The voices calling for a reining in of the RCMP and a public inquiry into the Maher Arar case are growing following Wednesday's RCMP raid on a journalist.

"I thought it was a huge over-reaction," said former deputy prime minister John Manley, speaking on CTV's Question Period, about the RCMP's actions.

"It’s about time somebody did something about the RCMP," said backbench Liberal MP Carolyn Parrish, also speaking on Question Period. "... We’ve been talking about reviewing these laws for a long time."

She is just one of many government members complaining that current security laws allow the RCMP to go too far.

The raid occurred because Juliet O’Neill, a reporter for the Ottawa Citizen, wrote a story on Nov. 8 based on leaked security documents that painted Arar, a 33-year-old Syrian-Canadian computer engineer, as a terrorist threat, saying he trained in al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan.

Arar, who was deported to Syria by the U.S. government in 2002, said he gave a bogus confession to Syrian authorities to stop the torture to which he was being subjected.

He has been on a campaign to clear his name since his return to Canada last fall.

But anonymous government sources kept suggesting he was not as innocent as he claimed, although the government has never publicly made a case against Arar or charged him with any offence.

The leaked document helped to make Arar’s case look weaker.

One thing that concerned people was it appeared to show highly detailed knowledge of what Arar told the Syrians while he was being tortured.

As part of its effort to identify who leaked the information, 10 RCMP officers descended on O’Neill’s home, searching it and her office.

Journalists and civil libertarians were outraged, and Prime Minister Paul Martin hastily convened a news conference in Davos, Switzerland Thursday to say investigative efforts should be focused on finding the leaker, not O’Neill.

Some observers say the RCMP was trying to send a message to journalists, would-be terrorists and document-leaking bureaucrats that the Security of Information Act -- which makes it a crime to leak or possess secret government documents -- would be enforced.

Since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, in the U.S., new laws give the RCMP sweeping powers to tail, tap and even detain Canadians in the name of fighting terrorism.

“The government should have been much more careful instead of rushing through those laws, and really looked at whether more investigative powers were needed,” said Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch, an advocacy group.

“I would say it’s a wake-up call for everyone to re-examine what’s there and how it’s applied,” O’Neill said.

However, Manley defended Bill C-36, the Anti-Terrorism Act -- legislation he helped write.

In speaking about the 19 terrorists involved in carrying out the 9/11 attacks, Manley said: “Not a single one of those people (had) committed a criminal act until they hijacked those four aircraft, so if we’re going to stop that from happening, we have to watch people based on suspicions, based on their associations. We have to be careful.”

On Jan. 23, The Globe and Mail newspaper reported that one reason why the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service signed off on deporting Arar to Syria was because he was acquaintances with two other men considered to be terror suspects.

Arar admitted to the FBI he knew Abdullah Almalki and Ahmad Abou El-Maati, but only on an acquaintance level. He had worked with Almalki’s brother.

Almalki and El-Maati have been questioned by the RCMP and have been jailed and questioned in Syria, but none have been charged with any crime here.

Parliament resumes sitting Feb. 2.

Given the controversy and pressure of recent days, pundits expect Martin might have to review the anti-terror legislation and the Arar case.