It’s a disturbing development that raises the spectre of J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI agents skulking in dark corners looking into activities thought to be considered unsavoury or “anti-democratic” and creating secret files on residents.

That visual scenario has been raised by the Hamilton Police Service as detailed in the service’s 2008 Hate/Bias crime statistical report, presented to the Hamilton Police Services Board last week. The report gives the unsettling impression the police are now on the lookout for potentially damaging hate/biased crimes that could occur during a demonstration by environmentalists, anarchists, union members or any other political group during such national events as the 2010 Vancouver Olympics or the G8 Summit in Huntsville in 2010.

This potential change in police policy, without any public awareness provided, nor comment from what has become a toothless and compliant Hamilton Police Services Board, raises some serious questions about how the police are conducting themselves, and who is protecting the interests of residents.

Contained in thereport, presented to the HPS board last week, were references to “active monitoring” of a book fair hosted by an anarchist group. The event included potential “hate” crimes such as holding workshops on environmental justice, workplace organizing, and Palestinian and First Nations struggles against colonialism. Last year’s event was held without incident.

These may not be topics for everyone’s taste, but they are political ideas that people have the freedom to support or oppose in a democratic and free country.

But there is more to what the police are suggesting. It would seem the police are in the business of monitoring any type of protest, march or activity that could possibility result in a hate crime incident. That means protests about native land claims, environmental protection, poverty, public debt and homelessness; issues that have been raised before during economic summits and Olympics are now fair game to be classified as potential “hate crimes.”

A hate-biased crime as defined by the law is a “criminal offense committed against a person or property which is motivated solely or in part by the suspect’s hate/bias against a person’s race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, disability group, age or gender.”

In 2008 there were 33 incidents of hate/bias, as classified by the Hamilton Police Service, involving a person or property, an increase from the 31 incidents that occurred in 2007. Police say that about 55 per cent of the hate-biased crimes reported in 2008 were graffiti incidents.

The hate crimes report identified possible violent action by people against the 2010 Olympics, “targeting” corporate sponsors, and during the 2010 G8 Summit, and that police would be monitoring possible “civil disorder” in surrounding areas. The police will also have their eye on anarchist reaction to the city’s anti-graffiti strategies, including possible anti-police graffiti.

As part of the anti-graffiti strategy, the city and police have a quick response policy that when a hate/bias or anti-police graffiti is seen, it is removed within 24 hours and the incident is investigated as a hate/bias crime.

During the days of protest against the Red Hill Creek Parkway, the police were criticized for their ham-handed attempts to corral and muzzle protesters.

The acknowledgement that police are continuing surveillance of lawful groups and are willing to lay hate/bias charges against protesters is an unnerving thought. It’s up to the cowed police board to establish protocols and policies so the police don’t run roughshod over legitimate groups’ rights to protest.