Quis custodiet ipsos custodies?

"Who will watch the watchmen?" This famous line from second century satirist Juvenal has been plaguing me for a few days now, but in some twisted, prophetic way, it has come to mean something to me.

If you were hoping for a punch line at this point, sorry - because this ain't funny.

You see, while reading a recent article by Robert Fisk in the online edition of 'The Independent" of London (the complete article can be found by clicking on the link following this Mercerish rant), I have discovered that the US Department of Homeland Security is operating on Canadian soil - that's right folks; the same bunch of fun-loving government goons who get paid to throw innocent people out of the U.S. on a daily basis in the name of 'state security' have set up shop here in Canada. They may be limited to operating in Montreal's Trudeau airport, but this is something that I really think should be looked at a lot more closely.

Who knows? This could just be par for the course in major metropolitan airports, and I could just be pushing more of my alarmist buttons subconsciously again (I do that a lot, but if I didn't I'd have nothing to write about). The thing that really worries me is that this - at least as far as I can tell - is not a widely known fact. Not once have I had it even hinted at that American law enforcement agents were able to operate in Canada, without a hell of a lot of oversight from the likes of the RCMP, that is. As for the RCMP, where the hell are they in all of this, damn it! In their shoes just now with that whole Maher Arar incident having just blown up in their collective face, you would think that they would treat anything that comes out of the mouth of U.S. law enforcement's mouth as highly suspect indeed.

Right now, Canada has what must be an enviable reputation in most of the world. We take human rights very seriously extending them to all people within our borders, not because that is the law - which it is - but because that is the way we would hope others would treat us. The worrying thing for me is that if we allow ourselves to become complacent about how we treat people who come here - whatever the reason - we will begin to emulate the behaviour of agencies like Homeland Security; and by so doing lose some essential part of what makes us, if not great, then at least less dislikable.

Like it or not, if we don't watch future events regarding this issue with due care, we could very well find ourselves with watchers we don't want.

Link to 'The Independent' website - http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2469270.ece