by Stewart Bell Source: The Ottawa Citizen URL: [link] Date: May 23, 2008 Government to spend $62M for building

TORONTO - The federal government is spending $62 million to expand the country's ultra-secret electronic spy agency, Defence Minister Peter MacKay announced yesterday. The money will pay for construction of a new building in Ottawa for the Communications Security Establishment, the most secretive branch of the intelligence community. The security branch operates an electronic eavesdropping system that collects signals intelligence. It works closely with allied agencies in the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The announcement indicates the CSE has been growing since the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. Hundreds of employees have been hired since then and the existing campus on Leitrim Road was "no longer able to support the agency's day-to-day operations," the agency said in a press release. The new 65,000-square-foot facility will open in 2011 and house up to 250 employees. "A safe and secure Canada is one of the government's top priorities and CSE performs vital functions in safeguarding Canada's security," Mr. MacKay said in a statement. Exactly what the CSE does to protect security is one of the most closely guarded secrets in government. From its nondescript headquarters in south Ottawa, the CSE intercepts, decodes, translates and analyses the phone calls and e-mails of Canada's adversaries. It also safeguards government computer systems. Although the CSE operates under strict secrecy, signals teams are known to have played a role in the March 23, 2006, rescue of one British and two Canadian hostages in Iraq.

[ Read the rest ... ]

by "C. Ailes"
Source: Harkat Email List (Riseup.net)
Date: May 20, 2008


[[Diana Younes article is important to read]]

Update on Security Certificate in TMLD, May 20

[link]

- Constitutional Challenge to Special Advocate Regime

- How Suresh Haunts Bill C-3 and Section 2 of the Charter - Diana Younes, The Court

- Extraordinary Renditions: Quebec Human Rights Organizations Join in Call to Bring Montreal Man Home - [link]

===============

Constitutional Challenge to Special Advocate Regime

Security certificate detainee Adil Charkaoui has filed a notice of motion before the Federal Court of Canada seeking a judgement declaring the new security certificate regime, Bill C-3, to be unconstitutional. Charkaoui is also seeking an interim order that will relax or lift the strict bail conditions he and his family are subject to.

At the time of Bill C-3's passage through the House of Commons this past February, it was widely opposed as unconstitutional, similar to the legislation it was replacing, and was expected to be the subject of a court challenge. Helen Burnett, in Lawtimesnews.com on March 10, wrote: "In their submission to the Senate committee, Lawyers Rights Watch notes that Bill C-3 does 'nothing in regard to the s. 7 issue' raised in the Supreme Court decision. 'In the words of the Supreme Court, the person concerned will still not know the case he has to meet. As such, the s. 7 fundamental justice requirement is violated,' says the submission."

[ Read the rest ... ]

Press Release Source: The Institute For Research On Public Policy URL: [link] (links to a PDF file) Date: May 22, 2008

For immediate distribution May 22, 2008 NEWS RELEASE

Canada needs new review process for anti-terrorism laws Study finds national security laws lack independent expert review

Montreal – Parliament needs to develop an independent review system, similar to those in the United Kingdom and Australia , to scrutinize its anti-terrorism measures, according to a new study from the Institute for Research on Public Policy. In the study, "Fixing the Deficiencies in Parliamentary Review of Anti-terrorism Law: Lessons from the United Kingdom and Australia ," author Craig Forcese argues that Canada ’s Anti-terrorism Act (ATA) overreached, and adopted a definition of terrorist activity that was far broader than necessary. "Anti-terrorism provisions are too radical to be left unscrutinized," says Forcese, an associate professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa . The British and Australian assessment procedures are superior to those employed by the Canadian government in its recent ATA review. Britain ’s and Australia ’s procedures should be used as models to create a precursor expert review system. "A credible, independent evaluator will be difficult to ignore, or to paint in a partisan light. One wonders how the carefully considered views of such an evaluator might have affected the disappointing and superficial parliamentary debates on preventive detention and investigative hearings in February 2007," says Forcese.

