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It also accused CSIS of sharing information about the opponents with the National Energy Board and petroleum industry companies, effectively deterring people from voicing their opinions and associating with environmental groups.

The review committee dismissed the civil liberties association’s complaint in 2017, prompting the association to ask the Federal Court to revisit the outcome.

In the process, more than 8,000 pages of once-secret material — including heavily redacted memos and transcripts of closed-door hearings — have become public, providing a glimpse into the review committee’s deliberations.

The civil liberties association published 19 volumes of the records Monday at https://bccla.org/secret-spy-hearings/.

“We encourage people to look at these documents and to decide for themselves what our spy agency has been up to,” the association’s Meghan McDermott told a news conference in Vancouver.

During one review committee hearing, a CSIS official, whose identity is confidential, said information volunteered by energy companies was put in a spy service database.

“It is not actionable. It just sits there,” the CSIS official said. “But should something happen, should violence erupt, then we will go back to this and be able to see that we had the information — it is just information that was given to us, and we need to log it.

“Should something happen after and we hadn’t logged it, then we are at fault for not keeping the information.”