CSIS CONTINUES ITS DIRTY TRICKS AGAINST THE LABOUR MOVEMENT
Tuesday, July 04, 2000
Dirty tricks carried out for CSIS: ex-agent
JEFF SALLOT and ANDREW MITROVICA
The Globe and Mail
An angry former undercover agent says he was part of a CSIS dirty-tricks
squad that intercepted mail, broke into cars, rented apartments under false
names and set up phony front companies.
The former agent and ex-petty criminal, John Farrell, said some of these
covert operations were authorized by Federal Court warrants, but others,
such as a car break-in to steal sensitive documents, were illegal.
Mr. Farrell said that after he stopped working for the Canadian Security
Intelligence Service, he was offered humanitarian assistance of $6,000 by
CSIS director Ward Elcock in return for abandoning a legal claim in which
he sought to recover $50,000 in back pay that he insists CSIS still owes him.
In a series of interviews, Mr. Farrell made other allegations about CSIS,
including that some intelligence officers used public funds to renovate
their homes and to have additions built. Rented apartments that were
supposed to be for covert operations were, in fact, used to house family
members of senior CSIS managers, he said.
He added that he knows of other CSIS wrongdoing, but is not prepared to
discuss it at this time.
Mr. Farrell also outlined a series of actions he performed for Canada Post
Corp., including spying on union activists.
The allegations of lawbreaking by CSIS are particularly explosive because
the agency was created in 1984 as a new civilian intelligence service to
replace the old RCMP security service, which had been caught in a variety
of dirty tricks, including burning a barn in Quebec to prevent a meeting
between the Black Panthers and members of the Front de Libration du Qubec.
CSIS said it does not break the law and does not suggest that anyone else
do so on its behalf.
Government documents suggest that senior CSIS officials have serious
concerns about what Mr. Farrell knows about the dirty-tricks squad's
ultrasecret operations and what he might say publicly about them.
CSIS offered him money and warned him not to violate the Official Secrets
Act. Intelligence sources described Mr. Elcock's offer of $6,000 for
humanitarian reasons as highly unusual.
Mr. Farrell said he rejected the offer because of the strings attached.
A CSIS lawyer also warned Mr. Farrell that he could run afoul of the
Official Secrets Act if he publicly disclosed CSIS activities in any court
proceedings.
Mr. Farrell signed several non-disclosure agreements relating to his
contractual arrangements, Mary MacFadyen, the CSIS lawyer, said in a letter
to Mr. Farrell's lawyer in January.
Writing on behalf of Mr. Elcock, Ms. MacFadyen also said: It is expected
that he `Mr. Farrell' will honour his contractual obligations.
But Mr. Farrell described his work for CSIS only in general terms and has
been careful not to disclose identities of CSIS targets or secret methods
of operations.
He did, however, describe a 1995 incident where at the behest of a CSIS
manager, he broke into a car to retrieve and destroy documents belonging to
another man who was involved in a CSIS mail-interception program.
The victim of the break-in was attempting to go public with information
about the operations of the dirty-tricks squad, Mr. Farrell said.
CSIS operations are reviewed for legality by the service's
inspector-general and by a government-appointed committee, agency spokesman
Dan Lambert said in an interview.
Naming CSIS officers involved in covert operations is an indictable offence
under the CSIS Act, Mr. Lambert warned.
He declined to respond to detailed questions about Mr. Farrell's
allegations, including the 1995 car break-in.
Mr. Lambert, who said The Globe and Mail seems to be pursuing a vendetta
against CSIS with its reporting on the service, also declined to respond to
specific written questions about why Mr. Elcock wrote Mr. Farrell last year
offering him $6,000.
The letter stated that Mr. Elcock appreciates that you are sensitive to
your obligations to respect the confidentiality with which you have been
entrusted.
Mr. Elcock also wrote, Given that you had gone through a period of
unemployment, the service offered you financial assistance in the amount of
$6,000 to assist you in this period of transition. This offer . . . was
meant to be a humanitarian gesture for the purpose of assisting you to
fulfill financial obligations you would have incurred whilst unemployed.
Mr. Farrell said he never got the $6,000 because when he went to collect it
from his CSIS handler in a room at the Toronto's SkyDome Hotel he was asked
to sign a release for any other financial claims against CSIS.
