oread
新手上路
- 注册
- 2002-01-24
- 消息
- 20,275
- 荣誉分数
- 16
- 声望点数
- 0
Raids evoke outrage at 'police state' tactics
Bruce Garvey
The Ottawa Citizen
Thursday, January 22, 2004
RCMP raid the home and office of a Citizen reporter over the Maher Arar case and unleash a storm of anger: 'A black, black day': Surrounded by journalists, Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill stands outside while RCMP officers scour her Lowertown home for clues to the identity of a source of embarrassing leaks in the Maher Arar case.
CREDIT: Jean Levac, the Ottawa Citizen
Raids by teams of RCMP officers on the home and office of Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill have unleashed a firestorm of criticism, and renewed demands for a public inquiry into the Maher Arar affair.
The Mounties said they were conducting a criminal investigation, searching for the identity of a source who leaked details of Canada's security dossier on Mr. Arar, the Syrian-born Canadian deported by the Americans into a year of detention and alleged torture in Damascus. In the wake of the surprise, early-morning raids there was a mounting chorus of protest from civil libertarians, lawyers, journalists and opposition politicians over "police state" tactics designed to "intimidate" and inhibit freedom of the press.
Ms. O'Neill, a respected veteran journalist and a senior writer with the Citizen, has been with the newspaper since 1996. Last night she said she was caught "off-guard" by the raids, which she said left her "deeply offended."
"It was a five-hour invasion of my privacy, and it felt like I was stripped naked," she said. "They took my address books, contact books, Rolodex -- and my ability to do my work has been seriously handicapped as a result."
The only bright side to the day, she said, was a flood of supportive phone calls, "which is very important for journalism."
As of last night no charges had been laid against her, although the RCMP said charges were pending.
Citizen editor-in-chief Scott Anderson and the newspaper's proprietors, CanWest, vowed to fight the seizures and any charges against Ms. O'Neill under the tough new Security of Information Act, which was rushed through Parliament in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
"It is a black, black day for freedom in this country," said Mr. Anderson. "I am outraged. The Canadian government has a lot to answer for, and it's using intimidation to prevent the search for the truth. Canadians should be appalled at the Star Chamber mentality that's creeping into our justice system."
Gordon Fisher, CanWest's president of news and information, said the raid on Ms. O'Neill "smacks of a police-state mentality that one might equate with the former Soviet Union rather than a Canadian democracy.
"We at CanWest will throw every ounce of our support behind Julie. Legal counsel have been engaged on many fronts to deal with this affront to one of Canada's most respected journalists."
Mr. Fisher said that, equally importantly, CanWest journalists will continue to pursue the public's right to know "what CSIS, RCMP or government involvement there was in the deportation of a Canadian citizen and his subsequent torture."
He vowed: "This is truly outrageous. The fight is just starting."
NDP leader Jack Layton called the raids "outrageous, appalling, clearly designed to send a chill through the journalistic community ... it's like something out of Kafka."
He said the NDP would continue to press for a public inquiry into the Arar affair and demand that the Security of Information legislation be repealed.
"It's the sort of thing I'd expect from a police state," said Grant Hill, the acting leader of the Official Opposition, while Conservative party leadership frontrunner Stephen Harper called the raids "disturbing and dangerous."
Some Liberals also voiced their doubts, even as a spokesman for Prime Minister Paul Martin stressed that the raids were not part of a campaign to intimidate journalists.
"I'm very concerned that the rights of journalists may be trampled," said newly appointed Senator Jim Munson, a former press secretary to Jean Chretien, describing Ms. O'Neill as a "good, solid journalist."
And Liberal MP John Bryden said: "I'm very uncomfortable when any journalist is raided for documents."
Ironically, yesterday's search warrants were executed the day before Mr. Arar is expected to file suit against U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft over his deportation to Jordan and then Syria late in September, 2002.
Yesterday Mr. Arar's lawyer, Lorne Waldman, said the RCMP raids in Ottawa were clearly intended to "intimidate the media" and block a public inquiry.
Meanwhile, Citizen lawyers have demanded that all items seized in yesterday's raids remain sealed pending a court hearing on an application that they be returned to Ms. O'Neill and the newspaper.
