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International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group

Coalition pour la surveillance internationale des libertés civiles

April 13, 2024 - 13 avril 2024

Sanaa Ali-Mohammed and Monia Mazigh: Politicking in the face of genocide: A uniquely Canadian performance

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rabble.ca 08/04/2024 - As Ramadan this year draws to a close, Muslim communities across Canada are hurting. Yet, instead of using their power and leverage to address the source of the pain of their fellow Muslim citizens, Canadian politicians and law enforcement rely on empty iftars and Ramadan greetings to obscure the damaging impacts of their actions on Muslim communities. But their grotesque performance isn’t fooling anyone. 


In the Islamic tradition, Muslims are encouraged to stand against injustice wherever it is and whoever is committing it. So when Muslim communities anywhere in the world suffer from injustice, Canadian Muslims suffer too.  


In the past, when members of Muslim communities attended iftars hosted by leaders, it was with the expectation this would lead to dialogue and improved decision-making in the halls of power. Among the 9/11 generation, there was hope that similar acts of civic engagement could address the longstanding marginalization experienced by these communities. However it’s becoming increasingly apparent this approach doesn’t work. During this holy month of Ramadan, politicians and state institutions that oppress Muslims are opportunistically exploiting the fact that some vulnerable Muslims remain willing to engage with them, hoping their voices and concerns will be heard. 


Last week, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, clad in a headscarf, hosted an iftar at City Hall. When confronted by activists who organized a mass walkout due to her role in branding Palestinians and Muslims as terroristsexpanding the Toronto Police budget, and supporting the overpolicing of pro-Palestinian protestorsshe denied the attack on Gaza could be called a genocide, and claimed, Toronto “rejects hate”. The Toronto Police Service (TPS), which has been selectively shutting down sidewalk protests organized by Palestinian Muslim community members and Canadians at large, similarly hosted and participated in iftars last week, amidst criticism and protest from Muslim community members. 


These acts of breaking bread with Muslims did nothing to temper TPS brutality against predominantly Palestinian, Muslim, and racialized protestors over the weekend. This opportunism and theatrical performance among Canadian politicians and their police counterparts is not new to Muslim communities. In 2004, Giuliano Zaccardelli, a former Commissioner of the RCMP spoke at one the largest Islamic gatherings in Canada and told the crowd that “discrimination against Muslims will not be tolerated”. It was the same Zaccardelli that was found complicit in rendering Maher Arar, a Canadian Muslim citizen and three other Canadian Muslim men to be tortured and imprisoned in Syria. Zaccardelli would resign a few years later after misleading testimony over the Maher Arar case.


It’s important to remember Islamophobia in this country is intricately tied to Canadian foreign policy and political rhetoric. Policymakers generated support for killing Muslims abroad during the “War on Terror” by stoking Islamophobia. Locally, this resulted in state surveillance and criminalization of Muslim communities, who were presented as an internal threat. Today, we see a continuation of these Islamophobic policies. The Canadian government actively participates in killing Palestinians by failing to impose an arms embargo on Israel (a state that has so far murdered over 30,000 civilians), aiding airstrikes against Yemen to protect shipping routes used to supply these weapons, and refusing to condemn Israeli violations of international law


We also observe the Canadian law enforcement apparatus, and its targeting of Canadian Muslim and Palestinian communities through claims of “radicalization”, remains intact. In the face of this state sponsored violence, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has the power to change Canadian foreign and national security policy, makes empty statements about support for Muslim communities, and standing against Islamophobia. This depoliticized understanding of Islamophobia, devoid of any government accountability regarding its foreign policy and domestic anti-terrorism legislation, is not what Canadian Muslims need.


Today it is time to take seriously—and take action on— feedback which Canadian Muslim communities have provided over the years, and especially in the last six months, about ending Canadian complicity in wars against innocent Palestinian civilians and countless other Muslim majority nations. We must also take action on decades of Muslim advocacy and research to address the state-sponsored, Canadian brand of Islamophobia, which hides behind the promise of diversity and inclusion, but is nonetheless incredibly harmful. Source


NEW ACTION: Condemn Police Violence Against Palestinian Protesters


NEW ACTION: Email the Toronto Sun to denounce their fear mongering coverage of a protester


NEW ACTION: Defend the right to dissent in Ottawa


NEW EVENT: Ottawa United for Palestine protest, Sun April 14th, 2PM, Human Rights Monument


NEW EVENT: Save Our Gaza Families Vigil, Tuesday April 16 from noon to 2pm at Parliament Hill


Ghosts of None is Too Many Haunt Gaza Temporary Residence Policy


CJPME: Canada must cancel contracts for weapons used in Israeli killing of Canadian aid worker


CUPE, CUPW, NUPGE & PSAC Statement: Canada must suspend arms trade with Israel


Gaza: Human Rights Council resolution urges arms embargo on Israel


Palestinian-Canadian activist and organizer Wesam Khaled was arrested again

Alex Neve: Exceptional application asks SCC to reconsider case of Canadians in Northeast Syria

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Moving Rights Along 03/04/2024 - The prohibition on arbitrary arrest and detention is cornerstone to the rule of law, protected by such safeguards as the obligation to charge anyone who is deprived of their liberty with a recognized offence, provide them with a means to lawfully challenge their imprisonment and guarantee that they will face a prompt, fair trial at which they will be able to defend themselves.


It is the very essence of liberty, which is at the core of the sense of human dignity that underpins the very notion of what it means to have human rights in the first place.


Canada surely stands for those fundamental values, which are enshrined in the Charter of Rights and in numerous binding international human rights treaties we have ratified over the decades. More recently, rightly outraged by the blatantly unlawful arrest and detention of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in China in 2018, a crass move by the Chinese government to exert political pressure on Canadian officials in connection with an entirely unrelated extradition case, Canada spearheaded the Declaration Against Arbitrary Detention in State-to-State Relations, now supported by 75 countries around the world.


Our opposition to arbitrary detention is therefore unambiguous. Or is it? It turns out that our opposition is selective.


Last August I joined three eminent and accomplished Canadians – Independent Senator for Ontario Kim Pate, retired ambassador and diplomat Scott Heatherington, and human rights and immigration lawyer Hadayt Nazami – in a humanitarian mission to Northeast Syria. While there, we were able to meet with two Canadian men, one Canadian woman and thirteen Canadian children who have been arbitrary and illegally locked up in prisons and detention camps in the region for up to seven years, with no means of challenging their detention and no prospect of being charged and brought to trial. We believe there are least seven other Canadian men who are being held in similar conditions.


All it would take to protect their rights is for Canadian officials to signal to the local authorities, a Syrian Kurdish administration that is backed by the United States and other western governments, that Canada is prepared to repatriate them, and this human rights travesty would end. But Canada refuses to take that step.


Our delegation was deeply troubled by the accounts we heard from these illegally imprisoned Canadians, doubly so given the extent to which they have been disgracefully abandoned by their own government.