Ernest Rovet, Mr. Farrell's lawyer, said he was baffled by the $6,000 offer.
“In my experience, employers don't go around offering people humanitarian
assistance based on no specific claim,” Mr. Rovet said.
Mr. Elcock's executive assistant, Tom Bradley, wrote Mr. Farrell on
November 22, 1999, informing him the $6,000 offer was being withdrawn in
part because he had complained to the agency's civilian watchdog, the
Security Intelligence Review Committee, about his treatment by CSIS.
Mr. Rovet said the RCMP should investigate to get to the bottom of Mr.
Farrell's allegations.
Mr. Farrell said he began working for CSIS in 1992 after a year and a half
as an investigator for Canada Post. He left CSIS in late 1998. He was hired
by both government agencies, he said, despite a previous criminal record.
He acknowledged that he was in trouble with the law before his involvement
with CSIS. As a youth he was convicted of several crimes, including
breaking and entering.
CSIS informed Canada Post in October, 1990, that he had been pardoned by
the National Parole Board.
Thus he was able to obtain a security clearance to begin his work at the
Post Office as an auxiliary postal inspector.
Mr. Farrell said he was paid by CSIS in cash weekly or monthly so that his
name never appeared on payroll records.
The cash arrangement was so CSIS could deny any connection with the
dirty-tricks squad if their shady operations strayed over the line into
illegalities, he explained.
Auxiliary postal inspectors, also known as APIs, performed a number of
undercover functions for Canada Post management, he said, including spying
on union activists. He said he was the co-ordinator of eight to 10 APIs in
Toronto and there were about 30 other APIs across Canada.
Their main activity, Mr. Farrell said, was to intercept the mail of
national security targets on behalf of CSIS. The mail-intercept program has
apparently become so extensive that the work was contracted out ostensibly
by Canada Post in 1997 to a private security company, Avada Consulting.
Intelligence sources expressed surprise when told of Avada Consulting's
alleged working relationship with CSIS and Canada Post.
It's very strange that they would contract out such sensitive work to a
private firm, a veteran intelligence source said. Who monitors the firm to
ensure it abides by the CSIS Act?
Corporate searches reveal the firm is operated by Alan Whitson, a former
Mountie, and his wife Doris from Metcalfe, Ont., a rural community near Ottawa.
Other intelligence sources and federal officials have previously confirmed
that CSIS intercepts the mail of people suspected of being foreign
intelligence agents or terrorists. CSIS can ask Federal Court judges for
warrants authorizing mail intercepts - and telephone taps and bugging
operations. Judges issue the warrants if they are convinced of the
importance of the cases to national security and that other investigative
methods have failed or are likely to fail.
Mr. Farrell declined to describe how the mail is actually intercepted,
saying he does not wish to compromise legitimate national security cases.
Most of the API intercepts are probably legal because of the warrants, he
acknowledged.
But he also described how some mail intercepts at times involved not just
the mail of the target named in the warrant, but also neighbours if the
target lived in an apartment building.
This was done so that the target would not become suspicious if his or her
bills arrived later than everyone else in the building.
Mr. Farrell also said that while working for CSIS, he intercepted and
photocopied the envelope covers of mail of all the residents of apartment
buildings so the service could quickly compile a current list of all the
people who lived in the building of a target.
The list could then be checked against data bases to determine whether
there were any other possible national security targets in the building.
The list could also turn up names of friendly people who might co-operate
with CSIS by allowing their apartments to be used to install bugging
devices in a target's apartment or allow their apartments to be used as
observation posts, Mr. Farrell said.
Bob Stiff, director of security for Canada Post, acknowledged that APIs
intercept mail with warrants, but said it is illegal to hold up the mail of
neighbours of a target. He said he has never heard of this happening.
Citing national security concerns, officials at both Canada Post and CSIS
were reluctant to reveal details of mail-intercept operations.
Avada Consulting ostensibly supplied services for Canada Post, but all of
the money to finance the firm's work actually came from CSIS, Mr. Farrell said.
The company's arrival on the scene in 1997 was the start of Mr. Farrell's
falling out with CSIS and Canada Post. Mr. Farrell said he told senior CSIS
managers that he was uncomfortable with a private firm handling such
sensitive work and that he did not get along with Mr. Whitson.
