Harper Covers Up Torture

The Harper Government was forced to accept the Arar inquiry, and now that they called the Air India inquiry they realize that public inquiries about their pals in CSIS and the RCMP can lead to political embarrassment. Of course the illegal detention and torture of Canadian citizens with the complicity of the Canadian State is the real embarrassment.

Evidence at the inquiry is being heard primarily in-camera without lawyers for the three men present.

Lawyers for the government argued that only they should be present for most of the inquiry because it is only government officials whose actions are at issue.

So despite calls for a public inquiry Harper denies our right to know, he likes the idea of a Star Chamber it is his Executive prerogative after all. Clear, Transparent and Accountable to nobody but himself.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says he will not impose new public-disclosure rules on an inquiry that's examining the role Canadian security agencies played in the overseas detention, interrogation and alleged torture of three Arab-Canadian men.

Harper told reporters Friday the internal inquiry, headed by retired Supreme Court justice Frank Iacobucci, already has a mandate that allows him to balance the need for national security and public confidence.

"Justice Iacobucci has all the power necessary to decide whether something should be held in private or whether it can be held in public," he said. "The government has given him that mandate; the government isn't going to interfere in how he conducts the inquiry."

Iacobucci has not taken any evidence in public or released any documents since ruling in late May the inquiry will be held largely in secret.

That has left the three Canadian citizens at the heart of the inquiry, Abudllah Almalki, Ahmad El-Maati and Muayyed Nureddin, deeply frustrated by their inability to participate in it.

"All I want is a fair and open process that I can be a part of, that I can help with, so that all Canadians can learn what happened," said Nureddin, who was detained for 34 days in Syria.

Nureddin says he was repeatedly tortured while being interrogated with questions that he had earlier been asked by security officials in Canada.

Almalki, an Ottawa engineer, contends he was arrested in Syria and tortured because of an incompetent CSIS and RCMP investigation that wrongly identified him as a high level al-Qaida member.

The Arar Inquiry has already revealed the RCMP sent questions for Almalki to Syrian Military Intelligence.

And it adds to Canadians disillusionment with the Justice system, which plays into the Conservatives Law and Order program.

- A recently-released government poll shows Canadians believe the rights of an accused person in the justice system trump those of the people they've committed crimes against.

SEE:

No Fly List

Why The Tories Want Tory Judges

Because They Ain't White

Paranoia and the Security State

State Security Is A Secure State

Free Kadhar

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Them and Us

According to King Stephen the Conservatives don't have time for protesters. Which we knew.

And the reason is that he claims protesters are not ordinary Canadians, or in this case Quebecois, but a new profession. Basically a 'rent a crowd'. They are not Canadians or Quebecois like you and me or the Conservatives.

"Dear friends, remember always that this is how we can measure our progress as a political movement: bring true results, work for the well-being of families and taxpayers, for truckers, the cashier, the retired person, the salesman, the farmer, the entrepreneur--for people who work hard, and who don't have the time to protest, or have the money to hire protestors.

But who support their families--Quebeckers of the middle class, the enlarged middle class, who were largely ignored for too long, by the political class.

The Conservatives saw them, the Conservatives heard them, the Conservatives have understood them, because we are they [i.e. the middle class]."

Gee someone tell that to the professional protesters at the Fraser Institute, of which Jason Kenney, Rob Anders and Ezra Levant are graduates of. Or the professional protesters of the NCC Lobby, which Harper once spokesman of. Or the professional protesters of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. Or the professional protesters opposed to the Wheat Board. Or the professional protesters at REAL Women. Or the professional protesters who demand Childcare Choice. Or the professional protesters who lobby for traditional marriage. Or the professional protesters who oppose Native Rights and Land Claims. Or the professional protesters of the Canadian Medical Association. Or the professional protesters who celebrate Red Friday.

Apparently they are no longer welcome in Harpers New Conservative Party of the 'enlarged middle class'.

Harper defines this mythical class as; 'truckers, the cashier, the retired person, the salesman, the farmer, the entrepreneur'. Now other than the the retired person and the cashier; who is a wage slave, the rest are gainfully defined as 'self employed' which is the classic definition of middle class; self employed professionals. Who were once called the petit-bourgeoisie

After liberal ideologue Daniel Bell declared the end of class war, sociologists defined the middle class as the great American melting pot which included blue collar workers, white collar workers, service workers, professionals and the self employed.

It was not based on the Marxist defined 'relations to the means of production', but on their salaries. No one was working class anymore, that was passe instead we all became a nation of the great unwashed 'middle class' we were now all 'consumers', not producers.