The explanations for Canada’s inaction stem from unspecified allegations that these Canadians pose security threats because they are accused of fighting with, supporting or being sympathetic to ISIS, which had brutally controlled Northeast Syria for several years before being defeated by Syrian Kurdish forces in 2018. Even the children? The prisoners we interviewed all unambiguously said they are more than prepared to answer any such allegations in court, as long as it is a fair process. The prospect of a fair trial has not been on offer in Northeast Syria, but Canadian courts could certainly deliver justice in any cases where the allegations are substantiated with credible evidence.


When governments abdicate their responsibility to respect justice and protect rights, we often look to and count on the courts to step in and right the wrongs. Families of some of the imprisoned Canadians, who as a group call themselves BOLOH (Bring Our Loved Ones Home), launched a Federal Court challenge against the Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2021. 


In January 2023 in a lengthy ruling, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown ruled in the families’ favour, concluding that section 6 of the Charter, which guarantees the right of citizens to enter Canada, required the government to take steps to arrange for the repatriation of the four men who were the subject of the case. Justice Brown concluded that the status quo was equivalent to banishing these citizens from their country, a punishment that does not exist in Canadian law.


That ruling was overturned by the Federal Court of Appeal in May 2023, with Justice David Stratas concluding that the Charter only required the Canadian government to refrain from blocking citizens from entering Canada and did not carry any responsibility to proactively assist with that entry by facilitating return. Effectively, banishment was back on the table.


All eyes then turned to the Supreme Court of Canada. To many legal commentators it was precisely the sort of case that merited being granted leave to appeal. There had been two contradictory lower court rulings in the case. It is an area of law – the notion of proactive responsibility to protect rights – that is evolving and unsettled, in Canada and in other jurisdictions. And clearly the implications for the four men directly, but for other Canadians who find themselves in perilous situations abroad, are extremely consequential.


Yet to everyone’s surprise, on November 16, 2023, the Supreme Court denied leave to appeal. As is the way with such decisions, no reasons were given.


But that simply cannot be the end of this story. The Canadian government has not budged and continues to refuse to provide any assistance to these citizens. Thirteen children continue to languish in harrowing, dangerous conditions in a detention camp. And the security situation in the region has begun to deteriorate rapidly, with increased cross border attacks by the Turkish military, renewed activity by ISIS militants and, now, growing indications that the US may be preparing to withdraw its forces, the only guarantor of a minimal degree of regional security.


As such, counsel to these four men’s families have taken the extraordinary step of returning to the Supreme Court and making an unusual application requesting that the previous decision to deny leave to appeal be reconsidered. The request was filed with the Court on March 15 and lays out a compelling argument as to why the present circumstances merit that exceptional step.


These unending years of lawless contempt for the fundamental tenets of the rule of law cannot go on indefinitely. The reconsideration application offers an opening for the Supreme Court to tackle this injustice and play its role as a guarantor of rights and justice. It is regrettable that the government is not doing so of its own accord. But it is not too late to end this unconscionable disregard for human rights. The government could and should take that step, today. Source


Canada Denies Entry to Mothers of Canadian Children Detained in Northeast Syria


Interview: UN Special Rapporteur Ben Saul Discusses Child Trafficking, International Law, and the Case of Shamima Begum


UPDATED ACTION: Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now!

Letter to the Honourable Arif Virani, Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada Regarding Hassan Diab

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Justice for Hassan Diab 31/03/2024 - Canada’s wrongful extradition of Dr. Hassan Diab to France a decade ago must not be repeated.


Dr. Diab was wrongfully extradited from Canada to France in 2014 for his alleged involvement in a bombing outside a Paris synagogue in 1980.


After spending over three years in a French prison, two French (counter-terrorism) investigative magistrates found no evidence to send him to trial and released him unconditionally.


Dr. Diab returned to his home in Canada in 2018. However, the French prosecutor appealed his release and, on April 21, 2023, Dr. Diab was sentenced in absentia to life in prison.


(a) We urge you to give clear assurances that Dr. Diab will not be extradited a second time for a crime he did not commit.


(b) All the recommendations of the report, “Reforming Canada’s Extradition System” by the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights (JUST) must be implemented. In particular, the disclosure of exculpatory evidence must be compulsory (JUST’s Recommendation 11). The non-disclosure of exculpatory evidence during the extradition hearing was central to Dr. Diab’s committal for extradition in 2014. Read more - Lire plus


NEW PARLIAMENTARY PETITION: Call upon the Government of Canada to formally declare that Canada will neither accept nor agree to any second request from the French Government for the extradition of Dr. Hassan Diab

The federal government’s proposed AI legislation misses the mark on protecting Canadians

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The Conversation 11/04/2024 - There is global consensus among civil society, academia and industry that artificial intelligence adoption comes with risks and harms.


Addressing these concerns have been marginal in Canada’s national AI strategy. The federal government’s major response — the Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) — is flawed and does not address AI’s current and tangible impacts on our society.


Our research demonstrates key gaps in Canada’s approaches to AI governance. The first issue is that AIDA as presently drafted does not address government use. This is despite widespread use across the public sector.


The Canadian Tracking Automated Governance (TAG) register lists 303 applications of AI within government agencies in Canada. The fact that AIDA as presently drafted will not apply to government use means this legislation is out of step with AI governance in other AI leading nations and the expressed interests of government employees.


That we know so little about how the Canadian government uses AI is just one shortcoming we know through a second report being released today. Our team has also identified key gaps that span the last decade of AI governance in Canada. Part of the Shaping AI Project is comprised of research teams from Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada and France. Our report on AI in Canada documents a lack of critical discussion by all levels of government of AI and its risks, alongside a failure to conduct public consultations.


AIDA is Canada’s first focused attempt at regulating AI. The act has been tacked onto the end of Bill C-27, and is currently being reviewed by the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology. It has been widely criticized for not providing the protections Canadians need. Even as parliament debates AIDA, the government accelerates AI adoption.


On April 7, the prime minister announced plans to spend $2.4 billion to increase AI adoption and use in Canada. Surprisingly, only four per cent of the announced funding is devoted to AI’s social impacts. These include vague existential risks, helping workers who might lose their jobs and a paltry amount for a forthcoming AI and data commissioner.


Making government and business uses of AI more transparent, and engaging in meaningful consultation to strengthen oversight and accountability, would demonstrate genuine interest on the part of government of taking public concerns seriously. Our research shows a gap between the hopes and realities of AI that AIDA must address. [...]


The federal government introduced its Directive on Automated Decision-Making in 2019. This was supposed to make government uses of AI and algorithmic systems more transparent through mandated impact assessments. At the time of writing, only 18 of these have been published. The need for a registry is just one finding from our research. Our report documents notable silences that AIDA has not addressed surrounding Indigenous rights and data sovereignty, as well as an absence of input from creative and cultural sectors and the environment.


