RSS FeedCSIS tapped phone despite order
Can you blame people if their response to this kind of news is cynicism?
CSIS tapped phone despite order
Agents violated solicitor-client privilege, recorded 171 calls involving accused terroristBy Andrew Duffy, The Ottawa Citizen
November 16, 2010Federal security agents recorded 171 phone calls between suspected terrorist Mahmoud Jaballah and his lawyers after they agreed to halt the practice in December 2008.
That revelation is contained in a recent order issued by Federal Court Judge Kevin Aalto, who condemns the repeated breaches of solicitor-client privilege.
“Solicitor-client privilege is virtually sacrosanct in the Canadian judicial system,” Aalto said in ordering two federal agencies to turn over a raft of documents to Jaballah’s defence team.
I’m also concerned about how this implicates the federal lawyers who had access to this privileged information. What role might the Law Society have in rectifying this abuse of power?
Secret evidence
Lifting the cover on Canada’s spy files
Michelle Shephard writes for the Toronto Star:
But beyond answering questions that have lingered for years about Khadr’s case, John’s testimony was a remarkable example of how the Canadian Security Intelligence Service is being forced into public.
“There really has been a paradigm shift in what is being disclosed and what’s not,” noted Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman, who represented Maher Arar during a multi-million dollar federal inquiry.
Another evidence flop in a security certificate case
Judge orders CSIS to hand over file
Bill Curry writes for the Globe:
The Federal Court is ordering Canada’s spy agency to disclose a second human source in the Mohamed Harket case, an exceptional decision taken after finding the Canadian Security Intelligence Service “filtered” evidence and failed to tell the court that a first key source had failed a polygraph test.
Charkaoui is free
Judge formally strikes down security certificate against Charkaoui
Charkaoui is a landed immigrant who was arrested in Montreal in 2003 under security-certificate legislation that allows Canada to expel foreign-born individuals if they are considered a national security risk.
One correction, Canadian Press: the security certificate law applies only to non-citizens, not “foreign-born individuals.”
Courts and national security
Court lets Canadian spies snoop on targets overseas
Joanna Smith writes for the Toronto Star:
CSIS can spy on Canadians but could not do so beyond its borders. CSE can collect intelligence in foreign countries but cannot operate in Canada and must leave Canadian citizens alone. Mosley ruled the problem could be solved without violating any laws if the two agencies worked together.
The ruling allows the court to issue warrants for the CSE to monitor Canadians overseas because the technology is “controlled from within Canada.”
Former airline hijacker, Windsor law graduate
Former terrorist wants to be lawyer
John Goddard writes for the Toronto Star:
Parminder Singh Saini, 46, blames youth and naïveté for his role in a violent airline hijacking 25 years ago in his native India and says he is rehabilitated.
Mr. Saini was admitted into Canada in 1995 on a fake passport. A few months later, the authorities declared him a national security threat and ordered him deported. As he was fighting this order, Mr. Saini completed a BA at York and a law degree at Windsor. He has already finished his articles. Mr. Saini’s case is now before the Law Society of Upper Canada.
“Over the course of the last 15 years, (Canadian) courts and tribunals have declared that he is a danger to the public and security in Canada and that he shouldn’t remain,” law society counsel Susan Heakes told the hearing this month into whether to accept Saini’s licence application to practise law.
Who pays when government wrongs
Abdelrazik sues Ottawa for $27-million
For every breach of right, there should be a remedy. When government officials taint themselves with torture, it is taxpayers who pay the remedy. But maybe not just taxpayers…
Paul Koring writes:
Abousfian Abdelrazik is suing the government – and Foreign Minister Lawrence Cannon personally – for $27-million over Canada’s role in his arrest and alleged torture in Sudan and for violating his constitutional right to come home.
Ottawa abandons case against Charkaoui
Divisive terror law losing traction
Can we trust secret evidence, often borrowed from foreign countries, to throw people out of Canada?
Colin Freeze explains the security certificates:
… federal ministers sign off on a certificate after viewing secret CSIS information, which allows officials to immediately jail, and eventually deport, a non-citizen.
The “intelligence” used to do this is disclosed to judges but never fully revealed to the accused, drawn as it usually is from secret agents and wiretaps, sometimes placed within Canada but also frequently “loaned” from foreign governments on condition that the provenance be kept secret.
Toronto bomb plotter sentenced
Toronto 18 member gets 14-year sentence
A Mississauga man who confessed to being part of a homegrown terror plot aimed at blowing up buildings in downtown Toronto was sentenced today to 14 years, with credit given for pre-trial custody he was ordered to serve an additional seven years behind bars.
Charkaoui: the name every Canadian law student knows
Charkaoui, however, is the legal star of the five. He’s won two Supreme Court challenges and, as he gradually demolished Ottawa’s case against him, managed to make the government look like an idiot.
Abdelrazik seeks justice
Spy watchdog to probe CSIS conduct in Abdelrazik case
The probe pulls the agency closer to the centre of the Abdelrazik controversy. A federal judge, in ordering Ottawa to bring Mr. Abdelrazik home from Sudan, concluded CSIS was “complicit” in his detention. Mr. Abdelrazik has offered chilling accounts of his treatment by CSIS agents in Canada and during his imprisonment in Sudan.
Abdelrazik reveals details
Canada ‘indifferent’ to Sudan’s threat to kill Abdelrazik, files show
