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The kicker: Once the fact of travel to a banned area has been established to the authorities’ satisfaction, the onus will be on the traveller to prove his or her business abroad was legitimate and inoffensive, according to criteria that have yet to be established, to be judged by security agencies as yet unnamed. If the traveller will not or cannot offer such proof, they will be criminally prosecuted and levied with penalties as yet undefined. In other words, the fact of travel to a “declared area” alone will be enough to have the presumption of innocence overturned. Travellers will be deemed guilty until proven innocent.

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“There are very few legitimate reasons to go to places like these,” Harper asserted at a campaign stop in Ottawa. “And those who go without such legitimate reasons will face the full force of the law.”

In an accompanying news release, the Conservatives sought to allay civil libertarian concerns, saying “there may be limited legitimate reasons that a Canadian may travel to declared areas such as providing humanitarian aid or professional journalism. Canadians who can demonstrate they have travelled to declared areas for defined legitimate purposes would not be prosecuted under the new legislation.”

Cue the alarm klaxons. There “may” be “limited” legitimate reasons? Who, pray, will decide what is legitimate? According to what set of standards? Who will determine those standards? Who will decide whether a journalist is a “professional” or a garden-variety malcontent, hack and propagandist? To whom will journalists, diplomats, academics and humanitarian workers – to name four categories of people who might have what most would consider “legitimate” reasons to travel to terrorism-stricken zones – be required to report upon their return? Will such reporting be public and transparent, or done in secret? And what about cases in which a journalist, diplomat or other professional may have good reasons to not want to share information about their business with a government department or security agency?