Government policies, instead, have narrowly focused on AI as economic and industrial policy. Consultations have been largely theatrical, letting AI adoption continue despite deep concerns from the public, especially over facial recognition technologies. Canadians trust suffers as a result. Canadians have one of the lowest levels of trust in AI, even though Canada has had one of the first national AI strategies. Even the government’s own policies for procurement have largely sidelined effective consideration of AI’s social impacts. Instead, AI is seen as a remedy for the service-oriented — or deliverology — of Canada’s public sector and yet these changes have been made with little public consultation. [...]


Withdrawal of AIDA

Our research reinforces critiques of Canada’s latest effort to regulate AI, pointing to two significant problems:


1) AIDA will not apply to public sector uses of AI, despite the widespread use of AI and automated systems. This runs counter to expressed concerns of public sector workers. The Canadian Union for Public Employees, the Professional Institute for Public Employees and the Canadian Labour Congress have called for AIDA to apply to government departments, agencies and crown corporations.


2) AIDA was rushed and there has been no meaningful consultation with the public. [...]


AIDA should be split from the rest of Bill C-27, and sent back for the public consultations and redrafting it so clearly requires. Read more - Lire plus


ACTION: Canada: Remove the national security exemptions from Bill C-27!


Joint statement on the first UN General Assembly resolution on artificial intelligence


EU’s AI Act fails to set gold standard for human rights


How loopholes and opt-outs can tear apart US AI policy


Cops Running DNA-Manufactured Faces Through Face Recognition Is a Tornado of Bad Ideas


Spencer Ackerman: Kill Lists In The Age of Artificial Intelligence. Israel's "Lavender" AI, the lethal end result of mass surveillance, debuted in Gaza six months ago. It threatens to be the future of war.

Episode #974: We Spied on the Spies Who Spy on Activists

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Canadaland 25/03/2024 - Of all the private intelligence firms in the English-language world, there appears to be just one whose speciality is tracking activists. And it has a branch office in Calgary.


When governments and corporations want to stay on top of the “threats” posed by protest movements — from climate campaigns to animal-rights advocacy — there’s one company that they tend to turn to: Welund.


Founded in the UK in 2007, it expanded to North America about a decade later, setting up shop in Calgary (where it’s now called Foresight Reports).


So who are they? And what does it mean when public-sector bodies farm out their intelligence gathering to a private firm?


To find out, we put our own open-source intelligence skills to the test. Listen - Écouter


RCMP C-IRG unit announces new name, mandate amid federal investigation

Military drone installation to be built in Ottawa – DND says exact location will remain secret

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Ottawa Citizen 11/04/2024 - Ottawa will be home to a new $65-million installation used to control and operate the military’s future fleet of drones. But National Defence says the exact location in the city for the new facility to accommodate 198 personnel, simulators and drone control systems must remain secret.


The Liberal government announced on Dec. 19 that Canada would buy 11 remotely piloted aircraft from a U.S. company in a project costing $2.5 billion. The new drones will be stationed at 14 Wing Greenwood, N.S., and 19 Wing Comox, B.C. But they will be controlled and operated from a new installation to be built in Ottawa. That location will be secret, National Defence confirmed in an email to this newspaper.


“We are planning to construct the facility on existing DND land in Ottawa,” National Defence spokesperson Andrée-Anne Poulin stated. “For operational security reasons, we will not be providing the exact location.” That level of secrecy will put the new Royal Canadian Air Force facility on a whole different footing than other sensitive military installations in the country. Canada’s most secret defence-related organizations, the Joint Task Force Two counter-terrorism unit, and the electronic spy organization, the Communications Security Establishment, operate from locations in Ottawa that are openly acknowledged by the federal government and Canadian military. Neither National Defence nor the Canadian Forces provided explanations on how they planned to keep secret the daily comings and goings of almost 200 military personnel.


The new Ottawa facility will be around 6,000 square metres in size and house six stations to control the drones as well as two simulators to support operations. Work is currently underway in designing the facility and a contract for the modified design-build project was tendered and awarded to Bird Construction in May 2023. “The new facility will be designed to achieve Green Building Certification and will align with the Greening Government Strategy compliant to support climate-resilient operations,” National Defence added in an email to this newspaper.


The department could not say when the actual construction of the installation would start. “We will have a better idea of when construction will begin once the design work is complete, but we expect the facility will be complete in 2028,” Poulin noted. Critics have pointed out the military and National Defence are sliding towards more secrecy even as the federal government frees up billions of dollars in additional spending. The secrecy problem has become so bad that the House of Commons Committee on National Defence has launched hearings into the lack of openness and transparency.


So far it has heard that National Defence violates federal law in almost 40 per cent of the requests it receives to produce records under the Access to Information Act. The committee has also heard the department continues to withhold a wide range of records, including documents on shipbuilding and fighter jets requested by a Conservative MP in 2017 and 2018 as well as files needed by military sexual assault survivors for legal purposes. In addition, some former soldiers have complained they face uphill battles to get the military to release documents needed for medical benefits claims.


In January, this newspaper reported National Defence brought in a new and unprecedented shroud of secrecy around a controversial warship project estimated to cost taxpayers more than $80 billion. The department withheld records about the Canadian Surface Combatant for almost three years; when they were released under the access law, all cost figures were censored from the documents. The level of secrecy has also been extended to what used to be run-of-the mill records. Just days after Canada’s top soldier publicly advocated for more openness on defence issues, his office refused to release a copy of the speech in which he made such remarks.


Instead, the office of Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre suggested that, if this newspaper wants a copy of the speech he made in public on March 7, it would have to submit a request under the Access to Information law. Eyre’s office also declined to explain why it was refusing to release a written copy of the speech made in public at an Ottawa defence conference. Previously, the Canadian Forces would not only provide transcripts of such speeches, but would post them online. A copy of the speech by Defence Minister Bill Blair at the same conference on the same day has been posted on the federal government’s website. Read more - Lire plus

Israel Created 'Kill Zones' in Gaza. Anyone Who Crosses Into Them Is Shot

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DemocracyNow! 01/04/2024 - The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reports the Israeli military has created so-called kill zones inside Gaza where Israeli troops kill anyone who crosses into the area.


"The Israeli army says 9,000 terrorists have been killed since the Gaza war began. Defense officials and soldiers, however, tell Haaretz that these are often civilians whose only crime was to cross an invisible line drawn by the IDF"


One reserve officer told the paper, “As soon as people enter it, mainly adult males, orders are to shoot and kill, even if that person is unarmed.” The report comes days after Al Jazeera aired footage of four unarmed Palestinian men being killed as they walked among the ruins near Khan Younis. In an interview with Haaretz, one Israeli officer acknowledged the four men were killed even though they “didn’t endanger our forces.” Source


Human Rights Defenders Call This Detention Camp “Israel’s Guantánamo Bay”


Israel Moves to Ban Al Jazeera in Latest Attack on Journalists Who Expose Horrors of War & Occupation


Spencer Ackerman: My New York Times Op-Ed on Gaza and the "Rules-Based International Order"


The Intercepted podcast: Amid Gaza War, College Campuses Become Free Speech “Testing Ground”


UK - Being branded as ‘extremist’ won’t deter Palestine Action


‘Intimidation’ Tactics – French Politician Summoned by Anti-terrorist Police Over Pro-Palestine Tweets

20 years later, Abu Ghraib detainees get their day in US court

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AP 12/04/2024 - Twenty years ago this month, photos of abused prisoners and smiling U.S. soldiers guarding them at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison were released, shocking the world. Now, three survivors of Abu Ghraib will finally get their day in U.S. court against the military contractor they hold responsible for their mistreatment.