Now given that one would think with all those protesters who makeup the Conservative Party base, that Harper would have enlarged his middle class to include professional protesters and those who have the time and money to hire them. What he is saying is that the hard working Canadians and Quebecois who oppose him are simply in the pay of.....whom? Commies? Trade Unions? Maude Barlow?

In true animal farm fashion he has defined some protesters as more Conservative than others. They are the Special Interests. 'Them' to Harpers 'Us'.

Of course what he really is saying is that by his definition Thomas D'Aquino and his clique of Canada's CEO's are not a special interest group, but the mass of folks who protested last weekend at summit in Montebello are.

We have heard it all before, the protesters are 'commie dupes', and their fellow travelers in the media and blogosphere are 'nattering nabobs of negativity'.

And typical of right wing populism Harper again appeals to being one of the people; "because we are they" ignoring the political reality that his Party is not only a Minority Government but a minority political view amongst Canadians and Canadien's.



SEE:

The Peasants Are Revolting!

Police Black Block

Day In Wonderland

Jelly Bean Summit


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Day In Wonderland

Stockwell Day expands on the Humpty Dumpty syndrome of the Harper government, and becomes the Red Queen for a Day,

The Red Queen said, "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

By justifying the Police use of undercover agent provocateurs to incite violence and justify the use of riot police at the SPP protests in Montebello.

Public Security Minister Stockwell Day, meanwhile, continued to brush of questions about a call for a public inquiry. "The thing that was interesting in this particular incident, three people in question were spotted by protesters because (they) were not engaging in violence," Day said Friday in Vancouver. "Because they were not engaging in violence, it was noted that they were probably not protesters. I think that's a bit of an indictment against the violent protesters."

An undercover cop carrying rocks encouraging violence and acting as an agent provocateur is an indictment against the police and idiots like Day.

"They were being encouraged to throw rocks and they were not throwing rocks, it was the protesters who were throwing the rocks. That's the irony of this," said Day,

You see the cop was not being violent he was just carrying a rock. A rock he had handed to him only moments before, and he was going to drop it, but union protesters surrounded him and didn't give him a chance.

So still carrying his rock, he walked towards the riot cops to show them his evidence. And so they pretended to bust him so they could dust the rock for fingerprints for the identity of the real violent protester who handed him the rock.

And all those other rock throwing protesters? Well none seem to have been arrested. In fact they all seem to have disappeared.

On Wednesday, the mayor of Montebello thanked police and protesters, praising the fact that there wasn't a single report of damage during the two-day summit.

In the Wonderland that is Ottawa, Humpty Dumpty logic continues to dominate the mindset of the Harpocrites.

“When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,
"it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.”

SEE:

Police Black Bloc



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Police Black Bloc

You can't tell the players from their face masks you have to look at their boots.

Union leaders say this man demonstrating in Montebello is actually a Quebec provincial police officer.

In this image taken from the scene, the 'protesters' and police are wearing similar boots, although the boots on the 'protesters' appear to have duct tape and spray paint on them.

The YouTube video shows Dave Coles, president of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union, ordering three masked men back from a line of riot police.
(CBC)

During the era of the Viet Nam war protests we used to be able to tell the police undercover agents and agent provocateurs by the fact no matter what else they wore they always wore police issued boots. Some things never change.

Quebec police admit agents posed as protesters

MONTREAL–With the proof caught on video, Quebec provincial police were forced to admit yesterday that three undercover agents were playing the part of protesters at this week's international summit in Montebello, Que.

As the MacDonald Commission revealed agent provocateurs were often used by the RCMP in the seventies to infiltrate far left groups and promote the idea of armed struggle. Today not much has changed.

QPP admit to ‘agents' but not ' provocateurs'

LOL.

After all these are the same folks that said this;

Officers never posed as protesters: Quebec police

I mean since the cops have all this fancy riot and crowd control equipment it's a drag not to be able to use it. So why not provoke some violence so you have an excuse to bust heads.

The irony in all this is that these guys may not have been exposed so easily if it had been a larger demonstration.

On Wednesday, the mayor of Montebello thanked police and protesters, praising the fact that there wasn't a single report of damage during the two-day summit.

Whose 'sad' now Mr. Harper.


SEE:

CIA Spies In Canada

Infantile Leftism

Really Corrupt Mounted Police

Paranoia and the Security State

Repeated Cover ups by Mounted Police

CSIS vs. CUPW

Canada’s Long History of Criminalizing Dissent

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CIA Spies In Canada

The Central Intelligence Agency spied on Canadians critical of the Vietnam War during the late 1960s and '70s in an operation code-named "MH Chaos," CBC News has learned. The declassified CIA documents did not show whether the Canadian government was aware the CIA was spying on Canadian campuses.

