RCMP created fake social media accounts to monitor activist groups: report

Activist groups in Toronto are lashing out after learning that the RCMP set up fake Facebook and Twitter accounts to monitor their activities.

A report in the Toronto Star says the RCMP posed as a curious, cash-strapped student to obtain information on protests and rallies.

The account, which was named Bebop Arooney and used a profile picture of three penguins on a beach, monitored dozens of groups including Black Lives Matter Toronto, Idle No More, and half-a-dozen Jewish and Palestinian groups.

“This is the disgusting reality of working for justice for black people,” Black Lives Matter Toronto said in a statement to The Star. “You get treated as a threat, like you were doing something wrong.”

Documents obtained by The Star under the Access to Information Act show the RCMP prodding organizers of an anti-Novotel union rally in 2012 with seemingly harmless questions about the availability of free food and refreshments at the rally.

But Lis Pimental, the president of the union that planned the demonstration, found nothing harmless about the covert social media activity.

“The idea that the RCMP would attempt to interfere with the charter-protected rights of workers simply underscores the importance of those very rights,” she told The Star.

“It’s unacceptable for any employer to do it. It is doubly unacceptable for the RCMP, who are supposed to be here to protect us, to do it.”

The RCMP admitted that it created the fake Facebook profile, and a separate Twitter account (@angrycitizen123) but told The Star it no longer uses them to track activists.

“The (Facebook) account mentioned was opened in 2005 for operational reasons, and since that time, the RCMP’s social media practices have changed and evolved and now we use an official media account for such purposes,” a spokesperson told The Star.

“The Facebook account is historical and no longer relevant.”

The Facebook profile has since been deleted, but the Twitter account is still active.

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