The trial is scheduled to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, and will be the first time that Abu Ghraib survivors are able to bring their claims of torture to a U.S. jury, said Baher Azmy, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights representing the plaintiffs. The defendant in the civil suit, CACI, supplied the interrogators who worked at the prison. The Virginia-based contractor denies any wrongdoing, and has emphasized throughout 16 years of litigation that its employees are not alleged to have inflicted any abuse on any of the plaintiffs in the case.


The plaintiffs, though, seek to hold CACI responsible for setting the conditions that resulted in the torture they endured, citing evidence in government investigations that CACI contractors instructed military police to “soften up” detainees for their interrogations. Retired Army Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led an investigation into the Abu Ghraib scandal, is among those expected to testify. His inquiry concluded that at least one CACI interrogator should be held accountable for instructing military police to set conditions that amounted to physical abuse.


There is little dispute that the abuse was horrific. The photos released in 2004 showed naked prisoners stacked into pyramids or dragged by leashes. Some photos had a soldier smiling and giving a thumbs up while posing next to a corpse, or detainees being threatened with dogs, or hooded and attached to electrical wires. The plaintiffs cannot be clearly identified in any of the infamous images, but their descriptions of mistreatment are unnerving.


Suhail Al Shimari has described sexual assaults and beatings during his two months at the prison. He was also electrically shocked and dragged around the prison by a rope tied around his neck. Former Al-Jazeera reporter Salah Al-Ejaili said he was subjected to stress positions that caused him to vomit black liquid. He was also deprived of sleep, forced to wear women’s underwear and threatened with dogs.


CACI, though, has said the U.S. military is the institution that bears responsibility for setting the conditions at Abu Ghraib and that its employees weren’t in a position to be giving orders to soldiers. In court papers, lawyers for the contractor group have said the “entire case is nothing more than an attempt to impose liability on CACI PT because its personnel worked in a war zone prison with a climate of activity that reeks of something foul. The law, however, does not recognize guilt by association with Abu Ghraib.”


The case has bounced through the courts since 2008, and CACI has tried roughly 20 times to have it tossed out of court. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 ultimately turned back CACI’s appeal efforts and sent the case back to district court for trial. In one of CACI’s appeal arguments, the company contended that the U.S. enjoys sovereign immunity against the torture claims, and that CACI enjoys derivative immunity as a contractor doing the government’s bidding. But U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, in a first-of-its kind ruling, determined that the U.S. government can’t claim immunity when it comes to allegations that violate established international norms, like torturing prisoners, so CACI as a result can’t claim any derivative immunity.


Jurors next week are also expected to hear testimony from some of the soldiers who were convicted in military court of directly inflicting the abuse. Ivan Frederick, a former staff sergeant who was sentenced to more than eight years of confinement after a court-martial conviction on charges including assault, indecent acts and dereliction of duty, has provided deposition testimony that is expected to be played for the jury because he has refused to attend the trial voluntarily. The two sides have differed on whether his testimony establishes that soldiers were working under the direction of CACI interrogators.


The U.S. government may present a wild card in the trial, which is scheduled to last two weeks. Both the plaintiffs and CACI have complained that their cases have been hampered by government assertions that some evidence, if made public, would divulge state secrets that would harm national security. Government lawyers will be at the trial ready to object if witnesses stray into territory they deem to be a state secret, they said at a pretrial hearing April 5. Judge Brinkema, who has overseen complex national security cases many times, warned the government that if it asserts such a privilege at trial, “it better be a genuine state secret.” Jason Lynch, a government lawyer, assured her, “We’re trying to stay out of the way as much as we possibly can.”


Of the three plaintiffs, only Al-Ejaili, who now lives in Sweden, is expected to testify in person. The other two will testify remotely from Iraq. Brinkema has ruled that the reasons they were sent to Abu Ghraib are irrelevant and won’t be given to jurors. All three were released after periods of detention ranging from two months to a year without ever being charged with a crime, according to court papers. “Even if they were terrorists it doesn’t excuse the conduct that’s alleged here,” she said at the April 5 hearing. Source

The CIA's Long and Dangerous History of Refusing to Answer Absurdly Obvious Questions

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ACLU 08/04/2024 - The CIA is so known for its unabashed secrecy that, when it joined Twitter in 2014, its first tweet was: “We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.” This non-response response is known as a “Glomar,” and while the intelligence community likes to poke fun at how often they invoke it, this inane phrase has allowed the CIA to skirt meaningful transparency and accountability for decades.


In 1966, over the Johnson administration’s opposition, Congress enacted the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), giving all of us the right to ask the government for documents and have the government respond, as it believed such access was a prerequisite to a functioning democracy. Soon after FOIA was passed, a Soviet nuclear submarine went missing somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, and the CIA took an early opportunity to undermine this new law.


The Soviet Union and the United States raced to locate the missing sub and extract the intelligence likely inside. But first, the U.S. needed to build a ship that could actually extract the sub once it was found — and the government wanted no one to know about it. The CIA contracted this mission out to Howard Hughes, a billionaire with little concern for government transparency, who told the media that the purpose of the ship (named the Hughes Glomar Explorer) was to extract manganese nodules from the ocean floor. Six years later, in 1974, the extraction began. Unfortunately for the U.S., the extracted sub broke into pieces and what the government most wanted was lost: the ship’s code machine and two nuclear missiles. Details of this secret, bungled extraction started to leak, inaccuracies and half-truths swirled, and people rushed to file FOIA requests hoping to answer the many outstanding questions.


Worried about the geopolitical consequences, and obsessed with controlling information about its activities, the CIA came up with a novel way to keep the mission secret without telling an all-out lie. The agency decided it would refuse to confirm or deny whether records about the Glomar Explorer’s mission existed, despite the mounting public evidence that they did. And so the “Glomar response” was born. And, in the case of the Glomar Explorer, it worked: Historians claim many documents remain hidden to this day.


Unfortunately, in the decades since the submarine debacle, and especially in the post-9/11 era, we’ve repeatedly seen the CIA use the Glomar response to evade responsibility. They have used it to claim they could not say whether they had information about the government’s use of drones to carry out lethal strikes overseas, and when asked about legal justifications for the verified extrajudicial killing of three U.S. citizens. They’ve even used it to side-step questions about whether they’ve spied on Congress.


We’re even seeing state agencies attempt to use the CIA’s non-response to circumvent local public records requests. For example, in 2017, the New York Civil Liberties Union filed a public records request seeking documents regarding the NYPD’s monitoring of protesters’ social media activity and cell phones. The NYPD initially responded with a blanket statement that it could “neither confirm nor deny” whether such records existed, saying that even revealing the existence of records could harm national security. A New York court rejected this argument and ordered the NYPD to respond to the request in full.