Well duh. Of course they were. As it was reported in the Ubyssey in 1967;

The Canadian Union of Students is among 25 organizations
identified as receiving contributions from foundations connected
with the U .S . Central Intelligence Agency.

Since the RCMP, and now CSIS ,to this day have a joint information sharing agreement with U.S. intelligence and police forces.. And the RCMP was doing the same thing.

Spying 101: The RCMP’s Secret Activities at Canadian Universities, 1917-1997. By Steve Hewitt. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. 295 pages.

If you were expecting a book about a course in basic espionage, look elsewhere. Spying 101 is predominantly a study of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police’s involvement on Canadian university campuses for eight decades monitoring radicals and subversive activities inspired by communists and Quebec separatists. Historian Steve Hewitt sees this period less as one of “monitoring,” than as one of infiltration, subversion, and spying. But, however one characterizes it, when the radical targets and their supporters found out that the government was watching and listening, they were furious and still are. Hewitt admits there was indeed plotting against the State, but suggests that it was, for the most part, nothing serious. He contends that the RCMP, with the concurrence of its political masters, intentionally exaggerated the threats to secure an inflated budget and arouse public antipathy.

The relationship between the CIA and the RCMP began back in WWII with its forerunner the SOE.

In the 1960's as the cold war raged, the CIA began to interfere in Canada's internal politics. Rumour has it that the CIA was only too happy to help defeat the Diefenbaker government.

CIA Fingerprints in Canada

  In 1962, the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, Livingston Merchant, and his Second
Secretary Charles Kisselyak, fuelled a plot among the Canadian Air Forces,
Canadian journalists and others to dispose of Prime Minister Diefenbaker.
Kennedy hated Dief largely for his anti-nuclear stance.  Merchant and
other U.S. embassy officers with espionage backgrounds, met at
Kisselyak's home in Ottawa to feed journalists with spaghetti, beer and
anti-Diefenbaker/pronuclear propaganda.

Among the many participants in these off-the-record briefings was Charles Lynch
of Southam News. Diefenbaker later denounced these reporters as "traitors" and
"foreign  agents."  He lashed out against Lynch on a TV program saying,
"You were given briefings as to how the Canadian government could be
attacked on the  subject of nuclear weapons and the failure of the
Canadian government to do that which the U.S. dictated."

The Liberals used information provided by the RCMP to bring down the Diefenbaker government.

The Munsinger Affair was Canada's first national political sex scandal. It focused on Gerda Munsinger, an East German prostitute and Soviet spy living in Ottawa who had slept with a number of cabinet ministers in John Diefenbaker's government.

Most noted amongst these was the Associate Minister of National Defence, Pierre Sévigny, who had seen her since 1958 and had even signed Munsinger's application for Canadian citizenship. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) discovered her background, however, and informed Justice Minister E. Davie Fulton of her activities. She was deported to East Germany in 1961. The matter was dealt with behind closed doors and Sévigny resigned in 1963.

Traditionally in Canada, the personal lives of politicians are not discussed in parliament or in the media, but in 1966 the Liberal government was under attack for an unrelated security breach. On March 4, an angry Justice Minister Lucien Cardin rebutted the Tories by bringing up the Munsinger Affair in the House of Commons. The story dominated the media for weeks and was followed with rapt attention across the country. It became a massive distraction and all but shut down all other parliamentary activity for some weeks.

And thus the long political relationship with the RCMP as 'their' secret police began.

Conventional wisdom holds that police forces in democratic societies face a dilemma whenever the use of unlawful methods appears warranted to enforce the law. This dilemma is of greatest concern in consensus theories. In conflict theories, an "ideological dilemma" emerges: police must maintain legitimacy by appearing to uphold the law equally for all, while acting preferentially to serve the powerful. A small sample of secret RCMP Security Service communications is examined as: (a) an indication of awareness of the ideological dilemma; (b) evidence of "editing processes" to produce "bureaucratic propaganda"; (c) examples of "official deviance." The ability of the RCMP to resist labelling for official deviance, and maintain legitimacy, is considered in terms of organizational advantages not common in similar security services.

But when one deals with an autonomous paramilitary organization like the RCMP one has to be careful as they have their own political agenda, which may not be the same as their Masters.

Plummer a secret Agent man

Set almost entirely in an interrogation suite in a Montreal hotel in 1964, Agent of Influence stars Plummer, 72, as John Watkins, the former Canadian ambassador to Moscow who died in 1964 in RCMP custody.