[ Read the rest ... ]

by "C. Ailes"
Source: Harkatjustice Email List
ULR: [link] (subscribers only)
Date: May 16, 2008

You can find the Federal Court decision regarding
Mohamed Harkat at:

[link]

par Presse Canadienne
Source: La Presse
URL: [link]
Date: 15 mai 2008


Un homme soupçonné de terrorisme s'est vu refuser le droit de déménager parce que sa nouvelle demeure rendrait sa surveillance difficile.

Mohamed Harkat a été arrêté en décembre 2002 en vertu d'un certificat de sécurité, en raison de ses liens présumés avec Al-Qaïda. Il fait face à la déportation, mais est actuellement en libération surveillée.

Harkat a demandé la permission de quitter l'appartement où il habite actuellement avec sa femme. La juge Eleanor Dawson de la Cour fédérale a toutefois refusé sa demande, parce que l'installation de caméras de surveillance n'a pas été permise dans le condo où le couple souhaitait s'installer et que les équipes de surveillance n'ont pas eu la permission de se stationner tout près.

Le Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité affirme que Harkat, un réfugié algérien, est un extrémiste islamiste membre du réseau terroriste d'Osama ben Laden. L'ancien livreur de pizza et préposé dans une station-service nie tout lien avec le terrorisme.

Copyright © 2000-2008 Cyberpresse Inc., une filiale de Gesca. Tous droits réservés.

by Andrew Duffy
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
URL: [link]
Date: May 15, 2008


OTTAWA - Ottawa terror suspect Mohamed Harkat will not be leaving his unhappy basement apartment anytime soon. A Federal Court judge ruled Thursday that Mr. Harkat cannot move to a new condominium townhouse until he meets the security concerns raised by government officials.

It means that, at least for the immediate future, Mr. Harkat and his wife, Sophie, will continue to live in the basement of a home that belongs mostly to Alois Weidemann, a retired Citizen employee, and the former romantic partner of Ms. Harkat's mother, Pierrette Brunette.

Ms. Brunette moved out of the house last November after the acrimonious collapse of that relationship, leaving Mr. Weidemann with the Harkats in his basement.

"I've been trying to get out of this situation since last fall," Mr. Weidemann said in an interview. "How are things going? Terrible. I want to get on with with my life." Mr. Weidemann, who reluctantly acts as one of Mr. Harkat's sureties, wants to sell his house, but he cannot do that without Ms. Brunette's approval since she owns 10 per cent of the property. Ms. Brunette, however, doesn't want to sell yet because her daughter and son-in-law are still in the house along with her grand piano.

[ Read the rest ... ]

by Matthew Behrens Source: The Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture URL: N/A Date: May 12, 2008
The Caravan visits CSIS Headquarters in Ottawa, May 2008. Photo by Murray Lumley.

Breaking the Silence: Reflections from the Road on the Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture (A selection of photos from the Caravan appear at [link] ) At the bottom of this article are four links to video footage of the Caravan, including an interview with Muayyed Nureddin, as well as information on follow-up actions to end Canadian complicity in torture)

May 10, 2008 -- As members of the Caravan to End Canadian Involvement in Torture reached their final stopping point May 7 at the national headquarters of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), agitated spies in the massive architorture structure in east-end Ottawa simply pulled the blinds. It was a fitting symbolic gesture consistent with the thematic continuum that greeted Caravan members during their eight day journey through Central and Eastern Ontario as they confronted sites of Canadian complicity in torture. A combination of denial and transfer of responsibility to some other party typified responses of government and corporate officials who refused dialogue and met caravan members with lines of police and RCMP, surveillance cameras, and locked office doors. While not surprising -- who wants to admit that they are complicit in torture? -- the closed-door response seemed to prove one of the points of the Caravan: the hallmarks of openness, transparency, and accountability that serve as the foundation of democracy get shut down when infected by such noxious practices as torture and complicity in human rights abuses. The Caravan sought to break the silence around such complicity, including the training and teaching relationship the Canadian government holds with the U.S.-based “School of the Assassins”, ongoing efforts to deport refugees to torture from Canada, the government’s refusal to condemn the Guantanamo Bay detention centre, Canada’s role in hosting potential CIA rendition to torture flights, the Canadian rendition to torture of Algerian refugee Benamar Benatta on September 12, 2001, and Canada’s subcontracting the torture of Canadian citizens in Syria, Egypt, and Sudan, among many other issues.