And the CIA’s penchant for secrecy continues to expand, with the agency using Glomar to obstruct attempts to obtain records that would publicly shine a light on the agency’s failures and abuse, even when that abuse is well documented by the CIA itself and other sources. Take, for instance, the CIA’s torture program. After the 9/11 attacks, the agency abducted dozens of Muslim men and boys, held them incommunicado, brutally tortured them, and denied the due process in sites around the globe.


Once the program was exposed, 14 of the government’s “high-value detainees” were taken to the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, and detained at a notorious facility known as “Camp VII.” Attorney James G. Connell III, who represents Ammar al Baluchi, one of the men subjected to the CIA torture program and sent to Camp VII, filed a FOIA request with the CIA seeking information about the agency’s “operational control” over the facility. That “operational control” is hardly a secret: it was highlighted in the Senate Torture Report and in CIA and military commissions documents. But instead of processing Mr. Connell’s request, the agency issued what it called a “partial” Glomar response, producing three records, withholding a fourth in its entirety, and refusing to confirm or deny whether any other responsive records exist.


Given the extensive public record about the CIA’s connection to Camp VII, its refusal to acknowledge that it has responsive records both violates the law and defies common sense. That’s why we’re representing Mr. Connell in his appeal in federal court. To uphold its response, the CIA must demonstrate that it is logical or plausible that it has no responsive records in light of the entire record. That’s simply not possible here. We know this because there is an overwhelming amount of public evidence about Camp VII — from the Senate Torture Report, to court documents from the Guantánamo proceedings, to other documents the CIA itself released — that has left no doubt of CIA involvement. And yet, the CIA continues to avoid its legal obligations under FOIA through gaslighting and Glomar.


Connell v. CIA offers a real chance to not only break the CIA’s bad habit of using Glomar to evade transparency and accountability, but also issue a warning to other government agencies that hope to follow in the CIA’s footsteps by leaning into excessive secrecy. Source


Karen J. Greenberg: “Quaint and Obsolete?” The Peril of Forgetting Guantánamo


Artwork by Former Guantanamo Detainees Exhibited at the European Parliament

Opinion: Why India Might Want to Pursue Transnational Killings

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The Diplomat 08/04/2024 - Last week, an explosive report in The Guardian suggested that India had in recent years been engaging with jihadist networks to take down dissidents and convicted terrorists in Pakistan.


The killings, The Guardian said, quoting Pakistani investigators, had been orchestrated by “Indian intelligence sleeper cells mostly operating out of the United Arab Emirates.” These cells had reportedly been established a few years ago by the Indian intelligence agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), which allegedly spent millions of rupees toward recruiting and paying off criminals or impoverished locals to carry out the murders. According to the report, documents claimed that payments had mostly been done via Dubai.


The Guardian report comes on the back of separate tensions between India, Canada, and the United States over the targeting of Sikh separatist leaders in North America. Its allegations were promptly denied by India’s Ministry of External Affairs. But shortly after the report was published, India’s Defense Minister Rajnath Singh said that India would “enter Pakistan to kill [terrorists].” That statement appeared to suggest that at least some senior leaders in New Delhi favor a policy of transnational killings overseen by Indian intelligence agents. If the report is true, it would hold several important implications for India’s relations with the world.


The first consequence is India’s changing attitude toward global norms and international law. For decades, India had traditionally eschewed going beyond its borders to take down terrorists or perceived enemies of the state because of its reservations over violating global norms. Even at the height of instability in Punjab and Kashmir in the 1980s and 1990s, New Delhi avoided targeting separatist leaders in Pakistan, the West, or elsewhere, except through diplomatic or official channels. That was because, as a middle power, India saw universal compliance with international law as a key strategic interest; a lawless world would only have complicated India’s own rise by compelling New Delhi to excessively expend precious resources on military might or hard power.


In recent years, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to present India as an emerging global power, New Delhi has begun to shed this conviction. Modi’s government has bought into a “might is right” approach and put a premium on developing India’s hard power — regardless of its internal economic challenges. One Indian officer quoted by The Guardian insinuated that India was taking its inspiration from countries like Israel, Russia, and Saudi Arabia — all of whom have established their national power by carrying out extrajudicial killings on foreign soil.


“What the Saudis did [to journalist Jamal Khashoggi] was very effective,” the officer said. “You not only get rid of your enemy but send a chilling message, a warning to the people working against you… Our country cannot be strong without exerting power over our enemies.” To many analysts in New Delhi, this isn’t necessarily a characteristic of authoritarianism; they are quick to point out that the United States has long carried out drone strikes across Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the Middle East in the same spirit.


India, therefore, increasingly evaluates its own power through its ability to flout global norms and get away with it. In that regard, the incident involving Gurpatwant Singh Pannun — the Sikh separatist leader in New York whom the U.S. has accused Indian agents of plotting to kill — is a key test case. New Delhi has reportedly asserted that the individual indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice is a “rogue” agent. But if Modi is able to convince Indian voters that his government has indeed been bold enough to go after a Sikh separatist in the United States without suffering any consequences, it would win him immense popularity as a leader who has established Indian power on the world stage.


India’s alleged tapping of jihadist networks could also be profoundly significant, especially in its relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Guardian alleges that Indian agents had infiltrated networks of the Islamic State and the Taliban, where they “recruited and groomed Pakistani Islamist radicals to carry out hit jobs on Indian dissidents.”


It’s unclear how true that assertion is, which factions India had infiltrated if any, or whether New Delhi had managed to cultivate a relationship with them beyond these narrow operations. Yet, given the Taliban’s ongoing troubles with the Islamic State, and Pakistan’s fallout with the Taliban, India may be tempted to increase its influence in the region by exploiting those internecine tensions and cultivating longer-term strategic assets within the Islamist political landscape. New Delhi would be keen to publicly rubbish all of these claims. Yet, political incentives in India now present Modi with a case to pursue an increasingly aggressive foreign policy. Source


Indian academic gets bail after six years without charge or trial

Opinion: Russia’s Terrorism Laws Target Everyone But the Real Threat

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The Moscow Times 03/04/2024 - [...] Russian authorities tend to see extremism and terrorism, or its justification, where it does not exist — and act with excessive cruelty. 


The examples of this are well-known and numerous. A criminal case was initiated against 18-year-old student Daria Kozyreva for repeatedly discrediting the Russian Armed Forces – punishable by up to five years of imprisonment — for sticking a poem by Ukraine’s national poet Taras Shevchenko on a monument.


Under the same article, renowned human rights defender Oleg Orlov was sentenced to 25 years of imprisonment. For "justification of terrorism" and public incitement of hatred and hostility toward FSB employees – who are considered their own social group — activist Mikhail Krieger was sentenced to seven years.



