Journalist and author Stevie Cameron wants the RCMP to fork over $120,000 in legal costs and apologize for designating her a confidential informant without her knowledge or consent.

An excerpt:

"The single-most harmful thing he stated about me was that I had had 686 contacts with police, and then he admitted that wasn't true," she said.

In a court affidavit filed last year, Supt. Mathews said: "Ms. Cameron may find the designation of 'confidential informant' distasteful, but in my interactions with her she clearly wanted to benefit from the operational effect of the assertion of confidential informant privilege -- namely, that her identity and the fact of her co-operation with the police would be kept confidential from all."

Ms. Cameron said she spoke on the telephone with Supt. Mathews several times in January and February, 2004. She said they discussed her decision to write a letter to him saying she had never considered herself a confidential informant and had never sought the status.

Ms. Cameron said she believed Supt. Mathews was trying, in those conversations, to persuade her to withdraw the letter; she said she felt he was threatening her by suggesting that he planned to file an affidavit she would find unpleasant.

She said she had the impression that if she withdrew her letter, the affidavit would be modified or withdrawn.

You can see all of Ms. Cameron's side of the story at steviecameron.com.

I have an earlier post on her troubles with the CAJ.