When two plainclothes officers approached Dr. Chris Shaw last June, it had started off like any other day for the Vancouver-based neuroscientist. Shaw had just stepped out of a café with his morning caffeine fix, and was heading to his office at a university research lab around the corner. Within moments, Shaw was flanked by the two intelligence officers from the Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit (ISU), an RCMP-led task force in charge of Vancouver’s $900-million Olympic security operation.
The officers wanted to have a chat with Shaw, but not about his neurological work. There were concerns for 2010 security, the officers told Shaw. Concerns prompted by elements of a book he had written.
Shaw is not only a leading expert on Lou Gehrig’s and Parkinson’s disease, but he has also become one of the city’s most vocal critics of the Olympics. His 2008 book, The Five Ring Circus: Myths and Realities of the Olympic Games, is a critical exploration of the social, economic, and environmental impacts of the Games, and of the history behind Vancouver’s bid for the Olympics.
The ISU’s visit to Shaw was part of a larger surveillance campaign on anti-Olympic activists and protestors in the build up to 2010. Controversy erupted when local media revealed that friends and relatives of Shaw had also been targeted by ISU.
“If this is what almost $1 billion in security costs buys you,” Shaw wrote after his ISU visit, “then maybe we aren’t really getting our money’s worth?”
Shaw fears that civil liberties — the rights an individual has in a society, such as the freedom of expression — are at risk. The Olympic Charter declares that “no kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.” In order to enforce this rule, Vancouver signed a contract with the International Olympic Committee, ensuring that no “propaganda or advertising” is placed within or outside the Olympic venues in such a manner that it could be seen by TV cameras or spectators.
I interviewed Dr. Shaw last November to discuss his concerns about the Olympics’ impact on civil liberties.
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