Sociologist and publicist Boris Kagarlitsky was sentenced to five years for “public justification of terrorism.” Under the same Criminal Code article, a criminal case was initiated against theatre director Yevgenia Berkovich and playwright Svetlana Petriychuk, who had already been under investigation and held in custody for months.


In the narrow sense, Russian anti-terrorism and anti-extremism legislation encompasses two laws: "On Countering Extremist Activity" and "On Countering Terrorism." These so-called framework laws, do not outline direct actions but instead contain general principles for regulating anti-extremism and anti-terrorism efforts and refer to other laws to establish sanctions for violations. 


For example, the law on countering extremism states that the production, storage, or distribution of extremist materials constitutes a violation of the law. The law on countering terrorism states that terrorist activity includes, among other things, "the propaganda of terroristic ideas, the dissemination of materials or information that call for the conduct of terrorist activity or justify or validate the necessity of such activity.” The sanctions for such actions are outlined in Article 205.2 of the Criminal Code.


Thus, in addition to the two mentioned laws, the discussed legislation includes the "extremism" and "terrorism" articles of the Administrative and Criminal Codes. No fewer than 13 articles of the Administrative Code are fully or partially dedicated to anti-extremism — from petty hooliganism and offending the feelings of religious believers to discrediting the Russian Armed Forces and the rehabilitation of Nazism.


In Russia’s Criminal Code, there are no fewer than 35 articles fully or partially dedicated to extremism and terrorism. Separate provisions of several sectoral laws (on the media, public associations, freedom of conscience, citizenship, and others) also align with these efforts. More broadly, anti-extremist and anti-terrorism legislation can also include stipulations about "undesirable organizations," "foreign agents" and the responsibility of website owners, since the same repressive apparatus monitors their enforcement.


In the public consciousness, all these designations are lumped together, as state propaganda essentially equates anti-war protest, environmental activism, and civic activity (including observing elections) with treason against state interests. From there, it is not a far leap to extremism and terrorism. The reasons for arbitrary and improper application are already present in the laws themselves. Though the law on countering terrorism defines terrorist activity quite clearly, there is no official list of extremist acts or definition of extremism. 


There are also cases of complete unconstitutionality of the adopted amendments to the legislation. For example, recent changes to Article 22 of Russia’s Citizenship Law (2021) allow for people convicted of terrorist activity to have their Russian citizenship revoked, which is equated to providing false information about oneself when applying for citizenship. The retroactive force of this law — implying that a person has been hiding criminal intentions from the very beginning — contradicts Article 6 of the Russian Constitution, which states that citizenship cannot be revoked and that both natural-born and naturalized citizens have equal rights. In practice, there have been cases of deprivation of citizenship – both acquired and by birth – when they had no other nationality. This is how the environmental and anti-war activist Arshak Makichyan, who was born in Russia and never had any other citizenship, became stateless.


The second aspect of the improper application of anti-extremism and anti-terrorism legislation is selectivity. People who disagree with the regime are often persecuted, while genuinely dangerous calls and actions by pro-government figures or people who otherwise reinforce the party line go unpunished.

It is particularly alarming that repression — first legislative and then practical — is no longer just based on ideology or religion, but other collective traits. As soon as the “international LGBT movement" was declared an extremist organization last November, repression against specific LGBTQ+ individuals immediately followed. 


Proposals have already been made to declare ethnic groups as extremistand deal with them the same way as with the LGBTQ+ community. Such rhetoric is not just characteristic of nationalist and xenophobic Telegram channels. State Duma Deputy Pyotr Tolstoy declared all national diasporas, compatriot associations and communities as “legalized mafias." Dmitry Medvedev — the deputy chairman of the Security Council — called for the execution of all terrorists and repression against their families. 

Medvedev and other officials have started campaigning to end Russia’s moratorium on the death penalty. What legislative novelties are next? Could people united by common ancestry and visual characteristics be declared "extremists"? Read more - Lire plus


Russian Gay Bar Owner Arrested on LGBTQ+ “Extremism” Charges


NEW ACTION: Oppose LGBT+ community criminalization in Russia


Leftists worldwide rally around Boris Kagarlitsky, call for liberation of all Russian anti-war political prisoners


ACTION: Free Boris Kagarlitsky and all Russian anti-war political prisoners!


Russia demands extradition of Ukraine security chief and others for ‘terrorism’

Écoutes, géolocalisations : de plus en plus de personnes sont surveillées en France

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basta! 20/03/2024 - [...] Le nombre de personnes géolocalisées en temps réel par les services de renseignement, comme Julien Le Guet, a été multiplié par dix en sept ans, passant de 1140 cas en 2015 à 10 901 en 2022. Les captations de paroles et d’images dans un lieu privé (de la pose de micros ou de caméras dans un domicile à la captation de l’environnement sonore via un smartphone espionné, par exemple) ont connu une hausse de 36 % entre 2016 et 2022, passant de 2427 à 3314 cas. « On comptait un peu moins de 23 000 personnes surveillées » en 2021, apprend-on dans le dernier rapport de la CNCTR. Et un peu moins de 21 000 en 2022.


Depuis 1991, le nombre de lignes téléphoniques pouvant être écoutées simultanément a triplé, passant de 1180 alors à 3800 aujourd’hui. Les défenseurs de ces méthodes de surveillance se justifient souvent en faisant appel à des causes consensuelles, comme la lutte contre le terrorisme, le crime organisé, ou encore la pédocriminalité. « Aujourd’hui, il y a un discours très présent qui consiste à dire que la sécurité passe nécessairement par la technologie. Et si on s’oppose à ce faux parallèle, on est du côté des méchants, de ceux qui ne veulent pas la sécurité », dénonce Noémie Levain, juriste à la Quadrature du Net, une association de défense des libertés fondamentales. [...]


En 2017, la moitié des demandes de mise en œuvre d’une technique de renseignement l’était au titre de la prévention du terrorisme. Ce taux est tombé à 38 % en 2022, alors que le nombre de personnes sous surveillance a légèrement augmenté.


Dans son livre Le Côté obscur de la force (Flammarion, 2023), le journaliste Vincent Nouzille décrit comment le mouvement des Gilets jaunes a par exemple donné lieu à une large surveillance. « C’était la panique au sommet du pouvoir et dans les services », lui dit une source au sein du ministère de l’Intérieur, citée dans l’ouvrage. Les autorités ont donc « ratissé large », peut-on aussi lire dans le livre. Toujours selon Vincent Nouzille, « le nombre de lignes téléphoniques écoutées simultanément a rapidement atteint le maximum autorisé », fixé à l’époque à 3600 et depuis relevé à 3800.


« Dès qu’il y a un phénomène de terrorisme, dès qu’on parle de problématiques de l’espace public, la réponse est toujours plus de répression, plus de surveillance. On fait loi sur loi, sans prendre de recul, sans évaluer l’impact des lois précédentes, s’inquiète Noémie Levain. Dès la loi Renseignement, puis avec la loi Sécurité globale, la Quadrature du Net a pointé les risques pour les personnes qui militent, celles qui vivent dans les quartiers populaires ou encore les migrants. »


Selon la Quadrature, la logique est celle de l’extension permanente des techniques de renseignement. Celles-ci sont d’abord autorisées de manière temporaire, à titre expérimental, avant d’être pérennisées, et parfois étendues. La loi Renseignement de 2015 avait ainsi autorisé pour trois ans l’usage de « boîtes noires » dans le cadre de la lutte antiterroriste.


