How Spying on Citizens Saved Canada
Tuesday, June 6, 2006 at 07:40PM Newly elected Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper knows the importance of domestic surveillance. In concert with President Bush’s domestic surveillance program, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service thwarted a plan by 17 young home grown terrorists tied to al-Qaeda. The plan? To attack the Canadian Parliament, take hostages and behead Prime Minister Harper.
Canada’s The Toronto Star reports:
Canadian Security Intelligence Service was listening. The spy agency, and an alphabet soup of other security agencies across the continent , closely monitor such sites, where talk may sometimes turn to buildings and bombs and bringing global jihad home to North America, to Canada.
While CSIS and police typically won’t talk about their operational methods, the available techniques range from monitoring electronic communications, from cell phones and landlines to emails and computers, to physically following persons of interest as they move about and talk to others.
Four months after the surveillance began, two Americans, from the Atlanta, Ga., area, popped onto the radar.
Syed Haris Ahmed and Ehsanul Islam Sadequee had been communicating by email with the Canadian group, investigators allege, and in March 2005 the two hopped on a Greyhound bus, paying $280 (U.S.) for two round-trip tickets to Toronto, where, according to U.S. court documents, they were to meet with “like-minded Islamists.”
According to the Los Angeles Times, U.S. authorities were also watching the two Americans , and at some point discovered communications between the men in Canada and Atlanta and other suspected terrorists overseas, including a group arrested in London last fall that counted among its members a computer specialist who used the Arabic word irhabi — for terrorist — as his Internet handle, Irhabi007.
Talk in the group was wide-ranging, according to an American law enforcement official, “about a whole range of targets.” Officials and U.S. court documents allege group members were scouting targets that included Canadian government buildings, American oil refineries, and a U.S. tower that they believed controlled global positioning systems used in aviation.
Canada spying on its citizens? Monitoring cell phone calls, e-mails? Tapping into people’s computers? PHYSICALLY FOLLOWING PEOPLE? Good heavens! Surely the Canadian people are calling tonight for the impeachment of Prime Minister Harper. No? Time will tell. Maybe Canadians are smarter than Americans after all.
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Reader Comments (15)
I don't even pretend to think that the border with Canada could ever be secured, we just have to trust each other.
The administration analyzed phone records and patterns of calls - all totally legit - and did no 'eavesdropping' nor wire tapping without warrants.
I find it sickening that anyone under the imminent threat of terrorist attacks would obfuscate the President's ability to protect the nation for petty partisan politics.
"I think the issue with Bush's surveillance is his perceived unwillingness to go about things in an accountable way, to seek warrants etc. even after the fact."
"Perceived" willingness is the right way to put it. But how dare the President of the United States not publicize undercover activity that SAVES AMERICAN LIVES. Rememeber those 3 US naturalized citizens in Ohio who tried to assassinate the President and blow up some buildings, and kill US soldiers? Here's what I wrote about it several months ago:
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http://amyproctor.squarespace.com/blog/2006/2/21/nabbing-terrorists-and-opening-the-ports.html
Feb. 21, 2006
Three Ohio men trained by al-Qaida with links to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were indicted today on terrorism charges of planning attacks overseas to try to kill U.S. and coalition soldiers in Iraq and other countries, as well as for planning to assassinate Pres. Bush. The three men all lived in Toledo within the last year. The recruitment of the men took place overseas and not in the U.S. All three also were charged with conspiring to give materials and support for carrying out the killing of U.S. nationals.
The 3 men are: Mohammad Zaki Amawi, a citizen of Jordan and the U.S. Marwan Othman El-Hindi, a U.S. citizen born in Jordan; Wassim I. Mazloum, who came to the U.S. from Lebanon in 2000.
US officials said the detection of these treasonists are credited to Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) and the President’s Surveillance program. This coupled with the successful thwarting of terrorist attacks in 2002 planned on Los Angeles, CA and other American cities buttresses not only the success of, but the need for such surveillance programs.
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Now Jez, take this excerpt from the Canadian article above:
"Canadian Security Intelligence Service was listening. The spy agency, and an alphabet soup of other security agencies across the continent , closely monitor such sites, where talk may sometimes turn to buildings and bombs and bringing global jihad home to North America, to Canada."
What warrant to you think Prime Minister Stephen Harper got for the CSIS surveillance? From all indications, NONE... just like President Bush. EXCEPT THAT warrants ARE obtained in the US for US citizens... the warrantless surveillance is reserved for non-citizen calls ENTERING the US from outside.
