The North American Security Intelligence Partnership

CBC, via WikiLeaks :

228182
SECRET 2/10/2009
SECRET OTTAWA 000768
Subject : Visas Viper : The "Toronto 18" as candidates for Visas Viper Program

SUMMARY At Embassy Ottawa's monthly Visas Viper meeting on September 09, 2009, a list of 27 indidivudals (sic) who were involved in the so-called "Toronto 18" conspiracy, a plot to engage in terrorist activities in the Toronto metropolitan area, was submitted for consideration. All of these individuals are watchlisted in the Consular Lookout and Support System (CLASS). Post is submitting their names to be included in the Visas Vipers program.

The Visas Viper program is the entry level into US terrorist watchlists.

Pogge, yesterday : Apparently we need to hold the Arar inquiry all over again

"The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada's principal intelligence agency, routinely transmits to U.S. authorities the names and personal details of Canadian citizens who are suspected of, but not charged with, what the agency refers to as "terrorist-related activity."

In at least some cases, the people in the cables appear to have been named as potential terrorists solely based on their associations with other suspects, rather than any actions or hard evidence."

Evidently even working as an undercover police informer busting terrorists will get you on that list.
In addition to the Toronto 18, the embassy cables name nine others.
Among those nine names is Mubin Shaikh.

Mubin Shaikh, a Canadian Muslim, was recruited by CSIS in 2004 to infiltrate possible terrorist groups.
Shaikh infiltrated the Toronto 18, secretly taping them and setting up the RCMP sting resulting in their arrest.
He testified against them at their trial as the Crown's star witness. Without him there would have been no trial, no convictions.
And now he's in the US terrorist database.
I'm sure other Canadian Muslims will be really keen to help CSIS out now.

So did CSIS put their own mole on that list? Or do they just have no autonomy at all over their own data.

“Clearly it’s a mistake,” Mr. Shaikh said in an interview. He argued that most people who are on watch lists belong on the lists, and that he has “compete confidence” in Canada’s ability to safeguard intelligence sources.

Good for you. I don't.

Yesterday CSIS gave a damage-control response to breaking news of their continued handing over of Canadian names and personal details to US watchlists :

 " ... any decision to hand over names is the result of a detailed process, in which an individual's threat level is assessed by a committee of Canadian security officials, including a senior executive at CSIS.

Lawyers from the Department of Justice also participate, and often a representative of the RCMP.

As part of the process, someone plays the part of devil's advocate, challenging the information gathered on the individual being considered.

Even then, said the official, the decision to hand over a name to the Americans is subject to written ministerial directives and internal CSIS policies.

None of which explains how Mubin Shaikh got on there.

But as Evan Dyer pointed out during RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli's grilling about Arar four and a half years ago, all that rigorous bureaucratic bullshit doesn't mean fuck all if US security forces are already physically present in the room when "persons of interest" are being discussed at INSET meetings.
INSET, the Canadian Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams, are the Canadian counter-terrorist forces comprised of CSIS, the RCMP, Border Services, and other security groups. They handled both the Arar and Toronto 18 cases.

As Pogge put it : "Our "principal intelligence agency" doesn't work for us; it works for American intelligence agencies."

"We don't want another Arar," said the security official. But at the same time, he said, CSIS is acutely aware that if it did not pass on information about someone it suspected, and that person then carried out some sort of spectacular attack in the U.S., the consequences could be cataclysmic for Canada.
U.S. authorities, already suspicious that Canada is "soft on terror," would likely tighten the common border, damaging hundreds of billions of dollars worth of vital commerce.

So we're just haggling about the price of our sovereignty and Charter rights now then.

Or, as most of the WikiLeaks-released Ottawa Embassy cables usually sign off with:

"Visit Canada's North American partnership community at
http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/nap /"

Yeah. Thanks. How's our security perimeter coming along?
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Update : WikiLeaks has now released the S E C R E T OTTAWA 000768 cables. Same redactions as CBC.
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Toronto18/ Paintball11/ Tim Hortons10 terrorist fatcamp update

G&M : RCMP agent concedes key role in set-up, running of terrorist training camp

Mubin Shaikh on Friday:

"I thought that if the RCMP didn't tell me I couldn't do it, I inferred that I could do it, Mr. Shaikh testified.

