It Finally Ends - But the quest for credibility remains

Yep, it's over.

Virtually all signs of surveillance and harassment stopped in the Autumn of 2005, when I was put into hospital by my mother. A family friend, who is a former diplomat from China and was interviewed many times by CSIS, had said - 'If you ever go into hospital, your credibility is gone and the harassment will stop.' Well, everything did stop. (Almost everything - info to come.)

Below are comments by:

1) a former therapist,
2) my relative (a Canadian Who's Who honoree), and
3) my mother.

(All names edited.)

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L, I'm forwarding Dr. XXX's comments.  Mom

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Subject: RE: security and harrassment
Date: Thu, 17 Jan 2008 13:21:09 -0500


          MM,

I am fascinated by your description of the surveillance and harassment that was experienced by both of you. It has given me a new perspective and new insight into L’s situation. In my profession, I usually deal with the phenomenology of mental illness, but I also keep an open mind about the veracity of the stories that I hear as some of them can be grounded in reality.

I am sorry that my overly clinical approach might have alienated L. previously. When you have the chance, I’d appreciate it if you can tell her that I can change my previous diagnosis, and if she wishes, I can help her again.

With best regards,

Dr. XXX.

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Subject: RE: security and harrassment

L's problem was that she wanted to "outsmart" the surveillancers, or to "avoid" being surveillanced, so it became a mind game between
her and her harrassers.  In the end, her nerves were so frayed and wrought, she literally was afraid of her own shadow.  I remember the
terror on her face when a stranger unintentionally bumped into her when crossing the street, and every restaurant we went to she thought
the people at the nearby tables were possible harrassers.  Yes, W. was right in saying L. thought she was being surveillanced more than
she actually was; she was simply stressed beyond her capacity.  Just like the recent forwarded e-mail said:  if you hold a glass of water in
front of you, it is a non-event for 5 minutes, but after one hour you would feel the strain, after 24-hours it becomes unbearable; eventually
you will succomb and drop the glass.  Thanks for the reply, at least I know my message didn't fall on deaf ears.

MM

[Note: I don't recall this 'terror' moment my mother speaks of, but I was perpetually stressed and had reasons to be nervous. See this post.]

 

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Date: Mon, 14 Jan 2008 21:17:06 -0500
Subject: Re: security and harrassment

MM, I believed that both you and L. were under surveilance. I also feared that the Security Office would harrasss you even more if you succumb to their ploy by showing fear. CSIS is known for doing things similar to the CIA in U.S.

At the time L. made that unwise remark to the Passport Officer, there were a lot of passport sales and fraudulant passports on the market. The RCMP were following all kinds of leads to trace to the source of a huge passport / citizenship card sales operation. Even when they knew some of the operators' address and phone numbers, they did not arrest them immediately. They were waiting to catch the top guys.

I hope L. will get her passport without further trouble.

[snip]

          GG

L. went to the passport office to renew her passport. At first they were proceeding on the express route because her grandmother is very ill, and she needs a passport ASAP. But when the interviewer logged on to her profile, she found out it was in the "security file", and now her passport has to go through the normal length, about 2 1/2 weeks. Very frustrating.

I like to take this opportunity to give my view about "security" and "harrassment".

We all know between 2000 and 2005 L. constantly complained about being harrassed. [emphasis mine]  Most of us took a "wait and see" attitude, wondering if it were all true. I kept my mouth shut. Firstly, I didn't want to encourage her perception of being harrassed, and secondly, I didn't want to be perceived as being an 0verly indulgent mother, believing in everything her daughter says. Now I can finally put everything in perspective and have some of my own questions answered.

In the summer of 1993 maybe 1994, I had a distinct feeling of being shadowed. Now I don't remember any concrete incident that gave me that feeling, but I do remember distinctly thinking, "I wonder if TT has hired a detective to check up on me. It's very unlike him. Think of the cost. But I can't see why anyone else would bother." Since I wasn't doing anything criminal, nor was I fooling around, I just let it go, without telling anyone.