The drama began at 8 a.m., when 10 RCMP officers descended on Ms. O'Neill's small house on a quiet residential street in Lowertown.
For the next five hours they painstakingly searched drawers, cupboards and computers while a pair of guards mounted a crime-scene perimeter in the driveway, explaining that they were conducting an "ongoing criminal investigation."
At the same time, plainclothes and uniformed officers staged a similar raid on the newspaper's city hall bureau, where they searched Ms. O'Neill's desk, files and computer. Armed guards refused access to anyone but Ms. O'Neill and Drew Gragg, the Citizen's executive editor, until 4:15 p.m.
When the Mounties left, they took with them folders, a briefcase, a rolodex, notebooks, papers, cassette tapes and a computer hard drive.
Lawyer Richard Dearden, who represented the Citizen during the raids, later said that journalists now have to fear being charged if they investigate, let alone report on, "secret" information passed on by a confidential source.
"Then all of a sudden you have 10 police officers conducting the most invasive search of your whole house, videotaping your whole house, going through your underwear drawer in the middle of the morning."
If charged under the Security of Information Act, Mr. Dearden said, a defendant faces up to 14 years in prison, "so this is serious stuff."
Mr. Dearden said he intends to challenge the raid constitutionally, arguing that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects journalists from the security act.
The story that triggered yesterday's searches was published on the Citizen's front page on Nov. 8. Ms. O'Neill wrote that Mr. Arar had come to the attention of the RCMP while they investigated an alleged al-Qaeda logistical support group based in Ottawa.
Most of the members of the cell are now in prison abroad, but the very existence of the group was one of the reasons the Canadian government was so vehemently opposed to a public inquiry into the Arar affair, she wrote.
One of the leaked documents she referred to in the article describes "minute details" of Mr. Arar's seven months of terrorist training at a camp in Afghanistan, allegedly revealed by Mr. Arar to Syrian intelligence agents during the first few weeks of his detention.
Since his return, Mr. Arar has said he confessed to the Afghanistan training under torture and insisted he had never been in the country. He has repeatedly denied any involvement with any terrorist organization.
Ms. O'Neill cited a "security source" as saying a public inquiry might also put the spotlight on reports that the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa -- and Parliament Hill -- had been identified as potential al-Qaeda targets in the capital.
The search warrants, signed by Justice of the Peace Richard Sculthorpe, specified that the criminal leak took place between Dec. 13, 2002, and Nov. 9, 2003, the day after Ms. O'Neill's original story on the Arar case appeared in the Citizen.
The warrant executed yesterday authorized the RCMP to search for an all-encompassing list of potential evidence: "Newspaper articles, files and records, note books and agendas, telephone records, address books, and other similar records or photo-copies thereof, secret official code word, password, sketch, plan, model, article, note, document or information, computing equipment, peripheral devices, communication devices for such computing equipment, data storage devices, including data storage devices and media, removable media, and manual or software programs associated to computing equipment, as well as any hard copy print outs, personal papers, diaries, passwords and access codes, in relation to the secret classified document and information mentioned in the article written by Juliet O'Neill and published on Nov. 8, 2003."
An appendix quoted Section 4 of the Security of Information Act listing the offences in question: wrongful communication of information, receiving secret information, and retaining or allowing possession of a secret document.
It stated that Ms. O'Neill "did receive a secret document or information, knowing, or having reasonable grounds to believe, at the time she received it, that the document or information was communicated to her in contravention of this act."
Furthermore, it said, Ms. O'Neill "did obtain secret document or information and neglected to restore it to the person or authority by whom or for whom or whose use it was issued, or to a police constable."
The government -- including Prime Minister Paul Martin -- has repeatedly rejected calls from the opposition, and Mr. Arar, for a public inquiry.
Justice Minister Anne McLellan has said, however, that the RCMP would try to identify who leaked information on the case.
The RCMP Public Complaints Commission has launched an investigation into what role the RCMP may have played in the American deportation of Mr. Arar. However, family lawyers and Mr. Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, said the commission doesn't have the power or scope to get to the bottom of what happened and is being used as a "smokescreen" to head off a full-scale public inquiry.