Lawyers for Canada's first underage convicted terrorist argued in court Friday that without Mubin Shaikh, assigned by CSIS and paid by the RCMP, there would have been no terrorist conspiracy at all.
In fact, minus Canada's new US-compliant Anti-Terrorism Act, the most he could have been charged with is shoplifting some items that were not even used in the RCMP/CSIS plot to, uh, blow up the Houses of Parliament, CBC, and CSIS (although they weren't sure where these buildings were), and behead Prime Minister Paul Martin (having failed to note he was no longer PM)

Let's review, courtesy of Thomas Walkom, our young convicted terrorist's complicity in the plot :

He did not make bombs or buy guns. Nor did he advocate doing so.
He did not threaten to kill anyone, did not call for holy war, did not pledge allegiance to Osama bin Laden.
He did not even badmouth Canada's military efforts in Afghanistan.

His most damning entry on the audio tapes helpfully provided by Mr Mehta, who testified along with the other crown witness at the kid's trial in September that he believed him to be innocent, was to ask if "if Muslims can use Nivea cream".

So what was he convicted of ?

Walkom explains Superior Court Justice John Sproat's guilty verdict last September :

"Under the anti-terror legislation, the government doesn't need to prove an accused terrorist took part in or even knew about a specific plot.
All it has to prove is that he knowingly participated in the activities of a terrorist group and contributed either directly or indirectly to anything "enhancing" its abilities."

Oh well - the kid definitely qualifies then.
As RCMP/CSIS fatcamp troop leader and prosecution star witness Mubin Shaikh testified at the kid's trial, he convinced the reluctant teen to attend the training camp by telling him it was a religious retreat:

"I don't believe that (he) is a terrorist," he said outside the courtroom.
"I don't believe he should've been put through what he was put through, but that's our system." Shaikh said he did not believe that the defendant was aware of the group's violent plans."

And yet under "our system", if the kid's lawyers are not successful in overturning his conviction by a sole judge, the kid could get ten years for, as Hysperia remarked in comments at the time, "something that someone else might have been doing without his knowledge."
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Related posts :
Canada's first anti-terrorism conviction
Toronto18/ Paintball 11/ Tim Hortons 10 video footage
A load of fertilizer
Clowncar terrorism - Update #2
Clowncar terrorism
RCMP, now with free delivery
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Update : May 23, 2009 : Sentence of 30 months reduced to time served.
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Canada's first anti-terrorism act conviction

Yesterday the first person in Canada was found guilty of "participating in terrorist activity" under Canada's new anti-terrorism laws. A teen at the time of his arrest, he faces up to 10 years in prison.

G&M : "Despite the fact there was no evidence that he planned, or even knew about, any specific plot, he was found guilty of participating in a terrorist group.
Despite the marginal nature of the case, Canada's security agencies are buoyed that a terrorism conviction is finally on the books. “All of the folks on this file are really breathing better on it ... It's a big confidence builder,” said Senator Colin Kenny, who heads a committee that probes national-security agencies.

Experts added that the weaknesses in the case illustrate how strong the law is.
"The ruling may indicate that ‘participation in terrorism' becomes the favoured charge, much as ‘material support for terrorism' has south of the border,” University of Toronto law Professor Kent Roach said of a charge laid in dozens of U.S. cases."

After the ruling, the prosection's main witness, Mubain Shaikh, spoke to reporters.
As the RCMP mole who was paid $77,000 to set the group up for arrest, later demanding a further $300,000, Shaikh provided the group with its only weapon - a 9mil handgun. He convinced our reluctant teen to attend the training camp by telling him it was a religious retreat:
"I don't believe he was a terrorist," Shaikh said. "I don't believe he should have been put through what he was put through. But that's our system." Shaikh said he did not believe that the defendant was aware of the group's violent plans."

At the trial : CBC : "Shaikh said the accused was invited to the training camp under false pretences.
Having recently converted from Hinduism to Islam, the accused was eager to learn. So Shaikh told him the camp was a religious retreat where he would learn about the faith and also test physical skills, as laid out in the Koran.
Shaikh said the accused never heard a word of alleged plans to blow up buildings or behead the prime minister."

As Hysperia put it: "Charged for something that someone else might have been doing without your knowledge"
No matter. Finally we have our first anti-terrorism act conviction in the war of terror.

