Counter-terrorism - Which colour-code are you?

The G&M, the Star, and Vancouver Observer all carried stories yesterday about environmentalists being understandably pissed at being lumped in with white supremacists among the listed "issue-based" terrorist threats in Canada's new counter-terrorism strategy released on Thursday,  Building Resilience Against Terrorism :

"...domestic extremism that is “based on grievances – real or perceived – revolving around the promotion of various causes such as animal rights, white supremacy, environmentalism and anti-capitalism."

Gosh that list sounds familiar. 

Wait! Not only have I read it before - I've blogged it before. 
It's from the Integrated Security Unit Joint Intelligence Group's Intelligence Assessment for the 2010 G8 summit, written back in June 2009. From page 6  :

"The 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville ... will likely be subject to actions taken by criminal extremists motivated by a variety of radical ideologies. These ideologies may include variants of anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, nihilism, socialism and/or communism. These ideologies may also include notions of racial supremacy and white power ... 

"The important commonality is that these ideologies ... place these individuals and/or organizations at odds with the status quo and the current distribution of power in society. 

In addition to these generally held tenets, a variety of grievances exist: These grievances are based upon notions/expectations regarding the environment, animal rights, First nations'(sic) resource-based grievances, gender/racial equality, and distribution of wealth etc."

And you all remember how well that summit security assessment worked out.

Notable that this new public list of potential terrorist threats leaves off any reference to First Nations.

Vancouver Observer :

"Public Safety spokesperson Lisa Filipps ... explained that the agency does not keep a list of domestic issue-based terrorist groups, and said the counter-terrorism strategy is not meant to target those using legal means to further their causes."

So I guess that means they've torn up the lists of people mentioned on Page 15 of the the JIG Intelligence Report, then, does it?

"The segment to follow will provide a list of investigative subjects, persons of interest, and their associates. In the following section, a specific profile sheet will be supplied for each subject according the criteria established. The profiles will be divided and color-coded into three distinct categories: Suspect (Red); Person of Interest (Orange); and Associate (Yellow).  

And is this still going on? Yes it is :

RCMP records suggest that the reconnaissance continues. Report logs indicate at least 29 incidents of police surveillance between the end of the G20 summit and April 2011 — more than nine months after world leaders departed Toronto.

Look, nobody expects our government not to track and compile lists of people and groups it considers likely to blow things up, and most of this "new" strategy focuses on those. But in its determination to bash through the Enbridge Gateway tarsands-to-tankers pipeline regardless of what Canadians think about it, this government has repeatedly referred to environmentalists as "radicals" and "adversaries" and "foreign-funded socialists".

How far is that from being a Suspect (Red), a Person of Interest (Orange), or an Associate (Yellow)?
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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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Down the memory hole : Two accounts of domestic terrorism

Out of the many many published accounts of Canada's newest domestic terrorism case, two appear to have disappeared down the memory hole.

Last night the Globe and Mail published a story on authorities apprehending the child of the so-called fourth terror suspect, Awso Peshdary. He's the one who was arrested Friday and interrogated for six hours, released, and immediately re-arrested on domestic assault charges dating back to April as a result of police having bugged his house for the last six months. That G&M story read :
Authorities seize child of man targeted in terror probe

The six-month-old daughter of Awso Peshdary is in custody of Children's Aid Society after police, unable to make terrorism case, lay charges of domestic assault.

The G&M included a link to a blog supportive of Peshdary which gave an account purportedly of Peshdary's wife going to the Elgin Police Station to inquire after her husband, being interrogated for five hours without a lawyer present, being coerced into making statements against her husband, and having her child apprehended. Is all this true? We don't know. 660 News reported the child being apprehended today.

But even if Peshdary is accused of assault and uttering threats to his wife, I thought, why apprehend her child from her while he is locked up?

I posted a link to both the G&M story and the blog account on the Bread and Roses forum last night where it was read and commented on by regulars, but by 11:26 this morning deBeauxOs reported at BnR that the G&M story was missing.
Gone. 404ed down the memory hole.

Now the G&M is notorious for rewriting their online copy so we waited for the new version to appear. Dr Dawg reported a new version, which incidentally is minus the phrase "unable to make terrorism case", but now it too is gone, as is the blog post purporting to be Mrs. Peshwary's account of events. Dawg has cached copies of the revised G&M story and the missing blog post : Abuse.