Il s’agit d’algorithmes permettant aux services de renseignement de passer au crible le trafic internet à la recherche de signaux susceptibles de révéler un comportement suspect. Prolongée deux fois, l’autorisation de ces dispositifs a finalement été pérennisée en 2021, et le champ des données que peuvent analyser les algorithmes est désormais étendu.


« Les politiques n’arrivent jamais à revenir en arrière, et le côté expérimental leur donne une légitimité », juge Noémie Levain. Pourtant, un rapport de la délégation parlementaire au renseignement pointait les « résultats décevants » des boîtes noires, et considérait que l’extension voulue par les services de renseignement, finalement entérinée par la loi du 30 juillet 2021, « reviendrait, de fait, à autoriser un traitement automatisé de données révélant, pour partie, le contenu de communications » des internautes [1].


Malgré ce constat, cette même délégation préconise, dans un autre rapport, d’aller encore plus loin, en étendant le champ d’application de ces algorithmes à « l’indépendance nationale, l’intégrité du territoire et la défense nationale » ainsi qu’aux « intérêts majeurs de la politique étrangère, l’exécution des engagements européens et internationaux de la France et la prévention de toute forme d’ingérence étrangère ». « Une fois qu’on autorise pour un motif, ça finit forcément par s’étendre à d’autres. Si on ne met pas de limites, ça ira toujours plus loin », craint Noémie Levain.


Des limites, pourtant, il y en a. Le 16 novembre 2023, le Conseil constitutionnel a censuré une disposition de la loi Justice, portée par le Garde des Sceaux Éric Dupond-Moretti. Les « sages » ont jugé que l’activation à distance d’appareils électroniques, comme des smartphones, à des fins d’enquête, portait atteinte au « droit au respect de la vie privée ». Lire plus - Read more

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OTHER NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES

Attacks on dissent

Attaques contre la dissidence


NEW ACTION: Canada: No Ecuador trade deal without human rights, consultation and consent


Police surveillance and use of pepper spray at trans solidarity protest condemned

Criminalization of dissent

Criminalisation de la dissidence


International Community Condemns April 10 Ruling in El Salvador’s Court on the Santa Marta Five Water Defenders


ACTION: Demand a Public Inquiry into police brutality against Bristol #KillTheBill protesters

Encryption

Cryptage


Europe: Civil society shows evidence gaps in “Going Dark” group proposal for access to data for law enforcement

Foreign interference

Ingérence étrangère


The Big China Con: How Canada’s establishment media manufactured the foreign interference scandal


Webinar: Launch: Canada's Long Fight Against Democracy by Yves Engler and Owen Schalk


Dismantling the Haitian state: Professor Jemima Pierre dissects Canada’s participation in a 20-year debacle of military occupations and failed elections in Haiti


Haitians Resist Foreign Intervention as U.S. Pushes for Unelected “Transition Council” to Rule Island

Islamophobia

Islamophobie


Ligue des droits et libertés: Contre le renouvellement de la dérogation à la Charte canadienne : en tant que démocratie, le Québec doit faire mieux

Migrant and refugee rights

Droits des migrant.es et des réfugié.es


NEW ACTION: Asylum with Dignity: Time for a National System for Refugee Claimants


NEW ACTION: Tell Trudeau to regularize everyone, ensure #StatusForAll


Canada deporting highest level of migrants in a decade, despite promises to let more stay


He was deported from Canada. Then he learned border agents never shared an important document that may have swayed the judge


Ken Roach & Louis Century: Miscarriages of Justice in Immigration Detention


Vidéo: Alternative à la détention des migrant·es : « une deuxième prison »


Statewatch is seeking information on secrecy and security exceptions in asylum and immigration cases


Policing migration: when “harm reduction” means “multipurpose aerial surveillance”


The EU Migration Pact: a dangerous regime of migrant surveillance


Migration Pact "will engender a proliferation of human rights violations" and must be rejected

New legislation

Nouvelle législation


International Bar Association raises concerns over Hong Kong's National Security Law


US-funded Radio Free Asia shuts down in Hong Kong over safety concerns


Hong Kong customs staff to receive training to stop items seen as risk to national security from entering city

Online Harms

Méfaits en ligne


Webinar: Governing Online Harms: A Conversation on Bill C-63

Police


Paid to stay home: Suspended police officers cost Ontario taxpayers $134M over past decade

Privacy and surveillance

Vie privée et surveillance


Spy Law Needs Fixing Now to Stop Overreach — Not a Backdoor Boost


House passes FISA reauthorization bill after previous GOP setback


Biden’s new data security order leaves industry officials, privacy advocates scratching their heads


Amnesty International: Apple threat notifications: What they mean and what you can do


Kamala Harris touts secret service program encouraging high school spying

Whistleblowers

Lanceur.ses d'alertes


Amnesty International: Julian Assange’s five-year imprisonment in the UK is unacceptable

Miscellaneous

Divers


L’Occident n’a rien appris de l’Afghanistan: À peine l’empire s’est-il relevé de son échec qu’il cherche encore la guerre ailleurs


Pentagon ignores law calling for report on how it trained so many African coup leaders


Spy agencies skewed intel to please Trump, and Obama too

ICLMG ACTIONS DE LA CSILC

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Canada Must Oppose Genocide in Gaza and Defend Free Expression at Home

The UN Genocide Convention – which Canada has ratified – stipulates that “states that have the capacity to influence others have a duty to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide.” Canada therefore has the obligation to not only call for a permanent and immediate ceasefire, but to immediately halt any arm sales, transfers and military aid to Israel.

ACTION

Share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

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Canada: Remove the national security exemptions from Bill C-27!

Bill C-27, the Digital Charter Implementation Act, has been introduced by the federal government with the promise that it would enhance privacy protections, adequately regulate artificial intelligence (AI) and protect human rights. The bill, however, is not up to the task. Please join us in denouncing the dangerous national security related exemptions in the bill.

ACTION
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Canada: Do not purchase armed drones

The ICLMG is a member of the No Armed Drones campaign

In the government's proposal seeking bids for its drone program it laid out disturbing scenarios for Canadian military drone use: One scenario described drones being used to surveil activists protesting a (theoretical) G20 Summit in Quebec, helping the security team intercept and identify the occupants of a vehicle, who are “anti-capitalist radicals” intending to “hang a banner concerning global warming.” Another scenario modeled after US drone strike programs features a drone bombing “Fighting Age Males” in the Middle East after spotting one of them “holding a small radio or cell phone." The initial cost estimate is $5 billion with billions more to operate the drones over their 25-year lifespan.

ACTION
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CSIS isn't above the law!

