Harper government secretly reverses pledge not to use info obtained by torture
February 7, 2012 - 8:35pm
It was only a matter of time before they plunged into the moral abyss.
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Syndicate
CSIS may use intelligence derived from torture, Toews says
The order represents a reversal of policy for the Conservative government, which once insisted the Canadian Security Intelligence Service would discard information if there was any inkling it might be tainted.
Opposition MPs seized on the news, saying it means the government is indirectly supporting torture.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews quietly told CSIS the government now expects the spy service to "make the protection of life and property its overriding priority" and may under exceptional circumstances share information based on intelligence that may have been derived from the use of torture.
"Information obtained by torture is always discounted. But the problem is, can one safely ignore it when Canadian lives and property are at stake?" Toews said in question period.
Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae asked Toews to table the directive in the House of Commons. "And will he please explain how it is that the directive which he is putting forward is in any way compatible with Canada's obligations under international law?"
NDP defence critic Jack Harris said complicity in other countries' torture is essentially encouraging torture. "You're indirectly supporting torture, encouraging torture, by making a statement that you're prepared to continue on an ongoing basis dealing with countries that use torture as a matter of course," he said.
A copy of the two-page December 2010 directive was obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.
It drew swift condemnation from Amnesty International Canada, which said information obtained under torture "has no place in the justice system, full stop."...
The latest directive says in "exceptional circumstances" where there is a threat to human life or public safety, urgency may require CSIS to "share the most complete information available at the time with relevant authorities, including information based on intelligence provided by foreign agencies that may have been derived from the use of torture or mistreatment."
In such rare circumstances, it may not always be possible to determine how a foreign agency obtained the information, and that ignoring such information solely because of its source would represent "an unacceptable risk to public safety."
"Therefore, in situations where a serious risk to public safety exists, and where lives may be at stake, I expect and thus direct CSIS to make the protection of life and property its overriding priority, and share the necessary information - properly described and qualified - with appropriate authorities."...
In spring 2009, a senior CSIS official ignited controversy when he told a Commons committee the spy service would overlook the origin of information if it could prevent another Air India jetliner bombing or an attack along the lines of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackings in the United States.
The government quickly moved to extinguish the public flareup. Peter Van Loan, then public safety minister, said CSIS had been clear about rejecting information extracted through coercion.
"As a practical matter, they get intelligence from all kinds of sources, a myriad of sources. An important part of their process is to try and identify how credible that is," Van Loan said at the time. "If there's any indication, any evidence that torture may have been used, that information is discounted."...
Added Mike Patton, a spokesman for Toews: "Our government will always take action that protects the lives of Canadians."... [he forgot to mention property]
CSIS spokeswoman Tahera Mufti had no comment. However, the spy agency has said previously - including before the 2010 directive was issued - that it would use torture-tainted material....
A federal inquiry by Justice Dennis O'Connor into the Maher Arar torture affair recommended in 2006 that policies include specific directions "aimed at eliminating any possible Canadian complicity in torture, avoiding the risk of other human rights abuses and ensuring accountability."
Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian, was jailed in Damascus in 2002-03 and tortured into giving false confessions about terrorist links.
CSIS maintains it has implemented all of O'Connor's recommendations to prevent a recurrence....
Recently it became public that former CSIS director Jim Judd balked in 2008 at a proposed legislative change that would have prevented the spy agency from using information suspected of emerging through torture. Judd said the change could spell the end of the security certificate - an immigration tool for deporting alleged foreign-born terrorists.
yes, I also posted this in the CSIS thread - with the comment that it's a very short step for the secret police from using others' tortured info to torturing for their own...
I think this deserves a thread of its own. It's a watershed in Conservative depravity.
It was only a matter of time before they plunged into the moral abyss.
Ten years behind the U.S. Right on time.
It doesn't surprise me. They are colonial administrators and vicious toadies following orders . I wouldn't put anything past them.
Ten years behind the U.S. Right on time.
good one!
What do you expect? It doesn't matter how many times you tell them torture doesn't work, they'll do it anyway. There is something seriously wrong with these guys; I think Toews needs to see a pyschiatrist. Nasty bunch these guys; afraid of everything!
The "torture doesn't work" argument is beside the point. It avoids the moral issue altogether and turns the use of torture into a strictly utilitarian one.
The opizishin was quick to tell Toews that information received through torture is not reliable, and he simply replied that they know such information is not reliable, but why would they ignore it when Canadian lives and (of course) property were threatened? Thus the utilitarian argument is easily refuted.
Torture is wrong. We should not be doing it, or encouraging it, or tolerating it. Even if it "works".