A close friend of former prime minister Lester B. Pearson, Watkins was suspected of being a communist spy by the CIA.

Days after the interrogation, he was found dead.

"The reality of the story is, did Watkins die in police custody? Yes. Did the RCMP cover it up? Yes," says Ian Adams, who authored the novel upon which the movie is based and co-wrote the screenplay.

"Has there been any evidence produced of Watkins' guilt? No."

'BLOODLESS COUP'

Instead, what Adams uncovered was evidence of an attempted "bloodless coup" by the CIA to depose Pearson in part by accusing the former ambassador of spying.

The Americans theorized the KGB had blackmailed Watkins over his homosexuality.

But Adams believes it was the RCMP buckling under the pressure of James Jesus Angleton, the CIA head of counter espionage, that doomed Watkins, along with his homosexuality -- which was illegal in Canada until 1968.
Two decades after Watkins' death, and only after an inquest and autopsy, did the RCMP admit the diplomat had never succumbed to Soviet blackmail, says Adams.

"There is not one shred of evidence he was guilty."

The author sees Agent of Influence as a cautionary tale following the events of Sept. 11.

"(Intelligence agencies) are now operating with enormous freedom which they have historically abused."

The CIA also attempted to destabilize the NDP Government in B.C. under David Barrett after its success in doing the same in Chile.

At the same time the CIA was using Cuban Mafia connections in Canada to attack the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa, a series of bombings. Which conveniently never resulted in any arrests by the RCMP. In a bombing in Cuba a Canadian was killed. The bombing was orchestrated by Luis Posada Carriles, who is wanted by Venezuela as a terrorist and is being protected by the U.S. government.

As we mentioned earlier, Canada was not spared from the decades-long campaign of violence against Fidel Castro's Cuba.

In the 1960s and 70s anti-Castro groups targeted the Cuban Embassy in Ottawa and the Cuban Trade Commission office in Montreal. Sergio Perez Castillo, a Cuban security guard was killed in the second attack.

And years later -- on September 4th, 1997 -- Fabio Di Celmo, a Montreal resident vacationing in Cuba, died in a bombing at the Copacabana Hotel in Havana. Luis Posada Carriles confessed to that attack, but later recanted.

And of course there was the Canadian governments complicity with CIA brainwashing experiments in Canada known as MKULTRA.

Early in 1957, Dr. D. Ewen Cameron, Director of the Allan Memorial Institute in Montreal, formally applied for funding from the "Society for the Investigation of Human Ecology," a CIA front at Corn-ell University Medical School, New York City.

In the 1980s, the CIA and State Department launched a public counterattack on the Canadian government for questioning the propriety of CIA activities. The CIA effectively converted the Canadian government into an active and hostile opponent.

In press briefings, interviews and Court pleadings, the CIA hammered away at one theme - Canada funded Cameron too. Legally, this was irrelevant, but politically, it was devastating. As one U.S. Attorney said, "We're going to wrap the Canadian Government financing of Cameron right around their necks."

CIA brainwashing victims seek Canada court action

In a case that sounds like science fiction, a Montreal court is deciding whether a class action lawsuit can be brought against the Canadian government on behalf of more than 250 psychiatric patients who were unwittingly subjected to radical experiments in the 1950s.

The so-called MK-ULTRA tests were part of a secret mind-control programme funded by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Canadian government in the 1950s.

The Cold-War-era experiments, carried out by a Scottish doctor in Montreal, included forced isolation, induced-comas, electro-shock therapy and the use of hallucinogenic drugs, including LSD and paralysis-inducing narcotics.

Lawyers for Janine Huard, a 78-year-old great-grandmother, told a Montreal court last week that their client suffered for years as a result of Dr. Ewan Cameron's experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute, a psychiatric hospital based at Montreal's McGill University.

As to all those Fox News claims that Canada is harboring 'terrorists', they happen to be CIA trained, FBI informants and protected by the U.S. while using Canada as a safe haven.

In the al-Qaida camps, he was known as Abu Mohamed al Amriki -- "Father Mohamed the American." And, until he was finally arrested and convicted in 2000 -- after two decades of high profile terrorism, including helping to plan attacks on American troops in Somalia and U.S. embassies in Africa -- Ali Mohamed roamed free and even protected.

He was so untouchable, he was taken from quick-thinking Canadian officials, who suspected he may have been a threat.

