PUBLICATION: Times
Colonist (Victoria)
DATE: 2003.01.27
EDITION: Final
SECTION: Comment
PAGE: A6
COLUMN: Lorne
Gunter
BYLINE: Lorne Gunter
SOURCE: Southam
News
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Database another firearms disaster: Besides being
ineffective, FIP is a massive invasion of Canadians' privacy
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Almost
four years ago I wrote a column about a mammoth federal database known as FIP,
short for Firearms Interest Police. FIP collects data, mostly automatically,
from the computers of nearly 900 police forces across the country. If you are
ever involved in an incident -- any incident at all -- in which punches are
throw, threats uttered or even insults hurled, and that incident results in a
police report being filed, chances are your name and personal file are in FIP.
And you don't have to be the perpetrator or the victim. Your personal data can
win a free trip to FIP if you are a witness, too.
Perhaps
you merely called police to report loud noises from next door. Upon
investigation, officers found a husband and wife quarreling. No charges were
laid, but a "flag" was put on your neighbours' computer file.
For
sure your neighbours were FIP-ped. And if your local police force was thorough
in its paperwork, it's very likely you were, too -- just because you placed that
call.
Now
whenever police call up your computer file, there will be a flashing red FIP
light next to your name (metaphorically speaking). Even if you're on vacation
and pulled over for speeding in another province, the computer check of your
licence plate number will return a FIP warning.
Not
only does information flow in from 900 police departments and RCMP detachments,
it flows out to them, too. All across the country. Instantly.
More
than four million of us are already in FIP -- more than one in five adult
Canadians. And since Ottawa has only two million gun owners in its registry, at
least half of the citizens with FIP files are non-gun owners.
FIP
is not something of concern only to the responsible firearms owners. It is an
unaudited invasion of every Canadian's privacy -- all in the name of proving the
Liberals' beloved universal gun registry is useful for something other than
devouring taxpayers' billions.
When
I first mentioned FIP, back in June of 1999, I predicted it was going to be an
enormous boondoggle, that Canadians from all walks of life would find their
lives complicated by FIP.
There
were insufficient safeguards on FIP computers to protect personal information
from hackers. And few citizens would ever realize their names and data were in
FIP until police showed up on their doorstep.
These
were not idle threats or random imaginings on my part. Police officers and
bureaucrats familiar with FIP had laid out for me the errors and flaws with
which FIP was riddled.
Yet
Jean Valin, at that time the chief spin-doctor for the Liberals' gun registry,
accused me of "aspiring to even higher levels of inaccuracy" than
usual, and charged that my "description of the FIP database totally
misrepresents what this file contains."
Well,
guess what? The federal privacy commissioner has just revealed that FIP is every
bit as much of a hash as I predicted; as much of a hash as the gun registry
itself.
But
since the two are interlocked, hand-in-glove, there was never any reason to
think FIP would be anything but a disaster.
George
Radwanski, the privacy commissioner, declared last week that there are
"serious problems" with FIP, that it routinely "flags"
innocent people, that he has raised his concerns with three successive ministers
of justice.
None
of them -- not Allan Rock nor Anne McLellan nor Martin Cauchon -- has even done
him the courtesy of providing him with the files he has requested on Canadians
abused by the FIP system, much less take any steps to correct its wanton
infringements on Canadians' rights.
Radwanski
pointed out there are no controls on the accuracy of the information in FIP, yet
citizens are routinely questioned by police as a result of FIP's contents, and
occasionally even arrested. Many hundreds of thousands of harmless Canadians are
in FIP, while the system remains entirely ignorant of hundreds, perhaps
thousands, of violent or dangerous individuals.
One
Montreal man (the commissioner never releases names in his reports) found
himself the subject of a FIP inquiry because he lived in an apartment building
in which the landlord had reported a theft -- even though the landlord had named
no suspects. Presumably he was seeking a police report so he could file a claim
against the building's insurance.
Alliance
MP Garry Breitkreuz has scores of other examples. One peace officer lost his job
because he could not obtain a permit to carry a firearm based on a complaint his
ex-wife had filed 27 years ago, and despite being divorced from the complainant
for 18 years. All during that time he had safely carried a gun.
FIP
is generating a lengthy list of unwarranted searches, random property seizures,
firings and even arrests and detentions.
And
given that the Liberals seem more determined than ever to prove their registry
has merit, and since even bad arrests in the name of the registry permit the
Liberals to claim the system is taking guns out of the hands of unsafe people,
don't expect them to close or even correct FIP soon, or ever.