The inquiry is seeking the expert input to bolster its analysis of whether the federal government was right to use the Emergencies Act in response to protests that took over downtown Ottawa.
OTTAWA — Cybersecurity experts say a federal inquiry should think of social media as the central nervous system of the"Freedom Convoy" protest in Ottawa last winter.
Queen's University political scientist Dax D'Orazio says social media permeated nearly every part of the protest, from fundraising and organizing to documenting events and getting around traditional media outlets as a source of information.
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Failure of intelligence led to failure in policing during Freedom Convoy: 'levels of law enforcement must act sooner,' say insiders and expertsThe duration and severity of this past winter’s Freedom Convoy protest in downtown Ottawa began with a failure of intelligence leading to a failure in policing, and is “a confirmation of the failure of preparation,” say security experts and insiders following the Public Order Emergency Commission. Wesley Wark, national security expert and a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation, said there is now a better understanding of policing failures which were very evident in the early days of the Freedom Convoy occupation in Ottawa and in terms of the border blockades. “Real policing failures, by which I mean an inability to respond quickly and effectively to these occupation, either in Ottawa or at the borders,” said Wark, who added that those failures were a direct product of intelligence breakdown. “Intelligence at all levels, from local police forces, to Ottawa police, to provincial, to federal especially, did not have a good handle on either the intentions or the capabilities of the Freedom Convoy protest,” said Wark. Wark pointed to the OPP’s “Project Hendon,” described in his newsletter as an “ambitious project to bring together law enforcement agencies from across Canada to study the rise of mass civil dissent and protests. The project initially focused on public safety threats prompted by a series of protests surrounding Indigenous issues such as the Wet’suwet’en pipeline protests in British Columbia and related protests in Ontario. Ontario Provincial Police and Ottawa Police crowd in on Metcalfe Street on Feb. 17, 2022, after arresting a protester during the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa. The Hill Times photograph by Andrew Meade As the pandemic took hold, the attention of the project shifted to monitoring anti-government activity fueled by opposition to public health measures, according to Wark. “To be fair to the project, their threat assessments on the Freedom Convoy were the best intelligence product that we’ve seen,” said Wark. “The pr
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Social media tools were key to ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest, expert tells inquiryOTTAWA — Cybersecurity experts say a federal inquiry should think of social media as the central nervous system of the 'Freedom Convoy' protest in Ottawa last
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