re: #220 Absalom, Absalom, Obdicut

My ex is Canadian and I lived there a number of years, so I could tell a lot of stories about how Canadians do the same things. Normally, I don’t because it usually comes out sounding as if I’m defending an action I don’t like when all I want to say is that the U.S. government doesn’t represent some unique form of evil that’s never before been seen on earth. I think of that attitude as an inverted form of American Exceptionalism.

There is one incident which occurred while I was living in Canada which is very relevant to the discussion about Snowden. Reported on the radio while I was living there was an incident in which a woman was investigated by the federal police for saying over the phone that he son had “bombed” in a play. As a result it came out that the Canadian government was using an automated system to listen in to Canadian’s phone call and search for certain suspicious words. This isn’t the metadata; this is the content. The government was forced to abandon the program, but it wasn’t illegal because they don’t have a 4th amendment. Yet I don’t see anyone saying that Canada is the world’s most oppressive government because of this.

I’ve tried to find a source on the internet to back me up on this, but it occurred around 1997, or ‘96, so I think I’d need to travel to Montreal and look at old newspapers in a library. If anyone has a link about this, I’d love to see it. I know asserting things without a link is like asking to be doubted.

I was also once detained at the Canadian border because I had D+D books in the car. Also, my husband had long hair and we were frequently stopped. He once joked that if he wanted to smuggle drugs the first thing he’d do is cut his hair.