James Bartleman, former director of security and intelligence in the Department of External Affairs and former Ontario lieutenant-governor writes in today's Globe letters :
"Public Safety Minister Vic Toews approves of the use of torture to obtain information to prevent loss of life..."I am sure dictators around the world use the same argument. Has the minister lost his moral compass? Has CSIS lost its moral compass? Has Canada lost its moral compass?"
the compass is set precisely where they want the thing to go. Never been a moral one. Not ever. Canada's former secret policeman knows that as well as anyone. And it has long been the case that 'democracies' not just dictators have explained away these 'excesses' as necessary to save lives. Policy has simply been made to align with practice. But 3 good symbolical questions nonetheless to which all must answer 'YES'.
The "torture doesn't work" argument is beside the point. It avoids the moral issue altogether and turns the use of torture into a strictly utilitarian one.
Torture is never used to discover truth. It is a propaganda tool.
There is no valid utilitarian argument for using torture.
If torture works, it works only as a propaganda tool and has been used by inquisitions since the 14th century. But torture is never meant to discover truth.
All those "confessions" extracted from alleged Al-Qaeda members held illegally at Guantanamo and US torture gulags around the world were meant to propagandize the world public into believing that an invisible army of darkness was responsible for 9/11 terror. The reasons for not wanting a legitimate investigation into 9/11 and a legal trial in US courts of law are obvious.
Torture Policy Raises Serious Questions
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/article/1129706--torture-polic...
"Has Prime Minister Stephen Harper's government quietly hung out an 'open for business' sign when it comes to dealing with regimes that practice torture? That's the troubling impression given by a directive to Canada's spy agency that just came to light. This isn't a hypothetical issue. US President Barack Obama has denounced waterboarding as torture. And a manual for Canadian diplomats in 2008 cited the US, Egypt, China, Israel, Afghanistan, Iran, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Syria as states that resort to torture and abuse.
It's a universal crime banned by a UN treaty, but it happens more often than we'd care to know. Given that, just how complicit do we want to be? 'There seems to be a strong wish not to tie CSIS's hands, and to give them the latitude to work with torturers,' Amnesty International Canada's Secretary General Alex Neve told the Star's editorial board.
'This does an end run around the absolute ban on torture."
Walkom: Why Canada's New Torture-Friendly Policy Won't Work
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1129422--walkom-why-...
"News that Canada has given its imprimatur to torture came and went with a minimum of fuss. There was the usual one-day brouhaha in the Commons after the Canadian Press revealed last week that in 2010, the government quietly reversed a policy requiring Canada's security agency to stay away from information gleaned through torture.
Predictably perhaps, Amnesty International attacked the move. But in most newspapers the story was back page news. Many Canadians seem to tacitly buy the so-called ticking time bomb explanation..As former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci found when he headed a judicial inquiry into security, Canadian agencies have at times, subcontracted intelligence-gathering to foreign torturers.
Torture lives on. It is official Canadian policy. "
dp
An intelligence organization should act on any credible data it gets, no matter the source. Acting on data achieved by waterboarding is not the same as performing waterboarding. If a foreign diplomat approaches a CSIS agent with data, and the CSIS guy asks "how did you get this data", and the foreign diplomat says "our security forces slapped the guy around till he told us", only makes the data more suspect wrt it's veracity, but does not and should not mean it should be dismissed out of hand.
An intelligence organization should act on any credible data it gets, no matter the source....
...only makes the data more suspect wrt it's veracity, but does not and should not mean it should be dismissed out of hand.
Even the apologists for torture can't make a coherent argument without contradicting themselves.
An intelligence organization should act on any credible data it gets, no matter the source. Acting on data achieved by waterboarding is not the same as performing waterboarding. If a foreign diplomat approaches a CSIS agent with data, and the CSIS guy asks "how did you get this data", and the foreign diplomat says "our security forces slapped the guy around till he told us", only makes the data more suspect wrt it's veracity, but does not and should not mean it should be dismissed out of hand.
In light of the above, and your other posts, it seems quite obvious that you are not a good fit on babble. Feel free to peruse sites that suit your political bent. Yours is not welcome here.
An intelligence organization should act on any credible data it gets, no matter the source....
...only makes the data more suspect wrt it's veracity, but does not and should not mean it should be dismissed out of hand.
Even the apologists for torture can't make a coherent argument without contradicting themselves.
... or wasting apostrophes.
But why not? What if everyone else stopped torturing? If our security officials risk lives by ignoring torture-derived information, then logically they would also risk lives by not torturing if they, and only they, had the chance.
- Notional Pest
P.S. Selley is not arguing in favour of torture here, but pointing out the hypocrisy in McKay's pretence at being against torture.