On May 18, 1966, a real bomb detonated inside Parliament Hill's Centre Block, killing the man who wanted to detonate it in the House of Commons.

Six months later, five Carleton University students -- Mike Steinberg, Al Kaufman, David Balcon,Victor Nerenberg and John Hanlon -- decided to test Parliament Hill's security by trying to smuggle tape recorders into the Commons' public galleries. They succeeded and managed to make an unauthorized audio recording. In the process, they found out that Hansard is somewhat sanitized.

Veteran radio journalist Hanlon -- formerly with CBC in Alberta; now with NHK in Japan -- recalls the story and reaction in this Oct. 20 Ottawa Citizen story:

On Sunday night, Nov. 27 at 9:05, the five of us -- and unwittingly, CKOY -- aired what we believe to be the first and only unauthorized broadcast of the House of Commons. Ottawa listeners first heard the ticking of a clock -- much like the opening of CBS's 60 Minutes, and then Mr. Nerenberg's voice: "This is the sound of a time bomb."

Over the next few minutes, he went on to describe how, despite a recent failed bombing attempt, we had easily breached security and entered the public galleries of the House of Commons. The commentary, written and produced by Mr. Balcon, was interspersed with sound bites of Mr. Pearson, Mr. Diefenbaker, various cabinet ministers and other MPs.

Mr. Nerenberg then made the essential point of the broadcast: that if we had been attackers and our tape recorders explosives, we would have killed many parliamentarians, including the prime minister.

Our broadcast did prompt a review and tightening of security on Parliament Hill, and the story of our actions was picked up by the mainstream media. But we soon received some alarming news. It came as Mr. Balcon and I were interviewed on CJOH-TV's supper-hour newscast.

The bombshell dropped on the student journos was that they could face charges over the stunt. However, Lucien Lamoureux, then the speaker, assured them no charges would be forthcoming.

Hanlon admits to one nagging irritant from the event:

... We were disappointed by was the way the mainstream media of the day characterized our story. While they did report widely on our security breach, and helped us make our point, we felt we never got the same credit we would have had we not been students.

Had professional journalists made the recording, we don't think it would have been referred to as a "prank," as it was most often called -- even if some media called it a "prank with a purpose." We may have been students, but we took our point seriously.

"The type of journalism we practiced that day was groundbreaking," says Mr. Nerenberg. "It may be commonplace nowadays, but not back then. I think it's fair to say we embarrassed not only those responsible for parliamentary security, but also many professional journalists. They would not have admitted it at the time, but I'm sure they wished they had thought of it, and had done it, first."