This Zgram follows on the heels of what I told you yesterday
about CSIS's involvement in the kidnapping of Ernst Zundel on American soil
with the help of US government agents unwittingly (?) acting as hit squads.
In the Globe and Mail article below, you will see that a
month after Ernst's arrest, the government of Canada became inordinately
worried about potential leaks from CSIS operations and took elaborate
precautions to plug all holes - an effort that is still going on.
THE SECRETS JUST GOT DEEPER
GLOBE AND MAIL / March 8, 2004
Ottawa - Thousands of Canadians involved in the hunt for
terrorists and spies will be forbidden from ever discussing sensitive
aspects of their work under a new federal secrecy law.
=====
The government expects between 5,000 and 6,000 current and
former security and intelligence officials to be designated as persons
"permanently bound to secrecy," internal memos obtained by The
Canadian Press reveal. The move to make officials take secrets to the
grave is being ushered in under provisions of the Security of Information
Act, part of a package of anti-terrorism measures passed after the Sept.
11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
The security act, which contains a wide range of tools to
safeguard federal information, was recently invoked by the RCMP to search
the home of Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill. But little attention
has been given to other elements of the law that demand permanent secrecy
with the aim of shielding "special operational information"
about covert intelligence gathering and military battle plans.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service will store the
names and related records of those sworn to silence in a database.
Compilation of the list, which is ongoing, began last March, according to
memos and briefing notes released through the Access to Information Act.
Under the Security of Information Act, people
automatically bound to secrecy include current or former members of CSIS,
certain sensitive RCMP departments and intelligence watchdog agencies. It
also covers members of the Communications Security Establishment - the
government's electronic spy agency - as well as former employees of the
Communications Branch of the National Research Council (the forerunner of
CSE, defunct since 1975) and the RCMP Security Service (disbanded in
1984). Other individuals, including federal public servants at various
agencies, provincial and municipal employees, and temporary contractors,
will be bound to secrecy on a case-by-case basis. "Special care must
be taken to ensure that the designation is warranted because of the
permanent nature of the designation," says one briefing memo.
Federal officials in charge of hand-picking these
individuals "have only recently started the process," said Mario
Baril, a spokesman for the Treasury Board Secretariat, which is
administering the secrecy initiative.
Among the types of "special operational
information" people formally bound to secrecy cannot discuss are:
- Past or current sources of confidential data.
- Names of spies involved in secret intelligence
collection.
- Plans for armed military operations.
- Places, persons or groups who were - or are intended to
be - targets of covert intelligence efforts by Canadian spy services.
A person bound to secrecy who reveals such information
"without authority" could face up to 14 years in prison.
It is unclear how one might obtain authority to disclose a
secret, though one insider has suggested persons sworn to silence could
discuss sensitive matters once they are declassified. Still, intelligence
experts question whether it is sensible, or even possible, to maintain a
broad permanent veil of secrecy.
"It fails to reflect the reality that, while there
are categories of information which are important to safeguard, secrets
don't stay secrets permanently," said Wesley Wark, a University of
Toronto history professor. The new secrecy regime is "Draconian and
nonsensical," and could prove to be a bureaucratic nightmare, Prof.
Wark said.
Reid Morden, a former head of CSIS, said the provisions
could conflict with other legal measures, such as access-to-information
laws, intended to increase government transparency.
"I don't know whether people will be able to make
this [prohibition] stick in terms of 'until the grave.' " In 2002,
federal officials recommended the new law be interpreted narrowly to
include only certain key kinds of information, thereby limiting the number
of people covered by the secrecy clauses. "Nevertheless,
approximately five to six thousand people are currently targeted by the
legislation," says a 2003 memo prepared by the Treasury Board
Secretariat. The secrecy provisions were among several elements of the
2001 anti-terrorism bill intended to modernize the decades-old Official
Secrets Act.
A CSIS background paper on the revamped security law says
the provisions clarify the rules on what spies can divulge. "For
current and former employees in the security and intelligence community,
there is now a much clearer statement of their responsibilities to
safeguard sensitive information - and a much clearer statement of their
potential criminal liability should such sensitive information be
disclosed without authorization."
Prof. Wark fears the law could dampen informed public
debate about the government's security and intelligence powers, and hinder
efforts to examine the secret operations of previous decades. "To
bury the historical record in this way, I think, is abusive of power and
is very shortsighted in terms of failing to understand that there is a
value to be had in trying to learn lessons from the past," he said.
The RCMP used the Security of Information Act to obtain
judicial warrants to search Ms. O'Neill's home and newspaper office in
January for clues about leaks in the case of Maher Arar. The 33-year-old
Ottawa man was detained by U.S. officials on suspicions of terrorism
during a September 2002 stopover in New York as he returned from vacation
in the Middle East, and deported him to Syria, where he was imprisoned for
several months.
Mr. Arar, who says he was tortured while in Syrian
custody, enies being involved in terrorism. A Nov.8 article by Ms. O'Neill
cited "a security source" and a leaked document offering details
of what Mr. Arar allegedly told Syrian intelligence officials while
imprisoned. Because the source of her story remains a mystery, it is
unclear whether the person was "permanently bound to secrecy"
under the law.
