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Security certificates
Harkat defenders repeat call to end security certificates
CBC News 10/10/2012 - Human-rights advocates marked the 10th anniversary of Mohamed Harkat's arrest by calling for an end to national security certificates  - the immigration tool used to detain the Algerian refugee. Hilary Homes of Amnesty International Canada says the security certificate regime should be replaced with one that guarantees a fair trial and ensures no evidence extracted through torture is allowed. NDP public safety critic Randall Garrison told a news conference Monday that detaining individuals for years without charge, trial or conviction "is not an acceptable practice in Canada." Green party Leader Elizabeth May said security certificates violate "virtually every precept of our laws and system of human rights."
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Canada's secret trials, immigration policy under fire on Human Rights Day
Harkat recounts his turbulent decade under terrorist storm cloud
Supreme Court must quash Harkat's security certificate
Egyptian Courts Clear Mahjoub's Name
Justice for Mahjoub Network 11/12/12 - Egyptian courts have overturned a  military tribunal conviction against Mr. Mahjoub from the Mubarak era that was long the centre-piece of the case against him in Canada. "This is tremendous news," said a beaming Mr. Mahjoub. "After 13 years my name is finally cleared from these false accusations. Now there are no charges and no convictions against me anywhere in the world."
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Canada's evidence against Mohamed Mahjoub tainted by torture, lawyer says
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Reflection on the surveillance state
Maher Arar: What life looks like under a National Security State
Prism Magazine 06/12/2012 - Life under a national security state is not a life.  Living under such a state is simply living like a slave, or at best it is like living in a big prison, albeit one that has invisible bars. While invisible, these bars are, nevertheless, extremely constraining. One of the pillars the national security state heavily depends on is wholesale surveillance. Total surveillance society, as predicted by George Orwell more than a half-century ago, has finally arrived. Technological advances, achieved over the past three decades, made total surveillance both possible and "affordable." Listed below are 10 aspects that characterize life under the national security and surveillance state.
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Rule of law
The threat of drones ushering in 'invisible wars'
Common Dreams 09/12/12 - A leading argument in support of drone strikes is that they diminish the weight that American families have to personally carry for warfare.  In the words of our president, drone strikes allow us to be engaged in never-ending wars "without any mess on our hands." But war is always messy.
Although Americans protested militarism during the Bush years, that hasn't been as common during Obama's presidency. Perhaps Occupy Wall Street's heavy emphasis on economic justice turned the attention of progressives primarily to domestic affairs. Public outcry doesn't seem as strong on foreign matters, such as U.S. drone strikes and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. No matter how good-intentioned a Commander-in-Chief may be, the onus is still on Americans to know the trail of death, displacement and hopelessness that our government is leaving behind in other other parts of the world.
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Guantanamo
Judge OKs Censorship of Torture at Guantánamo Bay Military Commission TrialCommon Dreams 12/12/2012 - Testimony from the defendants at the Guantánamo Bay military commission 9/11 trial describing  their own torture will be censored, the ACLU announced Wednesday afternoon, dealing a blow to the First Amendment rights of the American public and crushing claims of the commission's purported transparency. Military Judge Col. James Pohl, who is presiding over the trial, approved the US government's request to keep the details of defendants' torture from the public, and allows for a 40-second delay on the audio feed of the proceedings to continue, which, Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU's National Security Program, says is "the tool through which the government unconstitutionally prevents the public from hearing testimony about torture." Read moreLatif letter about Guantanamo speaks from the grave: "I am being pushed toward death every moment" |
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State secrecy
Bradley Manning: A tale of liberty lost in America
The Guardian 01/12/2012 - The repressive treatment of Bradley Manning is one of the disgraces of Obama's first term, and highlights many of the dynamics shaping his presidency. The president not only defended Manning's treatment but also, as commander-in-chief of the court martial judges, improperly  decreed Manning's guilt when he asserted in an interview that he "broke the law". Worse, Manning is charged not only with disclosing classified information, but also the capital offence of "aiding the enemy", for which the death penalty can be imposed (military prosecutors are requesting "only" life in prison). The government's radical theory is that, although Manning had no intent to do so, the leaked information could have helped al-Qaida, a theory that essentially equates any disclosure of classified information - by any whistleblower, or a newspaper - with treason.
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Bradley Manning: pre-trial hearing ends as case goes to military judge
WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning's lawyer says client was treated like a "zoo animal"Head of Marine corrections: Bradley Manning's brig staff violated navy rules Kelly McParland: CSIS needs to spill the truth on the Tommy Douglas file
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Torture
Why we torture: What do we do once we know?
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Anti-terror laws
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Biometrics
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Internet freedom
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Privacy
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Racism
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Surveillance
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Terrorism
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War on terror
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Miscellaneous
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About us
The ICLMG is a national coalition of forty Canadian civil society organizations that was established in the aftermath of the September, 2001 terrorist attacks in the United States. You will find in this News Digest news articles, events, calls to action and much more regarding national security, anti-terrorism, civil liberties and other issues related to the mandate and concerns of ICLMG and its member organizations. 
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News from ICLMG
ICLMG appeared before Public Safety Committee against Bill S-7
ICLMG 13/10/2012 -
Lawyer Denis Barrette has represented ICLMG and la Ligue des droits et libertés before the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security on Monday December 3, 2012 to present our position on Bill S-7, Combating Terrorism Act. ICLMG is opposed to the bill which would re-introduce, among other things, two problematic clauses of the Anti-Terrorism Act, the "preventive detention" and the "investigative hearings" clauses, which have never been used and expired five years ago.
Read Denis Barrette's testimony
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ICLMG in the news
Harkat's press conference on Parliament Hill
ICLMG 10/10/2012 - December 10, 2012 marks the 10th anniversary of Mohamed Harkat's arrest under a security certificate. Ironically, it is also International Human Rights Day. ICLMG was on Parliament Hill with Mohamed Harkat, his family, Hilary Homes from Amnesty International, Ihsaan Gardee from CAIR-CAN, Randall Garrison, the NDP Public Safety critic and Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party to denounce the security certificate regime and demand that this human rights violation stops.
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Take action
Tell you MP to stand against Bill C-30 and warrantless online spying
OpenMedia.ca 07/11/2012 - Last week, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police called on the government to revive the invasive Online Spying Bill C-30 - legislation that would grant them warrantless access into the private lives of each and every one of us. Call on your MP to stand against invasive warrantless Online Spying.
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Humor
Ho, Ho, Ho! 9/11 was an inside job!
The Onion 12/12/2012 - Today, Santa would like to tell you all about something very naughty, something very, very naughty indeed. Dear children, have you not heard? Why, 9/11 was an inside job! Oh, ho, ho, my, yes it was! I mean, look at the facts, boys and girls! We already know the Bush administration was itching to go to war in Iraq, now, don't we? Yes, indeed we do, my darling ones! The Downing Street memo proves that beyond a shadow of a doubt. Then you look at the Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, the one headlined "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." Ignored!
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We could never have envisaged that the history of the new century would encompass the destruction and distortion of fundamental Anglo-American legal and political constitutional principles in place since the 17th century. The worst excesses of the last ten years, which destroyed the certainties of those hard-won rights, should have sounded loud alarms. One key in attempting to hang on to legal and moral concepts under attack is to remember their origin.
