RCMP tracked Toronto activists with fake Facebook profile | Toronto Star

If you're stupid enough to post incriminating stuff on facebook, you deserve what you get. I have no problem with this sort of investigation, where they are not prying into people's lives, just creating a lure for them.

You will be informed by the voice on your telescreen.

Hate to say but you're right. This is not so much classic entrapment as it is an example of what the courts down here call "the sliver platter".

If someone freely offers up evidence then the police don't need a warrant for it to be admissible in court.

It still feels wrong even though it isn't. I am uncomfortable with governments engaging in deceptions like this against their own people.

this is a case where "if you don't do anything wrong you have nothing to worry about" actually applies. They can only get you if you're stupid enough to reach out and post shit. If you're just bragging, well, you might have to let the courts settle that one. This would be a perfect ploy to use on Western Muslims who are thinking of jihad or just wanting to talk tough, seems to me. Same with the rightwingnuts. They deserve police attention much more than some activists. Although I guess the police don't have to set up face websites there, just find and monitor the real ones. Again, I have no problem with that either. (Honest, ocifer).

In general, these tactics should be acceptable. Hey, who doesn't want to be protected from dangerous radicals ? The problem of course is that agencies such as CSIS and the RCMP abuse their power constantly. With very little oversight and accountability we have become a nation of agents who identify themselves as above the law, outside the boundaries of rules.

Before you know it you have agents burning down barns (killing animals in the process) in Quebec, being agent provocateurs, "playing the game" at the expense of Canadian lives and the broader economy, lying under oath in a courtroom to protect their behinds or that of their colleagues, sending false information to agencies that cause a citizen to be sent overseas (and costing taxpayers $10M in the process). In some cases, the police even use vital resources to stand outside with a sign telling you that if you're reading it you are breaking the law and be prepared to be ticketed. No way these activities will occur, right?

One day you wake up and they are stabbing allies in the back, entering corporations to interfere with your employment or generating interest in a union within the workforce of a foreign owned business where no interest would have otherwise had been present...

Too many cops. Seriously, if they have time to troll Facebook at work, then there are too many.

Agreed.

Who needs to troll. Most of these groups and forums allow you chose to have new topics and updates sent to you via email. Just find the site and join. Nothing wrong with joining a public site. I did it for *&() agency against certain unnamed groups over 10 years ago. Hardly new methods. Granted it seems more of a CSIS type job then one for a cop who is now off the street.