All through the 1990's, I felt my phone conversation was being recorded. Whenever I picked up to answer the phone, there would be a clicking sound, and after the calling party disconnected, there would be another clicking sound. The clicking sound would also occur when I dialed out and after being connected. Some of you may remember my complaining about it. I called Bell several times, asking them to check my phone lines; their reply was always, "Nothing wrong." I remember [W F] saying that recording devices are so advanced, there wouldn't be any clicking noise being made. That might be true, but government equipment is never as up-to-date nor as top-of-the-line as the top private sector.

[Note: I was threatened with RCMP investigation re: my passport in December 1997. From 1998 to '99, I went to India for a year, and a man would call my mother every 2 months or so, saying he was from my university's Alumni Association and asking for donations. My mother told him I wasn't home, and he invariably asked where I could be reached. These calls only happened while I was away that year - not before and not since. Phone 'clicking' followed me from my mom's place, to my apartment near university, then downtown. My 15-year old Sanyo phone also has a unique feature of 'bleeping' when someone picks up another phone in the home. A few weeks after moving into my current place, it made that noise - even though I only have one phone and live alone. Read about wiretapping below, and for more anomalies, see here (info to come).]

Before I go any further, I just want to mention the timeline of where L. was:
1992 - 1997 Asia.
1997 - 98 here in Toronto for one year
1998 - 99 India for one year
1999 to present she's been in Toronto, and between 1999 and 2001 she was enrolled in [snip] graduate studies.

When she was here between 1997 and 98, she would be surfing on the net, staying up late at night. One night I talked to her, and she pulled up the blinds and pointed at the car parked across the street with a stranger inside. After that, several times more I would see a car parked outside with a stranger inside. Ours was a cul-de-sac, a dead-end street, with only 38 houses on the street, so an unfamiliar car is easy to spot. And why would there be a strange car with a stranger sitting inside in the middle of night?

When L. first mentioned that people were following her, and that her computer files were being deleted, I told her that it must be some one from York U who knew how to do computer, and who might have been offended by L.'s opinions, because she had expressed a lot of her opinions in the classrooms.

In 2005 a couple of days after her being hospitalized, I got a phone call in the middle of night. When I picked it up, a male voice said some nasty sexual things, something along the line "making love in the hospital", and then he and another female voice laughed at his jokes. What stuck out in my mind wasn't the sexual content of the call, but the word "hospital". Why would a harrassment call contain the word "hospital" when indeed L. was in the hospital?

If I had any lingering doubts about L. being harrassed, I now have no doubts at all.

However, I wish no one would take upon themselves to make protests or any other way to make people know that we know. Recently a nationally-known politician, I don't remember who, someone at the level of Paul Martin, Mulroney or Dick Chinney, said "If the government wishes to pick a fight with you, there's no way you can win. The government has unlimited resources to draw upon."

The reason for L's harrassment was because she made a flippant remark when renewing her passport in HK, she said to the interviewer, "there's a market for Canadian passports, people can make money on them." And I now know for sure that I was being checked upon after she made that remark.

I wish L. would read this and not try to threaten the passport office with lawsuits.

I wish the rest of you would at least give L. the benefit of doubt, and that she wasn't merely being imaginative.

She has suffered.

(Note: The 'unwise remark' I made to the Passport Office/Consulate General of Canada was simply, "Can I keep my passport?" I was having second thoughts about having my passport renewed outside of Canada - and also, working and travelling in Asia, my passport still had a work visa in it. Yet the woman immediately accused me of trying to commit a 'felony'. What?! Unbeknownst to me, she wrote me down in some file. When I returned to Canada and tried to get a Canadian-issued passport on short notice (as my plane ticket was due to expire), I was refused and was later threatened with an RCMP investigation.)


Wiretapping - A Few Perspectives

1. How To Wiretap, or Not   - This is a real eye-opener, written by lawyer Scott Greenfield.**

2. How can you tell if your phone is tapped?, page 8 forum



**Today, technology awareness is key to maintaining a (supposedly) free society and upholding privacy rights.