In recent years, at least three court decisions revealed the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) engaged in potentially illegal activities and lied to the courts. This is utterly unacceptable, especially given that this is not the first time these serious problems have been raised. CSIS cannot be allowed to act as though they are above the law.



Send a message to Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino demanding that he take immediate action to put an end to this abuse of power and hold those CSIS officers involved accountable, and for parliament to support Bill C-331, An Act to amend the Canadian Security Intelligence Service Act (duty of candour). Your message will also be sent to your MP and to Minister of Justice David Lametti.

ACTION

Canada must protect Hassan Diab!

Send an email using ICLMG’s one-click tool and share widely!

Letter in English + Lettre en français


Sign and share the LeadNow petitions to protect Hassan from further injustice

Petition in EnglishPétition en français


For more information on the case of Hassan Diab, read our webcomic, watch our animated version of the comic, or visit justiceforhassandiab.org.

Canada must repatriate all Canadians detained in NE Syria now!

On January 20, 2023, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown ruled that Canada must repatriate Canadians illegally and arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria. On February 6, 2023, the Canadian government filed an appeal and asked that the Brown ruling be set aside and placed on hold while the appeal plays out. This is unacceptable. 


Every day the government fails to bring these Canadians home, it places their lives at risk from disease, malnutrition, violence, and ongoing military conflicts, including bombing by Turkey’s military. United Nations officials have even found that the conditions faced by Canadians in prison are akin to torture. Please click below to urge the federal government to repatriate all Canadians illegally & arbitrarily detained in northeast Syria without delay.

ACTION

Please share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram

20 years of fighting deportation to torture: Justice for Mohamed Harkat Now!

December 10, 2022 - ironically Human Rights Day - marked the 20th "anniversary" of the arrest of Mohamed Harkat under Canada's rights-violating security certificate regime. For Mr. Harkat, it's been two decades of fighting deportation to torture, 16 years of harassment and intrusive surveillance, arbitrary detention, solitary confinement, secret trials, PTSD: enough is enough! We call for justice for Moe Harkat now! Watch - Visionnez


TAKE ACTION: Stop Moe Harkat's deportation to torture!


ACTION: Arrêtez la déportation vers la torture de Mohamed Harkat!

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Reform Canada's extradition law now!

Canada’s extradition system is broken. One leading legal expert calls it “the least fair law in Canada.” It has led to grave harms and rights violations, as we’ve seen in the case of Canadian citizen Dr Hassan Diab. It needs to be reformed now.



Click below to send a message to urge Prime Minister Trudeau, the Minister of Justice and your Member of Parliament to reform the extradition system before it makes more victims. And share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram. Thank you!


Version française: Le Canada doit réformer la loi sur l'extradition! + Partagez sur Facebook + Twitter + Instagram


Phone PM Justin Trudeau


TAKE ACTION: Justice for Hassan Diab!


Just Peace Advocates' action: Write a letter to Prime Minister Trudeau: Say “No" to a second extradition of Hassan Diab

ACTION

Canada must protect encryption!

Canada’s extradition system is broken. One leading legal expert calls it “the least fair law in Canada.” It has led to grave harms and rights violations, as we’ve seen in the case of Canadian citizen Dr Hassan Diab. It needs to be reformed now.



Click below to send a message to urge Prime Minister Trudeau, the Minister of Justice and your Member of Parliament to reform the extradition system before it makes more victims. And share on Facebook + Twitter + Instagram. Thank you!


Regardez la vidéo avec les sous-titres en français + Agir

ACTION
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Protect our rights from facial recognition!

Facial recognition surveillance is invasive and inaccurate. This unregulated tech poses a threat to the fundamental rights of people across Canada. Federal intelligence agencies refuse to disclose whether they use facial recognition technology. The RCMP has admitted (after lying about it) to using facial recognition for 18 years without regulation, let alone a public debate regarding whether it should have been allowed in the first place. Send a message to Prime Minister Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair calling for a ban now.

ACTION

July to December 2023 - Juillet à décembre 2023

Thanks to your support, in the second half of 2023, we were able to work on the following issues or with the following entities:


  • Bill C-20, Public Complaints and Review Commission Act
  • Bill C-26, An Act respecting cybersecurity and amending the Telecommunications Act
  • Bill C-27, Digital Charter Implementation Act, 2022
  • Bill C-41: International assistance and anti-terrorism laws
  • Canadians detained in Northeastern Syria
  • Justice for Dr Hassan Diab & reform of the Extradition Act
  • Security certificates & inadmissibility
  • Combatting Islamophobia
  • National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA)
  • Prejudiced audits of Muslim charities
  • Federal anti-terrorist financing consultation
  • Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada
  • Canada’s 4th Universal Periodic Review
  • Civil Society Coalition on Human Rights and Counter-terrorism
  • UN Counter-terrorism Executive Directorate (CTED) Canada assessment
  • UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights global study on counter-terrorism and civic space


For more details on each item and to see all the media articles we were mentioned in or were interviewed for, click here.


What we have planned for 2024!


Your support, will allow us to continue our work on these issues and much more in the next year:

  • Ensuring that the Canadian government’s proposals on “online harms” do not violate fundamental freedoms, or exacerbate the silencing of racialized and marginalized voices
  • Protecting our privacy from government surveillance, including facial recognition, and from attempts to weaken encryption, along with advocating for good privacy law reform
  • Addressing the lack of regulation on the use of AI in national security, including proposed exemptions for national security agencies
  • Fighting for Justice for Mohamed Harkat, an end to security certificates, and addressing problems in security inadmissibility
  • Ensuring Justice for Hassan Diab and reforming Canada’s extradition law
  • The return of the rest of the Canadian citizens and the non-Canadian mothers of Canadian children indefinitely detained in Syrian camps
  • The end to the CRA’s prejudiced audits of Muslim-led charities
  • Greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency
  • Greater accountability and transparency for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service
  • Advocating for the repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada
  • Pressuring lawmakers to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security and the “war on terror”, as well as keeping you and our member organizations informed via the News Digest
  • Publishing a collection of essays written by amazing partners on the work of the ICLMG for our 20th anniversary
  • And much more!
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Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG.

THANK YOU

to our amazing supporters!


We would like to thank all our member organizations, and the hundreds of people who have supported us over the years, including on Patreon! As a reward, we are listing below our patrons who give $10 or more per month (and wanted to be listed) directly in the News Digest. Without all of you, our work wouldn't be possible!


James Deutsch

Bill Ewanick

Kevin Malseed

Brian Murphy

Colin Stuart

Bob Thomson

James Turk

John & Rosemary Williams

Jo Wood

The late Bob Stevenson


Nous tenons à remercier nos organisations membres ainsi que les centaines de personnes qui ont soutenu notre travail à travers les années, y compris sur Patreon! En récompense, nous nommons ci-dessus nos mécènes qui donnent 10$ ou plus par mois et voulaient être mentionné.es directement dans la Revue de l'actualité. Sans vous tous et toutes, notre travail ne serait pas possible!



Merci!