Other intelligence sources have confirmed the existence of Avada Consulting.
Mr. Whitson was tight-lipped about the firm's relationship to CSIS. I have
nothing to say to you, he said before hanging up.
Canada Post will not discuss its business relationship with Avada
Consulting, spokesman John Caines said. He referred all questions about the
mail intercept program to CSIS.
Mr. Farrell said that in addition to his mail-interception duties, he was
asked by CSIS to set up and register front companies under Ontario
corporation laws and to lease apartments under false names.
The apartments were used as observation posts in covert operations, he
said, but he insisted on keeping details secret because operations may be
continuing.
He did say, however, that he rented an apartment so that CSIS could keep
track of a pair of Russian spies, Dmitriy Olshanskiy and Yelena
Olshanskaya, who were living under false Canadian identities in Toronto as
Ian and Laurie Lambert. The couple were exposed in 1996 and deported to Russia.
One of the apartments rented for a CSIS operation was actually used to
billet the daughter of a CSIS manager, he said.
Mr. Farrell said he brought his allegations of CSIS wrongdoing and his
claims for back pay to the attention of SIRC last summer when a SIRC
investigator met him in a a cafeteria in the Royal York Hotel in Toronto.
It was hardly the ideal place to discuss national security operations, Mr.
Farrell said.
The watchdog panel has been slow to act, Mr. Farrell and his lawyer, Mr.
Rovet, insisted. They have been passive throughout. Whatever John told
them, it didn't whet their appetite to know more, Mr. Rovet said.
SIRC chairwoman Paule Gauthier, a prominent Quebec lawyer, said the
committee is not ignoring Mr. Farrell's allegations.
The file is still there and we know what we have to do.
The case will be dealt with in SIRC's annual report in September, Ms.
Gauthier said, or perhaps in a special report to Solicitor-General Lawrence
MacAulay, the minister responsible for CSIS.
NEWS RELEASE / COMMUNIQUÉ
July 11, 2000
Ottawa
ALLEGATIONS THAT CSIS IS SPYING ON POSTAL WORKERS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
A July 4th, Globe and Mail article may have left the impression with the postal union, its members and some Globe readers that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has been “spying” on the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW). There is absolutely no substance to this allegation.
All of the activities of the RCMP Security Service were reviewed by the McDonald Commission in the late 1970s, which led to the creation of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service through the CSIS Act in July of 1984.
The CSIS Act is clear on what CSIS can and cannot investigate. CSIS does not investigate legitimate advocacy, protest or dissent. CSIS has not and is not investigating CUPW.
Communications Branch/Direction des communications
CSIS/SCRS
Daniel Lambert (613) 231-0100
WHISTLEBLOWER PROFILES 2004
BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Association [FIPA]
JOHN FARRELL
John Farrell, a former CSIS agent, helped produce a book in 2002, which details the story of a CSIS and Canada Post Security Inspector who spied on postal workers, illegally intercepted the mail of innocent people, and stole Crown keys to get into apartments and mail boxes. And he did so upon the instructions of senior officers in CSIS and Canada Post.
Published in both English and French, Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada’s Secret Service by award winning journalist Andrew Mitrovica, provides evidence backing up many allegations which have surfaced in recent years, but have been always denied by CSIS and CPC.
The book follows the day-to-day clandestine activities of John Farrell, who worked as a Postal Inspector for CPC from 1989 to 1991 and for CSIS (as an Auxiliary Postal Inspector) from 1991 to 1998.
Mitrovica writes: "Canada Post's Security and Investigation Service was, in effect, a law unto itself. There were no oversight bodies such as a police service board or review committees to keep a watchful eye on the units actions or its managers. The small, little-known army of investigators enjoyed extraordinary powers of search, seizure and arrest
that rivaled those of any police or security agency in the country. Yet they were effectively accountable to no one outside a few Canada Post executives."
