Thursday, May 03, 2007

Why You Need Public Inquiries


The Conservatives refuse to hold any further public inquiries around RCMP wrong doing or their Afghan Detainee situation this may be the reason why. And I have reported on the Communications Security Establishment and their secret spying operation; Echelon.

A former career diplomat - now the lieutenant-governor of Ontario - says he saw intelligence just days before the Air India bombing indicating the airline was about to be attacked.

James Bartleman told a public inquiry Thursday the information came in the form of an electronic intercept from the top-secret Communications Security Establishment, an arm of the Defence Department.

He said the material suggested Air India was being targeted for the coming weekend - the weekend that Flight 182 did indeed go down with the loss of 329 lives.

Bartleman, who was then head of the intelligence and security branch at Foreign Affairs, acknowledged that the intercept was "raw, unevaluated" intelligence that hadn't been checked out.

And he noted there had been so many erroneous alarms raised in the previous year that "I suppose it would be possible for someone to say this is just another one of those cry-wolf events."

But Bartleman recalled he was worried enough to take the written report about the intercept to an RCMP officer and asked if he'd seen it.

"His response startled me. He flushed and told me that of course he had seen it, and that he didn't need me to tell him how to do his job."

The Justice Department says it hasn't been able to locate any such document or to confirm the story with any other potential witness.

But Bartleman insisted he remembers the incident clearly. He said he hasn't come forward until now because he always assumed the RCMP already knew all about anything he had to say.

The startling revelation, if accurate, contradicts one of the most widely repeated mantras about the 1985 bombing - that authorities had no advance warning of a specific and detailed nature about a particular flight being targeted.

SEE:

Repeated Cover ups by Mounted Police

State Security Is A Secure State


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