Last night at BnR, Pogge quoted the following from the original G&M account :

After al-Qaeda’s attacks in the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, Canadian police were given extraordinary powers to temporarily arrest suspected terrorists when a solid criminal case failed to materialize. Police were also given powers to compel individuals to testify against alleged terrorist associates.

Parliament voted against extending those powers in 2007. Now, the Conservative government hopes to revive them, meaning MPs are about to embark on a renewed debate as to whether counterterrorism agents have sufficient powers to deal with people on the periphery of a suspected plot.

As Pogge said last night, this is today's installment of Things That Make You Go "Hmmmm".
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Q & A with Mr.Bin Laden and Mr. William Elliott

Last October, RCMP Commissioner William Elliott addressed a meeting of security intelligence peeps about Canada's current terrorism environment :

"As far as Al-Qaeda is concerned, Canada is the enemy.
We recall Osama Bin Laden’s famous communiqué to America’s allies in November of 2002, in which he asked:

“Why are your governments, especially those of Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia, allying themselves with America in its attacks on us in Afghanistan? This is injustice. The time has come to settle accounts. Just as you kill, so you shall be killed; just as you bomb, so you shall be bombed. And there will be more to come.”

To answer Mr. Bin Laden's question, here's David Rothkopf, Bill Clinton's Deputy Undersecretary of Commerce and former managing director of Kissinger Associates, from Empire : Superclass, posted here on Saturday (mark 18:31) :

"If there were no oil in the Middle East, the United States wouldn't care about the Middle East, it wouldn't care about Israel, it wouldn't care about Palestine, it wouldn't care about social development in Iraq, it wouldn't care about the Taliban. If there were no oil and the interests who benefit from that oil and advocate for that oil, and who have done so and who have shaped American policy over the course of the past 70 years as a consequence of that oil, are big businesses."

Call me crazy, Mr. Elliott, but I think not helping the US occupy a country for oil bidness would go some distance towards not attracting unwanted attention from Mr. Bin Laden and his new friends here at home.
Back to Elliott's address :

Canada does suffer an image problem with some Americans as a safe haven for terrorists. We must work to overcome that perception ... demonstrate a more proportional and comprehensive commitment to not only fighting terrorism but to advancing our shared security interests more broadly.

I note that this year the RCMP’s strategic priority of “Terrorism” will be expanded to “National Security” which is consistent with this broader objective.

More criminal prosecutions for terrorist offences would certainly be one step to enhancing security relations with the United States.

And just where are we going to find "more criminal prosecutions for terrorist offenses" for the benefit of the US?
Junkies rebranded as terrorist financiers for the war on drugs.

Put succinctly, Canadian criminals and Canadian drug users keep Afghan and Pakistani heroin traffickers in business and contribute to the continuation of a serious threat to the West, and to Canada and Canadian interests.

Proving such linkages in court would mean that drug couriers and their associates could face terrorism financing charges. That would help send a strong message to the world [aka the US] that we are serious about prosecuting accomplices to terror.

Perhaps it also explains why someone decided to send a strong message to the RCMP in BC to stand down from its presser with Insite one month later.

Elliott wraps up with a pitch for an expanded RCMP "capacity to conduct and support extraterritorial investigations" in national security:

I believe the time has come for law enforcement to be even more active in the realm of national security. We need greater capacity to put more terrorism cases before the courts and more terrorists in jail.

And voilà! - Project Samosa. Hope our new alleged terrorists appreciate their important role for us in "enhancing shared security relations with the US".
I know Osama Bin Laden does.
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Wiebo Ludwig

I don't claim to be any kind of authority on Wiebo Ludwig - for that you can read Andrew Nikiforuk's Saboteurs - but in all the considerable coverage of Ludwig's arrest today in connection with six cases of explosions on EnCana's gas pipelines, I notice the media's accompanying history of Ludwig makes no mention of the RCMP blowing up a well site last time they were building their case against him so here's a reminder.

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Ludwig's war on Big Oil began with his belief that sour gas and industrial pollution was endangering the health of his family and livestock. This was confirmed for him when his grand-daughter was born dead. Unable to achieve satisfaction in the courts, Ludwig was convicted in 2001 on five charges related to vandalism of oil industry equipment and served two years of a 28-month sentence.