Bruce Garvey
The Ottawa Citizen
Thursday, January 22, 2004
RCMP raid the home and office of a Citizen reporter over the Maher Arar case and unleash a storm of anger: 'A black, black day': Surrounded by journalists, Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill stands outside while RCMP officers scour her Lowertown home for clues to the identity of a source of embarrassing leaks in the Maher Arar case.
CREDIT: Jean Levac, the Ottawa Citizen
Raids by teams of RCMP officers on the home and office of Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill have unleashed a firestorm of criticism, and renewed demands for a public inquiry into the Maher Arar affair.
The Mounties said they were conducting a criminal investigation, searching for the identity of a source who leaked details of Canada's security dossier on Mr. Arar, the Syrian-born Canadian deported by the Americans into a year of detention and alleged torture in Damascus. In the wake of the surprise, early-morning raids there was a mounting chorus of protest from civil libertarians, lawyers, journalists and opposition politicians over "police state" tactics designed to "intimidate" and inhibit freedom of the press.
Ms. O'Neill, a respected veteran journalist and a senior writer with the Citizen, has been with the newspaper since 1996. Last night she said she was caught "off-guard" by the raids, which she said left her "deeply offended."
"It was a five-hour invasion of my privacy, and it felt like I was stripped naked," she said. "They took my address books, contact books, Rolodex -- and my ability to do my work has been seriously handicapped as a result."
The only bright side to the day, she said, was a flood of supportive phone calls, "which is very important for journalism."
As of last night no charges had been laid against her, although the RCMP said charges were pending.
Citizen editor-in-chief Scott Anderson and the newspaper's proprietors, CanWest, vowed to fight the seizures and any charges against Ms. O'Neill under the tough new Security of Information Act, which was rushed through Parliament in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States.
"It is a black, black day for freedom in this country," said Mr. Anderson. "I am outraged. The Canadian government has a lot to answer for, and it's using intimidation to prevent the search for the truth. Canadians should be appalled at the Star Chamber mentality that's creeping into our justice system."
Gordon Fisher, CanWest's president of news and information, said the raid on Ms. O'Neill "smacks of a police-state mentality that one might equate with the former Soviet Union rather than a Canadian democracy.
"We at CanWest will throw every ounce of our support behind Julie. Legal counsel have been engaged on many fronts to deal with this affront to one of Canada's most respected journalists."
Mr. Fisher said that, equally importantly, CanWest journalists will continue to pursue the public's right to know "what CSIS, RCMP or government involvement there was in the deportation of a Canadian citizen and his subsequent torture."
He vowed: "This is truly outrageous. The fight is just starting."
NDP leader Jack Layton called the raids "outrageous, appalling, clearly designed to send a chill through the journalistic community ... it's like something out of Kafka."
He said the NDP would continue to press for a public inquiry into the Arar affair and demand that the Security of Information legislation be repealed.
"It's the sort of thing I'd expect from a police state," said Grant Hill, the acting leader of the Official Opposition, while Conservative party leadership frontrunner Stephen Harper called the raids "disturbing and dangerous."
Some Liberals also voiced their doubts, even as a spokesman for Prime Minister Paul Martin stressed that the raids were not part of a campaign to intimidate journalists.
"I'm very concerned that the rights of journalists may be trampled," said newly appointed Senator Jim Munson, a former press secretary to Jean Chretien, describing Ms. O'Neill as a "good, solid journalist."
And Liberal MP John Bryden said: "I'm very uncomfortable when any journalist is raided for documents."
Ironically, yesterday's search warrants were executed the day before Mr. Arar is expected to file suit against U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft over his deportation to Jordan and then Syria late in September, 2002.
Yesterday Mr. Arar's lawyer, Lorne Waldman, said the RCMP raids in Ottawa were clearly intended to "intimidate the media" and block a public inquiry.
Meanwhile, Citizen lawyers have demanded that all items seized in yesterday's raids remain sealed pending a court hearing on an application that they be returned to Ms. O'Neill and the newspaper.
The drama began at 8 a.m., when 10 RCMP officers descended on Ms. O'Neill's small house on a quiet residential street in Lowertown.
