Sq, Thought Police In Quebec?
The following story is what happened, according to Patricia Paquette, when investigators from SQ visited her at her home recently. One morning, Patricia Paquette received a visit that she never saw coming. Around 10:30am, her 2 phones started ringing simultaneously. As she works night shifts, she is not used to receiving phone calls in the morning, and therefore thought that it must've been important so she checked her messages. She discovered that one of the messages was from an investigator from SQ (sureté du québec) asking her to call them back. She then called them back to find out what was happening, and the investigator then explained to her that they are going to visit her and are now on their way from the SQ headquarters. Once the SQ arrived at her place, they asked her if she knew the reason why they were visiting - twitter was quite far from her thoughts, so she answered that she had no idea. They then proceeded to explain to her that they were there regarding Anonymous, and that they want to know her level of involvement. So far it seemed like a simple visit as part of a routine investigation, no abnormalities, but things quickly got a bit stranger, according to Patricia. She was shown a copy of all her messages on social media sites, and told that she retweeted tweets from someone that was arrested in France on charges of hacking government websites. She was then asked how her employer would react if some tweets from her were shown to them, which had nothing to do with the current investigation. She had to point out to them that those tweets related to her job were posted by her employer at first, which shows that they didn't really do their homework and were mostly trying to intimidate her in an attempt to fish for information. Clearly annoyed by how unphased she was, they proceed to tell her that she should not retweet Anonymous tweets, and that next time a judge could make the call. This is the story, as told by Patricia Paquette, while she was clearly still a bit in shock from what had happened. I don't know about you, but, personally, I am starting to ask myself what is SQ doing with my taxpayer money. If things happened as she said they did, it is a clear cut case of intimidation from the cops. I did not know that we had a thought police in Quebec, tasked with telling us what we should or should not retweet. I also did not know that blackmailing by threatening a person's job and livelihood was an acceptable tactic - in fact, I'm pretty sure it's illegal. I am starting to wonder if they put as much pressure on corrupt politicians when they investigate them as they do on citizens expressing their views online. Probably not, judging from the almost non-existent record of high level corruption arrests in the SQ's track record. SQ is way too busy annoying simple citizens that use twitter to express their views. Maybe someone should teach them how to internet... Personally, I never supported attacks on government websites, or even the demands by the Quebec students, but with Law 78 and SQ acting as a political police, I have no other choice but to speak out against it. Repression is repression, whether I agree or not with the people being repressed. In Quebec, we have been dealing with MAJOR corruption issues for years, we have large organized crime groups operating with near impunity, but it would appear that intimidating activists and beating students who protest is a higher priority. But then, when your boss is part of the corruption problem, it's harder to serve and protect...
