrine, and legitimate social and political criticism;

obsession with Communists, to the exclusion of information about Nazis or Fascists;

no evidence of sabotage or espionage directed against Canada;

no co-ordination with military intelligence, censorship officials, immigration officials, or External Affairs;

police spying on law-abiding Canadians, thus making the police political censors;

lack of capacity and training for real intelligence work directed against the real enemy.

Also wrote Pickersgill:

It is more likely that there are secret, German agents in the country. From a casual reading of these ‘Intelligence Bulletins’, one would scarcely realize that Canada was at war with Germany; there is not the slightest hint that anything is being done in the way of intelligent and well-directed anti-espionage work.

Pickersgill suggested that an intelligence branch be created within Justice, to whom the RCMP would report, in order to co-ordinate government intelligence efforts. 

Nonetheless, King, Lapointe, and the Justice Department continued to support the work of the RCMP in spite of criticism both internal and external to the government. When the tide turned against the government’s policies of repression of the left, the RCMP ceased the widespread distribution of security bulletins. One shouldn’t expect just administration of a law that is itself unjust.

The violations of normal, legal protections under the DOCR might also accrue to another element, however, which explains why internees were never explained the full nature of charges against them. Some information obtained by the RCMP was retrieved secretly from informers within the Communist Party, sources that had to be protected were they to continue to be useful. There is a series of letters that establishes the policy of the RCMP and government about this secret information. In the first of these letters, the Justice deputy minister wrote to the RCMP:

If you have evidence which has been obtained through the medium of a police secret agent, the identity of whom it would be extremely undesirable to disclose, then I suggest that you are not compelled to, and should not produce such evidence, even by withholding it you may have little in the way of other evidence to support the order for internment. The recommendation of the tribunal is only a recommendation and not a judgement, and the release of the appellant after the finding of the tribunal is a matter which is in the absolute discretion of the Minister of Justice, and he may, with or without assigning any reason, order the further internment or the release of the appellant. In cases where you do not disclose confidential information to the tribunal, you should notify the Department so that all the facts may be brought before the Minister when called upon to act in the matter.

When the RCMP asked if the instructions about secret information were to apply to enemy subjects, as well as to British subjects, Lapointe responded in the affirmative, adding that he would consult with the RCMP before freeing internees. At least, some of the explanation for the functioning of the DOCR, therefore, lies in the government’s protection of its espionage network among communists.

In fact, during the 1920s, an RCMP Staff-Sergeant, John Leopold, had become a highly placed informer within the Communist Party. Leopold, who used the pseudonym ‘Jack Esselwein’, had provided  evidence in 1931 that permitted the government to prosecute Tim Buck and seven of his  leading colleagues in the Party. During World War II, we know of at least one other RCMP informer within the Party, although there probably were more. A certain ‘Koyich’ was active in Alberta, a fact uncovered by Patrick Lenihan, a Calgarian, and Ben Swankey, from Edmonton, both of whom were interned in Hull."

- Michael Martin, The Red Patch: Political Imprisonment in Hull, Quebec during World War 2. Self-published, 2007. p. 76-80

[russia-libertaire]

From the People's Will to the Fighting Detachment

'The assassination of Alexander II in 1881 failed in its political aims. It also led to the destruction of the Central Committee of Narodnaia Volia, most of whose members were arrested in the police investigations which followed. Many provincial organizations survived, but their capacity for concerted action was fatally undermined. Not until the late 1890s did the surviving members begin to reconstitute an empirewide organization, which they christened the Socialist Revolutionary Party. The Socialist Revolutionaries, anxious this time not to be hijacked by the practitioners of assassination, created a separate "fighting detachment" (boevoi otriad) to concentrate on terrorism, so that other party members could devote themselves to propaganda and other peaceful activities. Ironically, however, the isolation of the terrorists meant their final emancipation from normal moral and political considerations. Their fighting detachment fell into the hands of a police agent, Evno Azef, under whose command it conducted a concerted campaign against officials of the very regime which had hired him. From 1902 to 1906 its victims included the governor-general of Moscow, a number of ministers - including two ministers of the interior, Dmitrii Sipiagin and Viacheslav Pleve, Azef's own employers - and some 4,000 central and local officials, killed or wounded. Rarely, if ever, has any regime sustained such an onslaught of terror. When Azef's duplicity was finally revealed, in 1908, the disclosure discredited the police and permanently undermined the moral standing of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. It contributed in no small measure to the public's disillusionment with politics of all kinds in the final years of tsarism.'

Russia and the Russians, by Geoffrey Hosking

[needlesandnilbogs]

I finished the first temeraire book yesterday (on the plane lol. Happy new school year here’s your new interest you don’t have time to engage with now) and now I am deeply stuck on the parallels between the relationship between Laurence and Temeraire (that series), the relationship between Mensah and Murderbot (murderbot diaries), and the relationship between Monty and Mother (city spies).

When I get my books back from storage/the media mail box coming in two weeks I want to come back and back this idea up with quotes but for now I’m just going to say they have very similar vibes and I really like the way all of the relationships are treated as a deeply important, if not the most important, relationship in the characters’ lives while remaining non-romantic

[circleturk]

Trust no one

[thelaughingmerman]

A dream about me bing pursued by police because I was involved with spies and didnt even know it turned into a dream about me being a mermaid??All part of the same dream like we were hiding underwater because the police were in pursuit and surprise youre a mermaid but not just any mermaid the most specialest mermaid.