Mohamed was a U.S. Army sergeant, FBI operative and possible CIA asset, who, on the side, was a friend to Osama bin Laden, trained the leader's bodyguards, was instrumental in killing Americans and was the middle-man in an historic and vile union between bin Laden's forces and the Lebanese Hezbollah. His fingerprints can be traced to those who assassinated Jewish militant Meir Kahane and blew up the first truck bomb to hit the World Trade Centre.

Mohamed himself had come to the FBI's attention in 1989, when the agency's Special Operations Group photographed a cell of his trainees firing AK-47s at a Long Island shooting range. The bureau would drop that investigation -- as it would in many other cases involving the terror spy.

It would also keep him safe. Even in Canada. Lance connects all the dots, including how Mohamed came, in 1993, to be questioned by suspicious RCMP officers in Vancouver. Lance says he was set free after handing the RCMP a phone number that connected them with his FBI handler.

"The Canadians placed the call," Lance writes. "Whatever (the special FBI agent) said, caused the Mounties to let Mohamed go... . Al-Qaida's master spy was free."

Canada has been used by the CIA to dump off its undercover operatives, to keep them out of harms way.

Age of Secrets - The Conspiracy that Toppled Richard Nixon and the Hidden Death of Howard Hughes by Gerald Bellett

John Herbert Meier

• was responsible for Richard Nixon's downfall, which is always missing from books on the subject.
• was Howard Hughes' most trusted courtier from 1966 to 1970.
• was forced to flee the U.S.
• His many businesses & companies were stripped from him.
• Since 1972 was chased out of England, Japan, Australia, and Tonga by the CIA. Was helped by the British and Cuban intelligence sevices.
• has been falsely charged with tax evasion, fraud, obstruction of justice, forgery and murder. Life threatened, and family stalked for kidnapping.

Meier was still under CIA surveillance. The RCMP Security Service gave Meier a cover: they pretended Meier was working with CLEU (British Columbia's Coordinated Law Enforcement Unit).

From a CIA contact, Meier obtained documents that he gave to Canada's Security and Intelligence Branch, and later to Canada's Liberal politicians. Contained info on:

• Canadian politicians, including Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and members of his cabinet.
• the Canadian military, and defense systems and defense industries.
• leading CIA agents in Canada, Cleveland Cram and Stacey Husle

Of course once exposed for using Canada as a fly over/stop over location for its illegal rendition operations, the CIA gets an endorsement from our own PM.

"Twenty different planes for the CIA have arrived in Canada over the last four years," said Serge Ménard, a member of Parliament from Quebec. "Italy is prosecuting people from the CIA" allegedly involved in renditions. "Why doesn't the prime minister do likewise?"

Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded in the House of Commons on Wednesday, saying that an investigation into the CIA plane landings revealed "no indication there were any illegal activities."

Good old Stevie boy, he took the word of the CIA that they were not doing anything illegal. LOL.

In the panic after 9/11, Canada enacted anti-terrorism legislation that curtailed civil liberties in favour of national security. Faced with American pressure, is the Harper government poised to go even further?

h/t to buckdog.

See

CIA

Torture

RCMP

CSIS



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Really Corrupt Mounted Police

Gee it's hard to be a law and order government when the official state police force is riddled with corruption, cronyism and fraud.

Those who uphold the law once again act as if they are above the law.

Which suits the Harpocrites just fine since they are acting the same way.

a parliamentary committee reviews allegations of pension-fund fraud, cronyism, and three years of expense reports of former RCMP commissioner Giuliano Zaccardelli that were either swapped out or disappeared by his underlings, his successor, Bev Busson retires today. The planned departure comes only hours after the report of lawyer and Bay Street minence grise David Brown delivered a report on the force's corruption to Public Safety minister Stockwell Day. The RCMP, Mr. Brown declared, is "horribly broken."

Like other political police forces; the FBI and KGB for instance the RCMP have maintained their traditional para-military structure through political blackmail.

"I've worked with Liberals and Tories, and nobody wants to tangle with the RCMP," said Shirley Heafey, the former chair of the force's commission of public complaints.

"They have a lot of information on a lot of people ... It causes a chill. They have long memories in the RCMP."

And so do we on the left. We remember their infiltration of the left, their penchant for protecting strikebreakers and shooting strikers, their attack on the On to Ottawa Trekkers, their role in the Liberals attempt to discredit their opponents in particular the Quebec nationalists, their systemic refusal to deal with members of the force who abuse natives and prisoners, their role in the Arar affair and the Air India debacle, the list could go on and on.

After all the RCMP Motto is Maintain the Right.