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Ok, Operation Kabriole ...

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CBC, Nov 10, 2000 : RCMP bombed oil site in 'dirty tricks' campaign

The Mounties bombed an oil installation as part of a dirty tricks campaign in their investigation into sabotage in the Alberta's oil patch.
The revelation came at the bail hearing Thursday of two farmers who the Crown says have turned their complaints that oil industry pollution is making their families ill into acts of vandalism and mischief.

CBC , Nov 10, 2000 : More details of RCMP 'dirty tricks' revealed

Dubbed "Operation Kabriole", the RCMP's intention was to help an informant
get closer to the two men police suspected were behind vandalism against the oil
and gas industry.

Wiebo Ludwig and Richard Boonstra were arrested and charged earlier this month.

"Operation Kabriole" was planned and executed with the direct involvement of a Calgary based oil and gas business. Alberta Energy Company has a big operation in the Peace River country.

The RCMP's original plan was to blow up one of AEC's trucks. The company convinced the police to change the operation even though AEC had already given its approval, offered up a truck to be bombed and said it would pay for any major damages. Company officials were having second thoughts.

According to the RCMP's own files, the head of AEC's northern operations met with the police to say his bosses were concerned that bombing a vehicle would cause 'undue stress and fear' for employees driving company trucks.
So the company offered an alternative, a shed covering one of its "out of service" well sites not far from the suspects' property.

The bomb was set off Oct. 14, one week before AEC hosted two tense and emotional town hall meetings. Worried residents who turned out, were told by an expert, who was flown in by AEC, that they were the victims of 'eco-terrorists'.

Tory MP Peter MacKay, the opposition's RCMP critic at the time :

"If, in fact, the RCMP engaged in this type of activity, regardless of their motives, and regardless of the public interest here, it would be potentially fatal to the Crown's case."

Except it wasn't.

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This time Ludwig has been charged his lawyer says he will be charged with extortion.

Extortion. Description in the Criminal Code: 346(1):

"Every one commits extortion who, without reasonable justification or excuse and with intent to obtain anything, by threats, accusations, menaces or violence induces or attempts to induce any person, whether or not he is the person threatened, accused or menaced or to whom violence is shown, to do anything or cause anything to be done."

To do anything or cause anything to be done. That's pretty broad.

Maybe this time he wrote a letter.

Still, an RCMP fishing expedition is better than blowing up a shed.

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RCMP, pipeline bombings, and "domestic terrorism"

RCMP ask for public's patience after sixth B.C. pipeline bombing
"It's been nine months since the first explosion targeting EnCana's (TSX:ECA) natural gas operations in northeastern B.C. - the start of six attacks the RCMP are now labelling "domestic terrorism."
But with the bomber still at large and months since investigators have announced any new leads in the case, the RCMP are asking for patience as they investigate the two latest explosions in the Dawson Creek area. A blast on Canada Day at a wellhead near the village of Pouce Coupe marked the first attack since January"

CBC : More details of RCMP 'dirty tricks' revealed
"There are new details of the RCMP's covert operation to set off a bomb in northwestern Alberta's oilpatch.
Dubbed "Operation Kabriole", the RCMP's intention was to help an informant get closer to the two men police suspected were behind vandalism against the oil and gas industry.
Wiebo Ludwig and Richard Boonstra were arrested and charged earlier this month.

"Operation Kabriole" was planned and executed with the direct involvement of a Calgary based oil and gas business. Alberta Energy Company has a big operation in the Peace River country.

The RCMP's original plan was to blow up one of AEC's trucks. The company convinced the police to change the operation even though AEC had already given its approval, offered up a truck to be bombed and said it would pay for any major damages. Company officials were having second thoughts.

According to the RCMP's own files, the head of AEC's northern operations met with the police to say his bosses were concerned that bombing a vehicle would cause 'undue stress and fear' for employees driving company trucks.
So the company offered an alternative, a shed covering one of its "out of service" well sites not far from the suspects' property.

The bomb was set off Oct. 14, one week before AEC hosted two tense and emotional town hall meetings. Worried residents who turned out, were told by an expert, who was flown in by AEC, that they were the victims of 'eco-terrorists'.
Nov. 10, 2000."

Related : media terrorism experts.
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