Under the CTV story reporting the ruling, there are 105 comments. Eight allude to some aspect of the case. A few take the opportunity to proclaim this proves we should vote for Harper on Oct. 14. Among the remaining 90 or so are the following suggestions :

~Who paid for the defense?He should also have been charged with treason and lose the Canadian citizenship."
~now we can take back our nation from the criminals.
~Send him to Gitmo
~Lock him up for life in a 8x6 ft. cell for 23 out of 24 hours each day
~Its a shame that taxpayers' money is wasted on trials like this. if a person is found doing this they should be put away without the trial.
~get this guy's name out
~this does make it tough to be critical of the liberal appointed judges though. We will have to come up with some other way of discrediting them.
~In simpler days, they would have been dealt with by a length of rope.
~they should all be tried under a war tribunal and not the civilian courts.
~tie them with a steel chain in the middle of Lake Ontario.
~CONVICTED IN CANADA.
~Under our terror act we should name names
~it's time we stopping letting just anyone into the country.
~see how the fellow in-mates treat them. I think we all know it wouldn't be a warm welcome!
~Youth or not all of their faces and names should be plastered all over this country.
~Free, law-abiding citizens have rights -criminals give them up when they commit crimes
~What would scare these type of people is to strip them of their natural citizenship
~he was probably born in Canada so he gets to stay. If not, deport him after the time served or better yet deport him to serve time in the cushy Middle East jails, if they would actually do this.
~10 years!? I'm speechless. Why is he not looking at 100 years?
~I think it's about time we stopped letting people from other country's into Canada.
~the Charter of Rights has left us good law abiding citizens the shaft and the criminals all the breaks
~you are released from jail into a body bag or coffin.
~I like the idea of that prison in Colorado?, virtually inaccessible, prioners in complete isolation, with 1 hour out by themselves, no phone TV or visitors for the rest of their lives.
~His whole family should be deported.
~what happened to hanging?
~Treason/High Treason in Canada should result in a pubic hanging on Parlament Hill of the accused

All in all I'd say Canada's war of terror seems to be progressing quite well.

Toronto 18/Paintball 11/Tim Hortons 10 video footage

Footage of the Toronto 18/Paintball 11/Tim Horton's 10 has shown up on a US anti-terrorism website. It is presumably the same footage the Canadian judge declined to release to the media.
Now admittedly I haven't seen many terrorist promotional videos before - ok, none actually - but it's difficult to imagine that recruitment numbers sky-rocketed after watching this jolly bunch perform wheelies in a Canadian Tire parking lot and fall down in the snow.

"The NEFA Foundation has obtained exclusive footage of a would-be "terrorist training camp" that took place in a rural section of Canada in 2006. The camp, directed by CSIS confidential informant Mubin Shaikh, included members of the alleged “Toronto 18” terror cell, who are accused of conspiring to carry out a large-scale terrorist attack in southern Ontario, including plans for truck bombings and storming local buildings such as the Canadian Parliament and the headquarters of the CSIS. The video features footage of the men receiving instruction on the use of handguns, sniper tactics, and basic calisthenics. Crudely edited by its creators to include nasheed music, the video also shows the men practicing evasive driving maneuvers at night in an abandoned parking lot."

In reporting on the footage, the CBC at least notes that the weapons are paintball guns but neither CanWest nor CBC bothered to include the information that the lone handgun was provided by the first RCMP mole

who was paid $77,000 to set the group up for arrest, and who went public on July 13th to declare that he was owed a further $300,000.
Nor do they mention the role of the second RCMP mole, a former CSIS informant, who was paid $4.1M to arrange the purchase of ammonium nitrate on his credit card to be delivered to a warehouse he had rented conveniently located a hundred yards from the RCMP station. $4.1M seems like a lot of money, I know, but at least the RCMP whittled him down from the $16M he had originally asked for.

At the time of the arrests, Parliament was in the process of reviewing the new powers granted the police and security forces under the Anti-Terrorism Act which would allow prosecutors to conceal evidence from the accused and their lawyers on the grounds of protecting national security. Prime Minister Harper personally thanked Bush in a telephone conversation the following Monday for the help provided by US authorities.

A verdict in the trial is expected next week.

Clowncar terrorism - Update #2

in the ongoing trial of the Toronto 18, now the Paintball 11 :
Crown turns on own witness
Police mole accused of lying about so-called terrorist training camp
"In a stunning turn of events, a Crown prosecutor yesterday accused his star witness in the Toronto 18 terror case of fabricating some of the evidence about a so-called terrorist training camp."

The prosecutor accused the RCMP mole/informant of lying to protect the accused, because since being paid off for his info he has changed his story a couple of times.

Damn. Does this mean Canada will have to give back our membership in the DHS war on terra?
Naw. The important thing is to make the bust so you can use it to ramp up the hugely profitable war on terra even more. In 2001, US planes dropped fliers all over Afghanistan offering a bounty to anyone who busted as al-Qaeda anyone who pissed them off, netting over 700 "terrorists" for Gitmo. So far only 6 of them have been charged so we're still way ahead of the fuck-up curve here.