The solution to the problem of the RCMP is three fold; implementation of the recommendations of thirty year old Macdonald Commission including; a non RCMP Commissioner, civilian control and oversight and allowing the rank and file to unionize.

Others call on Ottawa to break up the RCMP's mandate, which they believe is unwieldy. While it has many federal responsibilities whose powers range from protecting the borders against drug-smuggling, enforcing stock markets against fraud and investigating politicians, the RCMP's bread-and-butter is the contracts it has with provincial and municipal governments.

These contractual arrangements harken back to the RCMP's roots as a guns-for-hire protection and enforcement group, said Paul Palango, investigative reporter and author of The Last Guardians, a book on problems within the RCMP, calling them essentially a paramilitary force working at the behest of their hosts.

The force, he said, has turned into a hybrid organization that is both a business and a national institution.

Articles referenced;

RCMP Terror

New Math

Why The Tories Want Tory Judges

More Foreign Affairs Incompetency

Statist Anti-Terrorism Act

Paranoia and the Security State

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Rex, Greg and Jeff

Compare and contrast. I am including both columns on Jeff the Anarchist Civil Servant arrest. Rex Murphy's from the Globe and Mail is behind a subscription wall, and Greg Westons from the Sun, will disappear eventually into the Canoe Archives.

What is interesting is that they take two polar opposite positions, which reflects the conflict between opposing view's of what the political arrest of Jeff means.

As the Globe and Mail online Poll of its readers show;

Globe poll: Is it acceptable to leak?

Is it acceptable for a bureaucrat or employee to leak sensitive internal documents?

Always

(2%) 405 votes

Only if it's in the public interest

(23%) 4246 votes

Never

(75%) 13810 votes

Total votes: 18461

Rex joins the Blogging Tories in supporting Statism, and Greg joins the Progressive Bloggers in denouncing the arrest as the actions of an authoritarian regime in Ottawa and a political police force that is up to its neck in its own scandals. See: Busted

Rex works for CBC that creature the Blogging Tories hate with a passion only to be matched with their hatred for the CRTC and Wheat Board.

Greg was their boy for many years when he wrote about the Liberal government, and the Sun Chain is the right wings original newspaper voice before the creation of the National Post.

How times have changed, Rex of course is Latin for King, and so his sympathies lie with King Harper and his autocracy.

Greg is consistent in his criticism of the powers that be, whether Liberals or Conservatives, the government must be scrutinized by the fourth estate, especially when it is as secretive and autocratic as the Harpocrites.

Ironically this is what happens when you contract out public sector jobs, you lose control over whom you hire, and how the official secrets act affects them as a third party. But the media has paid less attention to the fact that this temporary worker had spent five years on the job, with no union protection, no rights, and yet is expected to abide by the rules applied to full time, permanent employees of the state.

Instead the media and folks like Rex and others focus on the fact Jeff is in an anarchist punk band called the Suicide Pilots and their DIY CD depicts a plane crashing into parliament. Now punk bands will be next on the Governments new anti-terrorism campaign list, look out Warren Kinsella.

Rex in many ways echo's the Globe editorial published the same day. The Globe Editors seem to equate the faxing of the Conservatives Kyoto musings as the equivalent of leaking the Budget or plans on Income Trusts, which of course it was not.

Globe editorial

It's not overkill to seek the culprit

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

May 12, 2007 at 11:03 AM EDT

Jeffrey Monaghan thinks the authorities went too far when they slapped handcuffs on him in front of his co-workers, on allegations he had leaked the federal government's green plan to the media. Maybe he has a point. But so does the government.

To be sure, the dramatic and highly visible arrest of the 27-year-old contract worker at Environment Canada smacked of grandstanding. Perhaps they did want to make a very public example of Mr. Monaghan, as a warning to any other low-level civil servants who might have loose lips.

But Mr. Monaghan's protestations in his own public show Thursday - he held a press conference on Parliament Hill - had a hollow ring to them.

Though he admitted to nothing, he took the government to task for developing an environmental plan that undermines Canada's commitments under the Kyoto accord, and insinuated that the green plan is a deceitful public-relations ploy. His statement suggested that - in the abstract - anyone who might have leaked this document was doing so as a public service and an act of conscience, and that a government pursuing legal recourse against such a leak was engaging in partisan bullying.

Hogwash.

Certainly there is a problem with any government using strong-arm tactics to prevent potential whistleblowers from going public with discoveries of improprieties on the part of government officials. But despite Mr. Monaghan's arguments regarding Canada's Kyoto commitments, this was hardly a case of blowing any whistles. The government had made it clear that Canada wouldn't be able to live up to the letter of Kyoto long before the green plan was released.

