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The quiet death of the Internet surveillance bill
 The Globe and Mail 11/10/2012 - What Parliament isn't debating can be as interesting as what it is debating. This fall it emphatically isn't debating Bill C-30. That's because, for all intents and purposes, the Conservatives' Internet surveillance legislation is dead. C-30, you will remember, would grant the federal government and law enforcement agencies the power to obtain information about individuals who are online without having to apply for a warrant.
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Privacy
Privacy complaints skyrocket by 39 per cent
The Canadian Press 04/10/2012 -  An RCMP and House of Commons security proposal to more than double the number of video cameras on Parliament Hill, without warning the public it's being watched, alarms the privacy commissioner, who says it's an ironic symbol of how pervasive government surveillance is becoming. The plan, part of a massive security overhaul, combined with the Harper government's hotly debated Internet surveillance legislation contributes to a growing sense of unease among Canadians, Jennifer Stoddart said Thursday. The privacy commissioner's office saw a spike in complaints and an increase in data breaches at federal departments and institutions last year, according to Stoddart's annual report.
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National Security
Canada's spy bosses think of their elaborate new HQ as 'Camelot'
Ottawa Citizen 09/10/2012 - Canada's electronic spy organization  believes that the state-of-the-art headquarters now being built in Gloucester will make it a leader among its allies and attract the best and brightest of spies, according to newly released government documents obtained by the Citizen. When finished in 2015-16, Communications Security Establishment Canada's new $880-million spy campus on Ogilvie Road, near Blair Road, is expected to be home to more than 1,800 employees.Read more
Spy Delisle's guilty plea preserves Navy secrets
CBC News 11/10/2012 - Sub-Lt. Jeffrey  Delisle's surprise guilty plea to communicating safeguarded information and breach of trust
yesterday means that not only will highly classified intelligence be kept out of the courts, but it now may never be known why the leaks were undetected."Can you imagine how many sighs of relief are being breathed in the corridors of Ottawa?" said intelligence expert Wesley Wark of the Munk Centre for International Studies. "This would have been a complicated long-running case with lots of diplomatic embarrassment."
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Ottawa set to ban Chinese firm from telecommunications bid
 The Globe and Mail 10/10/2012 - Citing a rarely used national-security protocol, Ottawa has sent a signal to Chinese telecom equipment giant Huawei Technologies that it would block the firm from bidding to build the Canadian government's latest telecommunications and e-mail network. Shenzen-based Huawei is riding a storm of suspicion. On Monday, a powerful U.S. congressional committee called the company a threat to U.S. security and recommended that its products be excluded from government computer systems. Canada's national surveillance and cryptology agency, the Communications Security Establishment, has warned the military of potential security risks in installing Huawei's equipment.
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Omar Khadr
Omar Khadr eligible for day parole in 3 months
CBC News 05/10/2012 - A  ccording to a timetable provided to CBC News by the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), Khadr is eligible for day parole on Jan. 1, 2013 - and for full parole seven months later, on July 1, 2013. On day parole, offenders work, volunteer or go to school during the day then report back to a community-based residential facility known as a halfway house; while on full parole the offender lives on their own but reports regularly to a parole officer. Khadr's lawyer, John Norris, told CBC News that no application has been made to date. Read moreOmar Khadr: Repair the injusticeThe other Omar Khadr |
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Rendition
The 'war on terror' is dead... long live the 'war on terror'?
Al Jazeera 10/10/2012 -  Last March, I wrote of my optimism surrounding the impending demise of the "war on terror". President Obama himself had declared the "war" finished in 2010. However, on October 5, 2012, the UK finally caved in to an uneven extradition treaty with the US. It extradited British citizens Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan (though the media reported on the more controversial figure of Abu Hamza) to face charges in Connecticut, related to a website they are alleged to have run over a decade earlier. They had already been incarcerated here for eight years and six years respectively, without any charge in a British court. Feelings are running high and some members of my community have even perceived the extradition of Babar and Talha as an extraordinary rendition.
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Jack Straw accused of misleading MPs over torture of Libyan dissidents
The Guardian 10/10/2012 - Jack Straw, the former foreign secretary, and Sir Mark Allen, a former senior MI6 officer, have been cited as key defendants in court documents that describe in detail abuse meted out to Libyan dissidents and their families after being abducted and handed to Muammar Gaddafi's secret police with the help of British intelligence. The documents accuse Straw of misleading MPs about Britain's role in the rendition of two leading dissidents - Abdel Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi - and say MI6 must have known they risked being tortured. They say British intelligence officers provided Libyan interrogators with questions to ask their captives and themselves flew to Tripoli to interview the detainees in jail.
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Rule of Law
Americans press US Ambassador for end to drone strikes in Pakistan, and the Ambassador responds
Truth Out 05/10/2012 - On Wednesday, as a
member of a US peace delegation to Pakistan organized by Code Pink, I delivered a petition from more than 3,000 Americans to Acting US Ambassador to Pakistan Richard Hoagland calling for an end to the CIA drone strike policy in Pakistan. Ambassador Hoagland responded in more specific detail to some of the concerns that I and others raised than has been typical for US officials in the past, who have usually either 1) refused to talk publicly and on the record about the US drone strike program because it is "classified," or 2) have defended the policy in vague and misleading terms without answering specific allegations.
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Pakistani military blocks anti-drone convoy from entering tribal region
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War on terror
Canadian mini-submarines eyed by special forces on both sides of border
The Canadian Press 10/10/2012 - Special forces in both Canada and the United States are taking a close look at Canadian-made mini-submarines fo r the murky world of covert operations. The cutting-edge subs, some of which are built in Canada, are seen by some in the U.S. Special Forces community as essential for specialized top-secret operations against threats such as al-Qaida in coastal countries.
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Access to information
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Anti-terrorism laws
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Border security
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Criminalization of dissent
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Privacy
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Racism
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Terrorism
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War on terror
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Event
The Social Cost of National Security: Assessing the impact of global counter-terrorism initiatives on Canadian society
Organized by the Canadian Arab Institute and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association
October 19, 2012
9am-5am
University of Toronto
Register here!
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