While a CPC Security Officer, Farrell’s job largely focused on spying on the Union. As CUPW engaged in the difficult negotiations leading to the strike of 1991, Farrell and his fellow S and I (now called Corporate Security) officers in the York Region prepared dossiers on “troublesome” CUPW leaders, including the President of the Toronto Local at the time. Farrell himself opened up 15 to 20 files on key union activists. These dossiers included, among other matters:
Where union leaders had gone to school, banking records, photos of some family members and home addresses and names of schools attended by union activists’ children, records of divorce proceedings, accusations of infidelity, physical abuse and financial problems illegally broke into cars of CUPW activists at the Gateway plant.
BRIAN LYNCH
The former chief psychologist of CSIS, who claimed that senior CSIS officers routinely pressured him to divulge the confidential medical records of rank-and-file officers.
MICHEL SIMARD
A thirty-five year veteran of both the RCMP Security Service and CSIS, who claimed that morale at CSIS was plummeting and described the service as a “rat hole.”
FINDLAY WIHLIDAL and JOHN FARRELL
In 1993, Wihlidal and fellow guard John Farrell (also a CSIS whistleblower) decided to blow the whistle on rampant nepotism and sexual abuse at the York (Ontario) Detention Centre prison.
Wihlidal was a former nursing assistant and youth worker with the Children’s Aid Society. He was anxious to get hired on full-time at the jail, but his applications were repeatedly rejected; senior officers at the jail routinely gave their relatives and neighbours full-time contracts instead.
He and Farrell started a public campaign to protest the situation. A well-connected guard threatened to break Farrell’s arm, and Wihlidal’s car was tar-smeared with the words “Pig” and “Rat.”
Several female guards told Farrell they had been sexually molested by a male colleague. They had kept quiet because they feared for their jobs. A labour activist canvassed other women and soon compiled a long and disturbing list of stories of a male guard exposing his genitalia and trying to force himself upon female guards. There were also allegations of rape.
When complaints were made to the provincial ministers, they bounced from one ministry to another before ending up in a bureaucratic black hole. The police were never called in to investigate.
Finally, three female guards complained to police. One former guard was arrested and charged with three counts of sexual assault. Police believed there could be as many as 14 women. He was given a suspended sentence and put on three years probation.
A senior jail official who repeatedly rebuffed calls for an inquiry into the sexual assault allegations and the hiring improprieties was reassigned. Prison officials admitted there were personal links between managers and many guards the jail had hired. No one was disciplined.
Strapped for cash, Wihlidal accepted a small lump sum payment to settle his own grievance.
(See Covert Entry by Andrew Mitrovica, p. 151-60)
New Book Shows CSIS, Canada Post Spied On Postal Workers
Subject: Spying
2002-04-22
CUPW Bulletin no. 2002-2005/37
A new book reaching bookshelves, details the story of a CSIS and Canada Post Security Inspector who spied on postal workers, illegally intercepted the mail of innocent people, and stole Crown keys to get into apartments and mail boxes.
And he did so upon the instructions of senior officers in CSIS and Canada Post.
Published in both English and French, Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada’s Secret Service by award winning journalist Andrew Mitrovica, provides evidence backing up many allegations which have surfaced in recent years, but have been always denied by CSIS and CPC.
The book follows the day-to-day clandestine activities of John Farrell, who worked as a Postal Inspector for CPC from 1989 to 1991 and for CSIS (as an Auxiliary Postal Inspector) from 1991 to 1998.
While a CPC Security Officer, Farrell’s job largely focused on spying on the Union. As CUPW engaged in the difficult negotiations leading to the strike of 1991, Farrell and his fellow S and I (now called Corporate Security) officers in the York Region prepared dossiers on “troublesome” CUPW leaders, including the President of the Toronto Local at the time. Farrell himself opened up 15 to 20 files on key union activists. These dossiers included, among other matter:
Where union leaders had gone to school.
Banking records.
Photos of some family members and home addresses and names of schools attended by union activists’ children.
Records of divorce proceedings.
Accusations of infidelity, physical abuse and financial problems.
Illegally broke into cars of CUPW activists at the Gateway plant.
As well, S and I inspectors were authorized to intercept every piece of mail delivered to the homes of targeted union leaders. While most mail wasn’t necessarily opened, photocopies were made of both side of each piece. Information from this was used to “mine contacts” at credit card agencies and banks and “pry loose” monthly statements on each card. The garbage of targeted CUPW leaders was routinely stolen and inspected.