What the leak did was put potentially financial-market-sensitive information in the hands of a select group of recipients ahead of its broader public dissemination, and that's a serious act. The plan could potentially have a significant impact on the future profits of companies in several industries, and it could have been controversial enough to potentially bring down the government, something that would have shaken the Canadian stock and bond markets and the country's currency. The government has an obligation to ensure that such market-sensitive policy documents be disseminated in a timely, fair and appropriate manner to all potential market participants. The leak seriously undermined this.

It is not overkill to investigate and arrest people allegedly involved in such an illegal leak. Regardless of whether they felt their acts served a greater good, there are consequences to such acts of conscience, and anyone committing them should be prepared to pay the price. Mr. Monaghan said in his statement that he believes "very strongly" in Canada's founding principles of peace, order and good governance. If so, he must also understand that potentially criminal acts must be investigated and, as appropriate, punished regardless of the motivation of the perpetrators.

Blow the whistle on this punk

REX MURPHY

May 12, 2007

Jeff Monaghan. Anarchist or civil servant? At work, he's Clark Kent, a white-shirt and tie-wearing, clean-shaven civil servant.

Off-hours he's Superman, an anarchist drummer in a punk band that's known by the delightfully endearing name of The Suicide Pilots. The white shirt is forsaken, and I dare say wearing a tie in any venue likely to showcase the Suicide Pilots might be grounds for ostracism or worse.

You can see from the website of his band a cartoon of a small plane hovering above the Parliament buildings -- an image that, in these post-9/11 days, attached to a band called Suicide Pilots, loses any Disneyesque flavour it might otherwise be said to claim.

The guy who showed up at the press conference Thursday, raging against the Harper machine, and sputtering on about the vengeful government, a witch hunt, intimidation and centralization (this last a bit of a puzzle) could have walked out of a Canadian Tire commercial (the pen-in-a-shirt-pocket nine-to-fiver who cheers the busy customers on their way). He could have been what the Clark Kent guise was meant to suggest, just another bland, innocuous, politically neutral civil servant -- who had been set upon most outrageously by the stern fascists of the Harper government.

But, as his remarks and tone at the press conference emphatically declared, he was anything but. He may have been a temp civil servant but, very plainly, he was not neutral or non-political as, so many seem to have forgotten, all civil servants are supposed to be. Mr. Monaghan was the very cliché of that dreary type -- the self-appointed angry activist.

He seemed under the delusion that his views on the Kyoto accord, for example, carry the same -- or rather, superior -- weight to those of the minister and the government he is presumed, civilly, to serve. And, by implication at least, that he as the temporary employee of the government clipping service, has both the qualifications to make judgments on the judgments of his elected masters.

I'd make a guess too because the subject of the leak was Kyoto, and because Kyoto is the very blessed Eucharist of all that is politically correct these days, he probably feels the issue would give him moral leverage for the deed he is alleged to have performed.

Well, it doesn't. Gushy feelings about the planet confer no moral authority whatsoever. It's the elected crowd who get to decide things. It's voters who decide who's elected. The civil service is there to administer what is decided. Confound these roles and you have . . . well, anarchy.

The press conference showed him offended, outraged and angry at the Harper government because of their environmental policies. Well, so what? Is there a new code in play in the public service? Do civil servants get to choose which policies to serve or confound based on their emotional temperature each day they show up at work?

Contrary to Mr. Monaghan, the public service isn't a freelance association of self-proclaimed Gandhi's, who get to go all-crusader, when one of their pet peeves doesn't show up formulated as they would like to see it in cabinet papers. If Mr. Monaghan leaked -- let's not call it whistle-blowing -- it is callow self-indulgence of the political kind.

The cops had come earlier in the week and walked him out in handcuffs. A very punk thing, in this context, it strikes me for the cops to do. Cops have humour too. Perhaps it was more irony than an attempt to intimidate. But if intimidation was the goal, it surely had a short shelf life, because in 24 hours Mr. Monaghan had the mother of all press conferences on Parliament Hill.

We have civil servants who are NDP, Tory, Liberal, Green and, yes, anarchist. In the life of every government it is axiomatic that there will be thousands and thousands of civil servants who disagree, as intensely as Mr. Monaghan, with the policies they are called upon to execute. Their disagreement with those policies, in our system, is precisely irrelevant. They may vote how they wish. But they cannot, should not, must not assume their disagreement, their judgments on policy, give them any authority whatsoever to contest those policies -- as civil servants.