The media and hell-bent Democrats fixated on ruining our war on terror efforts have apparently done a bang up job convincing people that the President is going through grandma's underwear drawer.
Great post, Amy...
AubreyJ.........
I think that if every country adopted this type of surveillance a lot of terrorist acts would cease. They wouldn't be able to hide for long. I support it 100%.
Amy: '"Perceived" willingness is the right way to put it.'
I know. :) That's why I put it that way.
I haven't set myself as an expert on clandestine operations because I'm not. But regardless of what the secret services have been doing, I do think that Bush is somewhat responsible for how he is perceived. He hasn't been convincing enough on the civil liberties front.
>>>"The administration analyzed phone records and patterns of calls - all totally legit - and did no 'eavesdropping' nor wire tapping without warrants."
And you know this how? If you know this because you work for the NSA and have high enough security clearance to know EVERYTHING they do, then you're probably in violation of that clearance by making this statement.
More likely, you're just another right winger willing to defend or justify ANYTHING the Bush Administration does.
--Cobra
Actually Jez, you may have noticed that the overwhelming majority of Americans in this country flat don't care about the wiretaps, nor feel it is an infringement on their civil liberties. Second, the only "liberty" in question here is the right to privacy which insn't actually in the Constitution. It is the government's first and last job to protect us.
"And you know this how? If you know this because you work for the NSA and have high enough security clearance to know EVERYTHING they do, then you're probably in violation of that clearance by making this statement.
More likely, you're just another right winger willing to defend or justify ANYTHING the Bush Administration does."
Or you're just another leftwinger who is willing to attack ANYTHING the Bush Administration does, whether or not you actually have proof he has done anything wrong. That is, unless YOU work for the NSA and have high enough security clearance to know EVERYTHING they do. You don't, so you, like the rest of the liberal blogosphere, are just assuming Bush has violated some law, despite the fact that Congress can't prove so, and you declare him guilty. Yes, we all know about it being a "secret" and all, but your theory is still a theory until you prove otherwise. If you want to appear objective and honest, try not just attacking Bush tooth and nail without any evidence for doing so. As for Canada, they take liberalism to a whole new level up there. (I know, I'm a U.S. right wing neocon living in a just barely capitalist society up there.) So this is rather significant considering most libs here in the U.S think so highly of so much of Canadians policy.
Canada has its fair share of problems but has by and large moved beyond black and white ideologies of the United States.
I know for a fact it is. But you're right, Canada has moved way past the U.S. Of course our homeless get better healthcare than they do, since they can't afford it. Not to mention the fact that doctors keep leaving and heading for the U.S. But I guess if you consider high abortion, same sex marriage, and one of the highest rates of suicide in the world progress, then you'd have to concede that Canada is more liveable. And who cares is they are globally insignificant? They know they can rely on the U.S. to save their sorry grey asses.
By the way, check out the top 15 schools in the world. 13 of them are U.S. None of them are Canadian. But I guess being dumber is another perk of being Canadian.
Q: What is the root cause of terrorism?
A: Maybe us first world (the 2% who use 80% of world resources),have created generations of people who are tired of the west just taking what it wants form the rest of the planet...
Q: Shouldn't defense lawyers have access to ALL the information the prosocution has?
A: Of Course! this is what we call 'due legal process' It is vital for a fair trial.
Q: Can you trust governments that label Environmentalists in the top 10 groups that have the pontential for terrorist activities?
A: Of course not! as the air gets harder to breathe and 1 in 2 people contract cancer(cancer has been declared an epidemic this year) People will want answers, some will fight for those answers, if we have no due legal process it would be fairly easily to label these people terrorists, and problem solved.
Q: Do we want our children to have a safe future?
A: Of course! this goes with out saying. Unfortunately like David Suzuki said at the turning down the heat symposium in Ottawa several years ago, the time for change was 20 years ago.... Want to stop terrorism IGNORE IT WE HAVE BIGGER PROBLEMS.. Wold Population, pandemics, oil, global balance of resources, multinationals, and last but not least governments that do not represent the people any way you look at it(especially American and Canamerican govs, they represent corporations not people, money, not people.
North America, may not pollute like it used to but next time you go to the store and ask for american or canadian made, good luck it's all made in China A DICTATORSHIP that is a member of the world bank, has no environmental protections.
My point is that maybe we should be listening to why our youth feel disenfranchised with western culture and join terrorist groups. Or maybe the governments are trying to control revolution and we just don't know because the media is so very honest.