“Canada Post’s quest for intelligence about union leaders … was simply insatiable,” says the author.
This was a full-blown espionage operation, in violation of the basic prohibitions of the Privacy Act.
Farrell’s job as a CSIS agent didn’t really change that much. As an “Auxiliary Postal Inspector” he worked for CSIS but on paper was an “independent contractor” hired by Canada Post. Many “Auxiliary Postal Inspectors” came from the ranks of CPC’s Security and Investigation Division.
While much of the section on CSIS unveils the remarkable incompetence of its operations, it also illustrates the inappropriate relationship between Canada Post Corporation and CSIS, at least up until 1997, and the pattern of law-breaking and corruption characterizing CSIS operations.
During this period, Farrell, on the instructions of CSIS senior officers:
Carried out illegal interceptions of mail for every resident in apartments where CSIS “targets” lived, without first obtaining judicial warrants.
Planted a listening device illegally in a postal station where a postal worker was suspected of leaking information to the media about the “Grant Bristow” affair in 1994.
Stole Crown keys from a postal depot to break into apartment buildings and mail boxes.
This book covers the activities of one agent and Security Officer in York Regions. It is not unreasonable to assume similar activities have occurred in all other Region. And if such spying has been carried out against CUPW, it clearly could happen to other unions and lawful organizations.
CUPW intends to respond vigorously to these revelations, including pursuing an independent public inquiry into CSIS activities and holding Canada Post Corporation to account for its outrageous treatment of union activists.
In solidarity,
Deborah Bourque
National President
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Bill Blaikie NDP MP, CSIS Spying on Postal Workers Wednesday October 30, 2002
Postal Workers Welcome Privacy Commissioner's Investigation Of CSIS And Post Office January 2003.
To understand how this all began we have to go back to the late 1970's when the then Liberal Government of the day under Pierre Trudeau used the RCMP as a political police force for their own dirty tricks against the Quebec Nationalist movement and Quebec Labour. In this case the new leadership of CUPW was under the leadership of Quebecois Claude Parrot. in 1977 RCMP dirty tricks caused a major crisis for the government as they were exposed to the public by the media.
During the 1978 postal strike the union ignored the government's back to work legislation, and Parrot was jailed. This created even greater solidarity amongst the posties and the labour movement. No-one had defied a government back to work order let alone gone to jail for it, in English Canada.
CUPW was raided by the RCMP on orders from the government, after they had agreed to go back to work. As this article from the U of B.C. students union newspaper the Ubessey reports on at the time.
Feds bust strike as posiies go back
Thursday, Octomber 26, 1978
T H E U B Y S S E Y
OTTAWA (CUP) - Canadian
Union of Postal Workers president
Jean-Claude Parrot asked striking
postal workers to return to their
jobs Wednesday after the federal
government threatened them with
mass firings.
The government had threatened
to use a post office regulation
allowing it to dismiss workers who
did not show up for work after
seven days without “proper
cause.” After that time, the post
office considers them to have
“abandoned” the job.
“We have continued to fight
when the government deprived us
of the legal right to negotiate and to
strike, but now they deprive individual
members of the right to
defend themselves (from being
fired),” said Parrot at a hurriedlycalled
press conference that
evening. He said he didn’t think the
government was bluffing in its
threat.
Parrot’s call for an end to the
seven-day strike came at the end of’
a day which saw the RCMP raid
CUPW’s Ottawa headquarters and
regional offices across Canada. In
most cases, the RCMP had
warrants to search for unspecified
union documents.
Parrot and four other members
of the ‘CUPW national executive
were also ordered to appear in the
Ontario supreme court this mor..
ning to face charges of counselling
union members to disobey an act of’
parliament. Warrants were issued
for their arrest, but were not served
after the: executive agreed to appear
voluntarily, Parrot said.
In Vancouver postal workers
were reporting to work for Wednesday
night shifts after summonses
for 31 CUPW members,
including the regional executive,
were issued.
Parrot attacked the federal government for
using the RCMP to search CUPW offices,
since it is the "RCMP that illegally open the mail
we have to handle every day"
Is it any wonder the labour movement is supporting those illegally imprisoned in Canada under security detention orders of CSIS.
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