More Enemies of the People Identified by Harperites
The Harper regime’s security forces have identified new threats to the people: Greenpeace and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals: In a series of documents from 2005 to 2009,…
csis
Free Mohamed Harkat
Mohamed Harkat has been either imprisoned or subject to restrictive bail conditions for over nine years without ever being convicted of a crime. He’s been the subject of a Security…
Islamophobia in Canada: A Primer
by Fathima Cader and Sumayya Kassamali Ten years after September 11, 2001, the term “Islamophobia,” once largely obscure, has become all but inevitable when discussing contemporary politics. As Al-Qaeda and…
Psst…Torture’s OK. Pass It On.
Vic Toews, Minister of Torture and Morality We’ve always known that the Tories mission is to makeover Canada into a far-right Republican spa resort by stealth, since most Canadians hold…
Vic Toews A-OK with torture interrogation
The government has directed Canada’s spy agency to use information that may have been extracted through torture. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has told CSIS the government now expects the…
I wish I could say I’m surprised but I’m not
CSIS may use intelligence derived from torture, Toews says The federal government has directed Canada’s spy agency to use information that may have been extracted through torture in cases where…
We need to look forward as opposed to looking backwards
Jeff Kaye writes here on the findings of the American Senate Intelligence Committee investigation of the CIA’s involvement in torture. Since I agree with Kaye that there won’t be a…
Can we just get rid of CSIS and start over?
Reasonably civilized people realized long ago that torture is simply unacceptable. It’s morally reprehensible and never to be countenanced or encouraged. Reasonably intelligent people realized long ago that torture is…
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…
We’ll get right back to you on that
July 29, 2009 The role played by CSIS – Canada’s secretive anti-terrorist agency – in the arrest, imprisonment and alleged torture of Abousfian Abdelrazik, the Canadian citizen forcibly exiled in…
Okay, so which members of the Security Intelligence Committee AREN’T amateurs?
The National Post has a column by self-declared former Mossad officer Michael Ross complaining that he cannot understand how we could allow someone with dubious ties to an international lobbyist…
Harper’s former SIRC Chair
A follow-up to the news of the past week that Arthur Porter, the chairman of the civilian CSIS oversight board (Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC)), has resigned that SIRC post…
Sixth Estate On Overseas Spying
One of my blogging faves is back, with this post on the notion that CSIS should become a foreign espionage service: It’s worth asking exactly why CSIS was prevented from…
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…
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…
"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.…
Monday Morning Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week.- This blog's current tagline highlights the importance of asking cui bono? when it comes to public policy choices. On that front, points for chutzpah…
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…
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…
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…