For the next five hours they painstakingly searched drawers, cupboards and computers while a pair of guards mounted a crime-scene perimeter in the driveway, explaining that they were conducting an "ongoing criminal investigation."
At the same time, plainclothes and uniformed officers staged a similar raid on the newspaper's city hall bureau, where they searched Ms. O'Neill's desk, files and computer. Armed guards refused access to anyone but Ms. O'Neill and Drew Gragg, the Citizen's executive editor, until 4:15 p.m.
When the Mounties left, they took with them folders, a briefcase, a rolodex, notebooks, papers, cassette tapes and a computer hard drive.
Lawyer Richard Dearden, who represented the Citizen during the raids, later said that journalists now have to fear being charged if they investigate, let alone report on, "secret" information passed on by a confidential source.
"Then all of a sudden you have 10 police officers conducting the most invasive search of your whole house, videotaping your whole house, going through your underwear drawer in the middle of the morning."
If charged under the Security of Information Act, Mr. Dearden said, a defendant faces up to 14 years in prison, "so this is serious stuff."
Mr. Dearden said he intends to challenge the raid constitutionally, arguing that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects journalists from the security act.
The story that triggered yesterday's searches was published on the Citizen's front page on Nov. 8. Ms. O'Neill wrote that Mr. Arar had come to the attention of the RCMP while they investigated an alleged al-Qaeda logistical support group based in Ottawa.
Most of the members of the cell are now in prison abroad, but the very existence of the group was one of the reasons the Canadian government was so vehemently opposed to a public inquiry into the Arar affair, she wrote.
One of the leaked documents she referred to in the article describes "minute details" of Mr. Arar's seven months of terrorist training at a camp in Afghanistan, allegedly revealed by Mr. Arar to Syrian intelligence agents during the first few weeks of his detention.
Since his return, Mr. Arar has said he confessed to the Afghanistan training under torture and insisted he had never been in the country. He has repeatedly denied any involvement with any terrorist organization.
Ms. O'Neill cited a "security source" as saying a public inquiry might also put the spotlight on reports that the U.S. Embassy in Ottawa -- and Parliament Hill -- had been identified as potential al-Qaeda targets in the capital.
The search warrants, signed by Justice of the Peace Richard Sculthorpe, specified that the criminal leak took place between Dec. 13, 2002, and Nov. 9, 2003, the day after Ms. O'Neill's original story on the Arar case appeared in the Citizen.
The warrant executed yesterday authorized the RCMP to search for an all-encompassing list of potential evidence: "Newspaper articles, files and records, note books and agendas, telephone records, address books, and other similar records or photo-copies thereof, secret official code word, password, sketch, plan, model, article, note, document or information, computing equipment, peripheral devices, communication devices for such computing equipment, data storage devices, including data storage devices and media, removable media, and manual or software programs associated to computing equipment, as well as any hard copy print outs, personal papers, diaries, passwords and access codes, in relation to the secret classified document and information mentioned in the article written by Juliet O'Neill and published on Nov. 8, 2003."
An appendix quoted Section 4 of the Security of Information Act listing the offences in question: wrongful communication of information, receiving secret information, and retaining or allowing possession of a secret document.
It stated that Ms. O'Neill "did receive a secret document or information, knowing, or having reasonable grounds to believe, at the time she received it, that the document or information was communicated to her in contravention of this act."
Furthermore, it said, Ms. O'Neill "did obtain secret document or information and neglected to restore it to the person or authority by whom or for whom or whose use it was issued, or to a police constable."
The government -- including Prime Minister Paul Martin -- has repeatedly rejected calls from the opposition, and Mr. Arar, for a public inquiry.
Justice Minister Anne McLellan has said, however, that the RCMP would try to identify who leaked information on the case.
The RCMP Public Complaints Commission has launched an investigation into what role the RCMP may have played in the American deportation of Mr. Arar. However, family lawyers and Mr. Arar's wife, Monia Mazigh, said the commission doesn't have the power or scope to get to the bottom of what happened and is being used as a "smokescreen" to head off a full-scale public inquiry.