[romulanslutempire]

Adelaide Kane needs to reprise her role on SNW (somehow) so we can see her in Romulan tactical gear and with those famous pointy ears.

[lifewithaview]

Severija Janusauskaite in Babylon Berlin (2017) S1E3

Kardakow flees after the Soviet attack on The Red Fortress. Rath receives an uninvited guest in his apartment.

[pocketramblr]

Hi, the anon with the Mafia 1A vs Police 1B au! I fleshed it out a little a made it MightyEraserMic where Oboro, Midnight, Aizawa and Present Mic were an spy/assassin group that retired shortly after Oboro's "death" and Aizawa meets these kids with a cute tall sunshine man and goes "oh no", Mic has been pining for several years and Yagi is clueless. Eventually it gets to the point Nem & the kids set them up on a date to get the soap opera to end. That's the best I can explain in one ask.

Very fun au, twisty and dramatic!

[bone-dyke]

i love how tech youtube channels uphold the police state

[absolutely-the-gimmick-law-maker]

How legal is impersonation? and identity theft? time sensitive question.

Oh dear gods. Sorry for the delayed response, but I am currently on holiday and only just got access to my laptop. Quite frankly, I think it depends on the reasons for why you are trying to impersonate somebody.... Basically, it is a matter of consent! Did somebody ask you to be them or to message somebody for them? Great, go ahead! Are you trying to ge somebody into trouble? No, please don't go ahead. Take a chill pill. With regards to identity theft, though, I don't think you should ever steal somebody's identity. What exactly are you planning, dearest anon?

[l-in-c-future]

China's global secret police networks not only endanger Australia's national security and other countries, but also the personal safety and the lives of those being targeted.

"You can humuliate CCP but not Xi Jin Ping. You can humiliate Xi Jin Ping but not Xi's daughter."

Fact is, nobody can say anything about an autocracy throughout China's history. "Humiliate" is vaguely and broadly intepretated as anything those with power in the authority do not like to hear or feel "embarrassed" or anything that make them feeling 'not looking good'. This was a FACTUAL explanation of such in HK under the same tyranny according to PRC "National Security" and the extension of which in Article 23 of the Basic Law.

On the contrary, the propaganda agenda imposed to HK as extension of the same under Xi Jin Ping's 'good stories' narrations is only things that make the dictator and the authority feel good, look good and heard as good is 'legitimate'.

[nando161mando]

[russia-libertaire]

Terrorists, spies, and agents provocateurs

'By now the revolutionary parties has perfected their conspiratorial techniques, and to gain the information they required about them the police had little alternative but to deploy secret agents within their ranks. To sustain their credibility, those agents had to take their share in the tracking, the bombmaking, and the secret communications, which were part and parcel of the terrorist's life. In that way the agent provocateur emerged, the double agent working for both the police and the revolutionaries. Opposition parties cut off from the public and a secret police accountable to nobody held out intoxicating opportunities to individuals attracted by the exercise of power for its own sake. They were extremely difficult for either side to detect and could orchestrate alternating betrayals and terrorist acts at their own convenience. Here the fiskal and the revolutionary, both descendants of Peter the Great, amalgamated in one sinister figure.'

Russia and the Russians, by Geoffrey Hosking

[big-bird-nerd]

https://pm.gc.ca/en/news/news-releases/2023/06/10/prime-minister-visits-kyiv-ukraine

Nothing is quite so comforting than the Canadian government posting an article that opens with a fascist greeting.

[makymakvrchat]

Chinese living in America arrested for being spies

[jessilynallendilla]

So I just watched Panda Redd's new video about how the Joker accidentally made this genius chess move by killing Jason and can't be touched by Batman

so what if Bruce was just a little more unhinged by it

Joker needs funds kidnaps Bruce Wayne takes him to a hide out

Joker then makes the mistake of being alone with Bruce and in the course of insulting the Bats, insults the memory Robin (Jason Todd)

Bruce, who for the last few months lost his son, almost lost Dick from it, had Barbara shot and paralyzed, her father his friend James Gordan kidnapped and tortured, and has been taking out his grief on the criminal underground because he couldn't get Justice for Jason and it started this spiral, just snaps and goes full John Wick on his ass

Bruce: Go ahead and tell, but no one will believe you. Getting the crap beaten out of you by Gotham's Brucie Wayne, who would lose in a fist fight with a fly? You'll just seem like even more of a joke than you are.

Hours later Bruce turns up a few miles from the warehouse in a new suit from a hidden stash and explains to the police how Batman rescued him

Police see the bloody mess of the still somehow breathing meat pile that is Joker and accept it because he was going around bragging about killing Robin and Batman has been getting more violent towards criminals lately honestly the guy had it coming

so like a few years later the Joker tries to rob a gala and freezes when he spies a familiar face Bruce with his stupid Brucie smile that doesn't touch his eyes

Bruce: Oh did somebody hire a party clown?