[ Read the rest ... ]

Thanks to Matthew Behrens for this:

==================

Trio deliver petitions to PM over secretive inquiry
Canadian Press
[link]

Caravan demands public inquiry into cases of three Muslim Canadians tortured abroad
The Community Press (Belleville)
[link] +

Hold open inquiry into torture: group
The Belleville Intelligencer
[link]

Canada "torture victims" press Ottawa over probe
Reuters
[link]

Caravan holding vigils in area to protest complicity in torture
Northumberland Today
[link]

No getting around blame for torture
Northumberland Today
[link]

Caravan against torture rolling through area
Northumberlandnews.com
[link]

Anti-torture caravan in Orillia
Orillia Today
[link]

Anti-torture caravan to stop in area
Kingston Whig-Standard
[link]

Caravan against torture heading to Ottawa
Rabble.ca (press release)
[link]

Connolly fasts to show solidarity with the Caravan Against Torture
Caledon Citizen
[link]

Victims of torture plead for support
Orillia Packet & Times
[link]

Teacher Fasts to Protest International Torture
The Georgetown Independent & Free Press (press release)
[link]

Also on this blog:
[link],7546,0,10&st=recent

========================

by Diana Younes
Source: TheCourt.ca
URL: [link]
Date: May 12th, 2008


A central objective and guiding principle in Canadian immigration policy has been the management of migration flows. At the core is a balance between two broad interests; state sovereignty and security versus the basic human right to mobility and to shelter from persecution. While the first set of interests has historically dominated in Canadian immigration laws, the advent of the point system in the Immigration Act in 1967 and the birth of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982 have been touted as markers of a new modern era that offers constitutional rights to foreign nationals and leverages human rights. However, this does not conclude the story.

Today, despite the often positively cited Charkaoui v. Canada (2007) SCC 9 decision and the legislative amendments of Bill C-3 to the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) on February 14, 2008, the current state of the law maintains a propensity to diminish the right of refugees to freedom of association guaranteed by Section 2(d) of the Charter.

When issued a certificate of inadmissibility on security grounds, one faces two vague terms of allegation. One is “terrorism” and the other is “being a member” of an organization that there are reasonable grounds to believe engages in, has engaged in or will engage in terrorism (IRPA Section 34(1)(f)). The courts have continually refrained from defining “membership” and only recently has the Supreme Court adopted a definition for “terrorism” that was borrowed from the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel and Inhumane Punishment. By allowing the meaning of “membership” to remain elusive the courts have effectively subordinated Section 2 Charter rights and in specific, Section 2(d): Freedom of association.

[ Read the rest ... ]

by Andrew Duffy
Source: The Ottawa Citizen
URL: [link]
Date: May 04, 2008


The Ottawa Presbytery of the United Church of Canada has called on the federal government to offer fair trials to the five men -- including Ottawa's Mohamed Harkat -- who now face secretive security certificate hearings.

The security certificate legislation, which was redrafted earlier this year, gives the federal government the right to arrest and detain foreign-born terror suspects. Canadian citizens must be charged under the Criminal Code if they are suspected of terrorist activity.

In an open letter, Rick Balson, chairman of the Ottawa presbytery, says it is immoral to apply lesser human rights standards to non-citizens: "By this security certificate legislation, we risk repeating the mistakes made when we forced the deportation of Japanese in World War Two and incarcerated many new Canadians during and after World War One."

© The Ottawa Citizen 2008