Everybody loves a SIRCus

> In response to media reports that CSIS had been complicit in the detention of Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik in Sudan, outgoing CSIS director Jim Judd requested that CSIS watchdog and review panel, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, “investigate and report on the performance of the Service’s [CSIS’s] duties and

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Peace, order and good government, eh?: Department of Tiresome Memes

So who else is tired of hearing people talk about Canada punching above its weight? I think I’d like to see the phrase retired. At this point it’s just being abused as a way of cheer-leading for policy options that require a whole lot more in the way of support to make them worthy of consideration. It’s high time Canada had a proper foreign spy agency, especially if the feds are serious about positioning Canada as a country that punches above its weight on the international stage. And by the way, if we’re talking about punching above our weight, shouldn’t that be "in the international ring?" But I digress. According to "security expert Christian Leuprect": "If Canada wants to be, and Stephen Harper wants Canada to be a serious international player, we’re going to need a foreign intelligence service for the 21st century the way threats are shaking out." He doesn’t mention any specific threats but apparently that’s not important. All the cool countries have spooks out there doing spook stuff so we need to get in the game to be a serious player….

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The Sixth Estate: John Ivison and the Case for a Canadian Foreign Intelligence Agency

Today’s example of a woefully uninformed journalist spouting off on a subject of crucial national importance is John Ivison, whose Monday column in the National Post is what presently passes for “balanced” commentary on what Ivison says is a renewed push by the government to transform the Canadian Security Intelligence Service into a foreign intelligence […]

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Peace, order and good government, eh?: "an arab running around"

The fact that Abdullah Almalki was "an arab running around" in Canada was enough to eventually get him detained and tortured in Syria. That and a little guilt by association. Almalki was one of three Canadians whose cases were the focus of the Iacobucci inquiry in 2008. All three men were detained in Syria based on information supplied by Canadian officials. Yesterday Almaki released documents obtained through an Access to Information request and the Montreal Gazette has a story on it. Here are the reasons why Almalki originally came to be regarded as a person of interest. Almalki had first come under investigation by CSIS in 1998 when some of his company’s communications equipment was found in the hands of the Taliban. He met with CSIS and explained that his export company shipped store-bought equipment to a Pakistani firm, Microelectronics, and that he didn’t control what happened to it after that point. Which seems straightforward enough. But unfortunately Almalki had made the mistake of knowing the wrong people….

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Peace, order and good government, eh?: On Abdelrazik, CSIS and Transport Canada

Since posting on Friday to draw attention to Paul Koring’s latest article on Abousfian Abdelrazik, I’ve had a chance to review some of the previous reports and I noticed something that may just be a coincidence. Or it may not. Recall the main point of the story: that CSIS wanted to keep Abdelrazik in Sudan, or at least prevent him from getting back to Canada. This is from Koring’s article: Hours after Sudanese security forces hauled Mr. Abdelrazik out of his Khartoum prison cell on July 20 and drove him to a police house to await a prearranged flight leaving on July 22, CSIS’s top counterterrorist chief in Ottawa was on the phone with the head of security at Transport Canada to discuss the matter. … It’s unclear what transpired during the conversation, but soon afterward both Air Canada and Lufthansa abruptly cancelled Mr. Abdelrazik’s ticket home. Now think back about six weeks….

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Peace, order and good government, eh?: We’re going to need another inquiry

I’d like to come back to this story when I have more time but it deserves wider attention immediately. Paul Koring at the Globe and Mail has continued to work the story of Abousfian Abdelrazik and has an explosive story that went up on the Globe’s site last night. The gist of it is that when Abdelrazik was originally released from a Sudanese prison in the summer of 2004 there was every reason to believe that he would be able to return home. At that point he was on an American no-fly list but not the UN version and that wasn’t enough to keep him off a flight to Canada. But CSIS intervened with Transport Canada and suddenly the airlines wouldn’t let the man board a plane which left him stuck in Sudan for another 5 years. And the ultmate goal of CSIS? To work with the Americans in getting Adbelrazik redirected to Gitmo. When do people start getting fired over shit like this? If not arrested. Adding: And as much fun as we can have discussing Peter MacKay’s past itineraries, if the fact that CSIS was actively working with the Americans to get a Canadian citizen who had never…

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Peace, order and good government, eh?: Let the record show

It was a bit less than two years ago that government lawyers, on behalf of CSIS, spiked their own evidence in the matter of the Security Certificate on Adil Charkaoui rather than comply with court-ordered disclosure. To quote Colin Freeze at the Globe and Mail on the federal officials involved: … they now hold Mr. Charkaoui to be less of a threat to national security than further court-ordered revelations of the secret information that was used to build the case against him. This was after a series of rulings in this and the Harkat case in which the integrity of government evidence and witnesses had been called into question and the intelligence community was letting their frustration with the "judicialization of intelligence" be known. Due process can be so darned inconvenient at times. A few days after that it was reported that the certificate on Charkaoui would be revoked. I have to wonder if the leak of a CSIS document reported last Friday was someone’s way of circumventing the judiciary completely and injecting that same evidence — unsourced, of course — directly into the public record….

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Peace, order and good government, eh?: Has the leak investigation been announced?

I’ve seen a number of media stories since yesterday about the CSIS documents that were leaked to La Presse and supposedly reveal that Abousfian Abdelrazik and Adil Charkaoui once plotted to blow up a plane. Oddly, none of those stories seem to report any concern from any government official at the unauthorized release of this so-called intelligence. Obviously these documents weren’t intended to be public information. You would think that when our national intelligence agency loses track of confidential documents — and not for the first time — that in itself would be a story. But the only official government reaction I’ve seen came from Jason Kenney who appears to be pleased about the leak because it gives him the opportunity to lecture us on the need to trust governments and intelligence agencies rather than question their conclusions. Of course Kenney has it exactly wrong, particularly as it concerns the issue of guilt or innocence. The onus is never on the citizenry to just trust government. The onus is on government to present the facts and make its case. But then Jason Kenney and democratic principle aren’t all that well acquainted. And his case isn’t exactly strengthened by the fact…

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Peace, order and good government, eh?: Apparently we need to hold the Arar inquiry all over again

Because we didn’t learn anything from it the first time around. Canadians secretly added to U.S. security list: WikiLeaks The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada’s principal intelligence agency, routinely transmits to U.S. authorities the names and personal details of Canadian citizens who are suspected of, but not charged with, what the agency refers to as "terrorist-related activity." The criteria used to turn over the names are secret, as is the process itself. Our "principal intelligence agency" doesn’t work for us; it works for American intelligence agencies. In at least some cases, the people in the cables appear to have been named as potential terrorists solely based on their associations with other suspects, rather than any actions or hard evidence. Of the 41 people named, 21 do not appear to have ever been charged, and some had never come to the attention of the Americans before being named by their own government. This isn’t old news; it’s based on leaked cables from WikiLeaks that cover a period from 2009 to 2010. And while the United States may be our ally, it’s also the same country that has been running show trials posing as military tribunals, legalizing indefinite detention without due process,…

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