University of Ottawa law professor has joined the calls for the federal government to hold an independent investigation into Canada’s spy agencies about evidence presented to a judge.
In a blog this week Michael Geist said there was a “deliberate attempt to mislead the key oversight body by omitting relevant information.” The judge in the case “clearly felt he was duped” by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).
We wrote about this incident last week when an investigation was called for by a privacy lawyer.
The controversy came to light late last year when the judge revealed that CSIS — which evaluates national threats — hadn’t told him that a warrant he approved that would give Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), the electronic spy agency, permission to intercept communications of suspects would be used by CSIS to approve another government doing the spying.
While the Harper government has said that everything spy agencies do is consistent with Canadian law, the judge’s decision raises questions about how far spy agencies are willing — and able — to stretch the letter of the law.
Read Geist’s blog here.