There are many options for civil servants who find themselves, however insignificantly, serving the interest of government policies they dislike. Quit and run against the government. Join the Greens. Canvass in the next election. Write a protest song.

But as long as you're wearing the drab white shirt and tie, getting paid to clip newspapers, clip newspapers. That's your pay grade. That's your job. That's your duty.

The moral of this story, if it has one, is simple: Play punk in your own band.

REX MURPHY

Commentator with The National and host of CBC Radio's Cross-Country Checkup

Greg Weston

Sun, May 13, 2007

Civil servant put on parade

n the latest chapter of Stevie in Wonderland, the Conservative promise of open and accountable government is fulfilled by RCMP goons slapping handcuffs on a young federal temp and hauling him off in front of his co-workers, all over a leaked piece of Tory propaganda.

If nothing else, the incident befitting any friendly police state should certainly help Stephen Harper convince voters that the Conservatives have no hidden agenda.

The supposed crime that demanded the use of police restraints on 27-year-old Jeffrey Monaghan was faxing a reporter a couple pages of draft bumpf from the Conservatives’ latest environmental plan several weeks before the official announcement.

At worst, this had the effect of lessening the incredible national suspense that had been mounting in anticipation of the all-important government press release and ministerial photo op, in case you missed them.

So odious was this alleged act of felonious faxing, so damaging was it to the state, Monaghan was questioned and released without being charged.

All of which is almost funny: For months, we have been hearing horror stories involving the highest levels of the RCMP, revelations of lies, coverups and missing millions from the Mounties’ pension fund.

Did any of the country’s top cops responsible get yanked off their high horses in handcuffs? No way. They all got promoted with performance bonuses.

Sponsorship scandal

And how about all those great Canadians responsible for the sponsorship scandal? Did the RCMP march into their government offices and slap the cuffs on even one of them? Nope. For a long time, the Mounties wouldn’t even investigate.

So why all the handcuffs and Hollywood high drama over a media leak of some public relations poop, little more than a sneak peek at the Harper government’s environmental plan to save the planet and Conservative votes?

Monaghan is certainly no dark operative out to subvert Harper’s government and spousal cat collection.

By his own account, he comes into work at 5 a.m. every day to assemble a package of press clippings for the bosses at Environment Canada, a job he describes as “the lowest ranking temp employee in the department, possibly in the entire government.”

The information that got leaked was hardly spilling national security secrets to the terrorists, nor even the stuff of insider-trading on the stock markets.

In effect, the story was that the Conservatives’ new plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions would be tougher than their first kick at the smokestack last fall, but not as stringent as environmental groups would like. Stop the presses.

For his part, Monaghan has no doubt why he was led off in handcuffs: “The spectacle of my arrest, the subsequent RCMP press release and the prepared statements from Environment Canada, including minister (John) Baird, have been crafted to bully public servants whom they, in a paranoid fit, believe are partisan and embittered.”

It other words, the Harper government is engaging in good old-fashioned intimidation of public servants — open your mouth to the media, and the Mounties will haul you off to jail.

This type of attempted message control, of course, is everything the prime minister and his press office have been striving for, save perhaps one additional detail — they would really like if the Mounties would throw the cuffs on reporters, too.

It is also possible Monaghan was bitten by environment minister Baird, who may well be one of the government’s most rabid anti-leak freaks.

Last year, when Baird was still in charge of Treasury Board, we gave our readers an advance preview of a federal report to parliament that he was scheduled to release a few days later. It’s what we do.

The report had next to nothing to do with Baird or his department, but he went ballistic about the apparent leak anyway.

The day after our story ran, the minister buttonholed me at a social function, and told me he had already torn a strip off the official Baird was (wrongly) convinced had been the leaker. “I told him he would pay.”

The whole episode struck me as inappropriate at the time, all the more so when the official he had supposedly berated on the phone denied even talking to Baird.

Whatever the reasons the government and RCMP went beyond reason this week, whoever leaked bits of Baird’s beloved green plan was asking for trouble.

Was it worth internal discipline? Definitely. A firing offence? Perhaps.

But an RCMP raid, handcuffs, and the threat of prison time are, as Monghan said, “without precedent in their disproportionality; they are vengeful; and they are an extension of a government-wide communications strategy pinned on secrecy, intimidation and centralization.”

Jeff Monaghan leaves Parliament Hill following a news conference in Ottawa May 10, 2007. (Chris Wattie/Reuters)

Videos

Alleged green plan leaker holds press conference

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From the archives

• Speech on environment plan accidentally leaked
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Internet Links

• In his words: Read Jeff Monaghan statement, pdf
• RCMP: Press Release

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