Bit of a bummer for the Toronto Paintball 11 though, no?
After 750 days in jail to date, 3 of them have been in solitary for two years and 7 are refused bail.
Four teenagers, presumably the same ones who cowered in their tent when the leaders hid in the bushes and made wolf and bear noises, have been released.
Suggest next time the RCMP search for a more credible scenario - possibly involving terrorists who can make lion and tiger noises.

Clowncar terrorism - the Toronto whatever-number-it-is-now

CBC : An RCMP informant who infiltrated an alleged homegrown militant group has acknowledged the person now on trial had little or no knowledge of the group's plans.
Having recently converted from Hinduism to Islam, the accused was eager to learn. So Shaikh told him the camp was a religious retreat where he would learn about the faith and also test physical skills, as laid out in the Koran.
Shaikh said the accused never heard a word of alleged plans to blow up buildings or behead the prime minister.

G&M : While the Crown contends the camp was intended as terrorist training, Mr. Shaikh [the RCMP informant] readily agreed the recruits were told they were going to a religious camp.
“That was the cover story,” Mr. Shaikh said.
“They weren't told anything about attacking Parliament?” Mr. Chernovsky asked.
“That's correct,” Mr. Shaikh said.

He said the campers could have viewed wearing fatigues, playing paintball or pretending to be Muslim fighters in Chechnya as a game of cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers, he added.
At one point, he said, the leaders hid in the bushes and made wolf and bear noises.
“They sat in the tent terrified,” court heard of the other campers. “They ended up huddled, shivering in the tent.”

This is the testimony of the prosecution's star witness.

The case so far : Getting the accused to join what they were told was a religious retreat and then prosecuting them for not doing something that they didn't know anything about.

Chopping off heads - easy. Opening a can of tuna - hard

The continuing travails of the Toronto-whatever-it-is-now-after-you-subtract-the-undercover-paid-informant/instigators...

CBC attempts to introduce a little gravitas with their lede:
Accused in alleged Toronto bomb plot tapped to behead PM, court hears

"A youth charged in connection with an alleged 2006 plot to blow up buildings in Ontario was the group's preferred candidate to behead the prime minister because of his wood chopping skills, Crown prosecutors alleged Wednesday."

but it still comes down to what is on the wiretap :

"I know he’d cut off their heads," says the man, to which the other man agrees and says, "Did you see him? How he was cutting the wood?"
The men are heard laughing, then they struggle to open a can of tuna to spread on a bagel because no one can find a can opener.

We're getting closer and closer to the prosecution introducing the wiretap segment in which the terrorists are unable to agree upon who is the prime minister or where parliament is.
Looking forward to the CBC headline on that one; possibly something like : Plot to behead PM foiled by skipping civics class.

I do hope the Dept of Homeland Security is paying due attention here - we've gone to a lot of trouble to get this together for them.

Another form of extraordinary rendition

Canada's secret spy days are over : CSIS chief, said at a "recent and closed CIA-sponsored Global Futures Forum conference of international security services in Vancouver"

"Public terrorism trials are changing the way government spies operate, says Canada's spymaster, Jim Judd.
As a consequence of the fight against global Islamic terrorism, an increasing number of open-court criminal prosecutions in Canada, the U.S. and Europe have, at their genesis, information collected by shadowy secret agents rather than police officers.

Prior to 9/11 and in several cases since, most of those detained for suspected terrorist links in Canada were immigrants or refugees and the government conveniently relied on immigration laws and security certificates to quietly deport them to their countries of origin or hold them in custody.

But the alleged terrorist activities of Ottawa's Momin Khawaja and the "Toronto 11" -- all Canadian citizens awaiting trial in the first of Canada's post-9/11 terror prosecutions -- must be heard in open courts, where the prosecution's evidence is subject to the rigours of defence counsel scrutiny and the rules of evidence."

Judd refers to this as the "judicialization" of what has "traditionally been considered covert government information".

OK, hold that thought a moment - I'm coming back to it.

Yesterday, in The Lesson of the Arar inquiry : Keep it under wraps, Pogge wrote about Mr. Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen fingered by CSIS and arrested "at our request" in Sudan five years ago, where he alleges he was beaten while in custody, and frequently visited by CSIS.

In 2004, Sudan cleared him of all allegations that he was a terrorist or a member of al-Qaeda and released him. They further offered to fly him home but Canada obstructed the deal. !!!
A few months later, Mr. Abdelrazik was then bundled off back to prison for another five months after suggesting he wanted to make his case to the prime minister. Now released a second time, he remains trapped in Khartoum, his health failing, his family back here in Montreal.

And here's the perfect Catch 22 : He can't fly home because he's on a no-fly list and he can't go by land or sea because Canada continues to refuse him a passport.


