Synopsis
Current historical orthodoxy contends that Canada was startled into implementing security screening in September 1945, when Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko defected in Ottawa, bringing with him sensational evidence that a Soviet espionage network existed in this country. The Infernal Machine challenges that conventional view in the course of rewriting Canadian security and intelligence history. Larry Hannant marshals evidence from previously classified documents to show that systematic security screening was launched fifteen years before Gouzenko. It was initiated because the Russian Revolution in 1917 caused Canadian authorities, particularly the RCMP, to view many citizens with suspicion. The heart of the security screening system was a unique Canadian experiment in mass fingerprinting. During the Second World War the RCMP received and checked over two million sets of fingerprints. This was both unprecedented and illegal. Because fingerprinting offended popular opinion and legal authority, surrendering their fingerprints was always `voluntary' for employees at war plants. The RCMP acknowledged that the procedure could be subject to abuse - and abused it was. People identified by security checks as having criminal records or even personal peccadilloes were fired and denied jobs. Some of these people protested their treatment, and in internal memos the RCMP commissioner fretted that the force was acquiring `a Gestapo reputation' among Canadians. The Infernal Machine presents a compelling new chapter in Canadian history. Hannant has produced an authoritative and dramatic examination of the Canadian state's deep fears of its own citizens and of the arbitrary measures taken againstthose citizens.
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The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada's Citizens
Edité par
Univ of Toronto Pr, 1995
ISBN 10 : 0802072364
ISBN 13 : 9780802072368
Ancien ou d'occasion
paperback
Vendeur : Once Upon A Time Books, Siloam Springs, AR, Etats-Unis
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paperback. Etat : Acceptable. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear . It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket. This is a used book. It may contain highlighting/underlining and/or the book may show heavier signs of wear . It may also be ex-library or without dustjacket. N° de réf. du vendeur mon0001350377
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The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada's Citizens
Edité par
University of Toronto Press, 1995
ISBN 10 : 0802072364
ISBN 13 : 9780802072368
Ancien ou d'occasion
Soft cover
Vendeur : killarneybooks, Inagh, CLARE, Irlande
Évaluation du vendeur 5 sur 5 étoiles
Soft cover. Etat : Good. Paperback, ix + 330 pages, NOT ex-library. Vey good interior, clean, bright, untanned, with unmarked text, free of inscriptions and stamps. Faint age-spotting on outer page edges (side & bottom); dusty marks on the outer corner of the lower edges. Firm binding, spine remains free of vertical creasing. -- A forceful, meticulously researched exposé of Canada's early experiments in state surveillance, revealing a system of security screening and fingerprint-based identification that predates the Cold War by decades. Challenging the dominant historical narrative that roots Canada's intelligence apparatus in the 1945 Gouzenko affair, Hannant rewinds the origins of mass loyalty testing to the First World War and interwar years, tracing a deep institutional suspicion toward dissenters, radicals, labour activists, and even ordinary citizens who simply deviated from expected norms. At the heart of Hannant's investigation is the RCMP's covert evolution from a traditional law enforcement body into a proto-intelligence agency - one which, by the WWII, had amassed an illegal and secretive archive of over two million fingerprint files. This mass collection of biometric data - conducted under the pretense of voluntariness - constituted a startling breach of civil liberties. Yet it operated with almost no public oversight and in a legal vacuum, driven by fear of communism, wartime anxiety, and an unrelenting pursuit of ideological conformity. Through ten tightly argued chapters, Hannant details how security screening expanded beyond military and federal employment to encompass wartime industry, the merchant marine, and even provincial cooperation. Chapters such as "Reds Under the Khaki" and "Gathering Information Regarding Communistic Chaps" delve into how the state rationalised surveillance and job discrimination on political grounds, often destroying livelihoods based on tenuous evidence. Equally damning is Hannant's portrait of the RCMP's unwillingness to coordinate with other government agencies - an institutional insularity that bred inefficiency even as it entrenched authoritarian practices. Drawing on declassified internal memos, personnel files, and the RCMP's own fears of acquiring a "Gestapo reputation," The Infernal Machine reveals a system built not on transparent justice, but on whispered allegations, gendered moral scrutiny, and racialised assumptions. The security net was not only vast - it was often arbitrary. For women, particularly, loyalty vetting was deeply entangled with sexual policing, while working-class Canadians found themselves disproportionately targeted for labour activism or minor infractions. Yet Hannant's work is not only a historical excavation - it is a cautionary parable about unchecked state power. His analysis of Canada's intelligence ties to Britain and, increasingly, the FBI in the United States shows how Canadian authorities gravitated toward more expansive and punitive models of surveillance even before McCarthyism set the tone for North American counter-subversion. His insight that the RCMP's focus on leftist threats led them to virtually ignore fascist and Nazi elements domestically is a chilling reminder of the political selectivity of intelligence services. This book is a landmark contribution. It excavates an under-acknowledged era of Canadian intelligence history, one in which rights and liberties were compromised not by external enemies, but by the state's own self-image and its fear of ideological difference. The Infernal Machine is a compelling, if unsettling, portrait of democratic fragility in wartime - and a necessary reference point for contemporary debates on surveillance, national security, and the politics of loyalty. N° de réf. du vendeur 011144
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The Infernal Machine: Investigating the Loyalty of Canada's Citizens
Edité par
University of Toronto Press, 1995
ISBN 10 : 0802072364
ISBN 13 : 9780802072368
Ancien ou d'occasion
Soft cover
Vendeur : Encore Books, Montreal, QC, Canada
Évaluation du vendeur 4 sur 5 étoiles
Soft cover. Etat : Very Good. Soft cover book in very good condition. Small price sticker on back cover, slight edgewear. Pages clean, bright, and binding is tight. A lovely copy. Questions welcome. We ship internationally from the United States and Canada every week. If buying internationally, please be aware that additional charges may apply for heavier books. We guarantee a safe, quick, and secure transaction. 10+ years in online bookselling experience. N° de réf. du vendeur 019503
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