The documentary Preempting Dissent directed by Greg Elmer and Andy Opel showcased many issues in how police and security deal with protests. Some of the main issues include such their inability to handle protests, excessive resistance tactics, quick draw with weapons and the seemingly radical perspective of domestic security. Throughout the documentary there was an abundance of footage reveling police punching, threatening, beating, pepper spraying, shooting rubber bullets at and arresting innocent peaceful protestors. The police and other security forces began treating any big negotiations such as the G20 Summit as national security events. Although the police force is doing what they are instructed to they often infringe on the rights of …show more content…
Due to police being ill prepared and using force using force they began to go to protests expecting violence even though they were the ones conducting the vast majority of it. The violence by police often led to infringement of rights of the protestors. In both Canada and the United States, there are several rights that enable you to legally stand up for what you believe in. As well as the right to protest there are many other rights such as; the right of private groups to be heard, free speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. Often times police infringe on these rights and as the documentary showed police even rejected the phone calls of those who were detained for up to 20 hours, arrested people for not leaving quick enough or being asked to leave but presented no exits. The security measures seemed to be of a radical perspective as the police acted as tools of oppression acting in the interests of the state rather than the people. The protests being conducted for the most part were of peaceful nature, however police force used extreme tactics. When the protests are not dangerous or turning into a riot extreme tactics are not necessary to control the situation. Protestors now fear the risk of being arrested or of potential bodily harm when standing for what you …show more content…
Police treated the public place as a military zone and insisted that the protestors were kept out of the perimeter of the Summit. The police also had more power, extended ability to search, question and detain anyone without a warrant. The protestors who attended were unaware that they were walking into a trap as the police had just released a secret security regulation called the Public Works Protection Act. The police neglected to inform anyone about the new security regulation that they had implemented and how much more power they had. The act essentially revived a war time legislation, which are supposed to protect you from enemies of war, not from people expressing their rights and freedoms to protest. The secret security regulation triggered a form of Martial law suspending the ordinary law and giving the police and security immense amounts of power. Toronto’s G20 summit had security styles with questionable legality and those protesting walked into a trap not knowing the new secret regulation. Passing a new law that directly affects the general public and neglecting to tell anyone is extremely unethical and immoral. Security should not deceive the public so that they can have the upper hand and operate with questionable legality. The police wrongly treated their own civilians as enemies of war for expressing their freedoms and