From the G&M, who, to their eternal credit, put this on their front page yesterday :

"[Abdelrazik's lawyer] says the similarities with Mr. Arar's case are compelling. In both instances, a Canadian citizen is fingered by CSIS as a terrorist suspect. In both cases, no charges are laid in Canada. In both, the person is arrested and imprisoned abroad. In both, Canadian officials say there is little that they can do because the person is in the country of their other citizenship."

In both, he might have added, there were allegations of torture and extraordinary callousness on the part of government officials. The G&M article does a fine job detailing the blatant ass-covering, Lib and Con, that appears to have formed the bulk of Foreign Affairs' concerns regarding Mr. Abdelrazik over the past five years. Just like with Arar, CSIS didn't want him to come back to Canada to embarrass them.
As chief of CSIS, Jim Judd oversaw both.

POGGE asks for the second time now : How many more of them are there out there?


May 16, 2007, Day seeks security powers

"Anti-terror measures would restore `preventive arrests’ and help CSIS spies overseas
"The federal government plans to try to revive the extraordinary anti-terror police powers of "investigative hearings" and "preventive arrest" as part of a series of major security initiatives."

"Preventative arrest" allows police to arrest without charge and judges to penalize without trial, people who the authorities fear might commit future terrorist offences.

"The government also says it will expand the ability of Canada's spy agency – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) – to do covert foreign intelligence gathering abroad.
The two police powers slated for revival were killed by the opposition parties in a parliamentary vote in February.
In an appearance yesterday before the House of Commons public safety committee, Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day indicated he has drafted a bill to reinstate those powers."

The bill is still pending, and as noted here, now also enjoys the support of the Liberals.

So when CSIS chief Jim Judd laments for the CIA the late great days of publicly unacknowleged extaordinary renditions, the pre-'judicialized' days unsullied by the "rigours of defence council scrutiny and rules of evidence", just remember it's because they're planning to bring those days back.

A load of fertilizer

Remember this? Sure you do.
It was back in June 2006, coincidentally two weeks before the vote on whether or not to let the Canadian Anti-Terror Act expire, that the RCMP sold a load of fertilizer to two CSIS moles embedded in a Muslim outdoor club,had it delivered to a warehouse rented by the RCMP a block from the RCMP Regional HQ, and the Toronto 18 were born!

The outdoor camp had been under fruitless investigation by the RCMP for the three years previous, but following the RCMP to CSIS fertilizer sale, it metamorphosed into a jihadi terrorist training camp whose members were going to storm Parliament, although they weren't sure where that was exactly, and cut off the head of Prime Minister Martin, having apparently failed to register that there had been a change in government.

Oh and they were also going to blow up the CBC, the CBC breathlessly reported.


On Friday the taped testimony of one of the 18 from the day after the big bust was played in court :
"Basically we were just chilling, reading the Qu'ran," the teenager recalled of the activities at the 12-day camp that took place in December 2005 near the town of Washago, Ont. "Some guys are lazy, y'know, they're gaining weight. For two weeks we just kind of worked out."
The workouts, he said, included playing around in the snow, chopping down trees, playing with paintball guns and jogging. He also admitted to shooting a gun, which he said was primarily handled by someone whom the officer reveals to be an informant."

...prompting the Star to ask : "So was it simply a fat camp?"

Clearly the kid was not exactly an Al Qaeda insider and was released.
No matter - the Toronto 18, now the Toronto 11, saved the anti-terror act, albeit with restrictions placed on it by the Libs, Bloc, and NDP.


But now those restrictions might be coming off, says Thomas Walkom :

"Last year, Stéphane Dion's Liberals enthusiastically helped to kill two controversial elements of Canada's 2001 anti-terror laws. Now they are quietly allowing them to be brought back.
One, dealing with preventive detention, would allow police to arrest without charge and judges to penalize without trial, people who the authorities fear might commit future terrorist offences.
The second would let judges compel testimony at so-called investigative hearings from those the authorities think might know something about terrorism.

The Harper government has passed in the Senate and introduced into the Commons a new bill to reimplement slightly amended versions of both measures.
Now, the Liberals say they will support them.
In fact, the Liberals now use the same arguments once employed against them.
"We recognize that this is necessary," public safety critic Ujjal Dosanjh said."

Let's have that again : "Would allow police to arrest without charge and judges to penalize without trial people who the authorities fear might commit future terrorist offences."

Say, didn't we used to have something called habeas corpus back in the good old pre-fertilizer days?
Seems that load of RCMP fertilizer has turned out to be pretty dangerous after all.