Citizens Are Left Damaged When Spies `Have Their Way'

Hooper's instructive 19-word sentence was revealed publicly for the first time last week after the veil of secrecy was finally lifted from most of the more than 1,500 blacked-out words of Justice Dennis O'Connor's exhaustive report into the Arar affair. Ottawa fought hard to keep this damning information from public view, arguing that its release would jeopardize Canada's national security and international relations. This predictable drivel is offered up by a federal government more concerned with shielding itself and its intelligence service from embarrassment than our diplomatic and security relations with like-minded governments. Beyond their chillingly cavalier tone, Hooper's written remarks about Arar are revelatory in several important ways. First, they confirm that senior CSIS officers, and therefore the Canadian government, were aware in late 2002 that the U.S. was involved in a program to secretly have Canadians, including Arar, abducted and deported to foreign countries where they would likely be interrogated and tortured. Ottawa kept that sordid fact hidden from its citizens for years. Hooper's comment also puts an emphatic lie to former CSIS director Ward Elcock's incredulous testimony before the public inquiry examining Arar's disturbing odyssey. Elcock, who is now deputy minister of national defence – another arm of the government mired in allegations of countenancing torture and abuse – was repeatedly asked during his two days of questioning by Arar's counsel whether Syria used torture. http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/245670

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