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Canadian Intelligence Eh! Podcast

Podcast 13 – Jewish extremism

In our continuing series on religious terrorism, it is time to look at Jewish extremist violence.

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Video

What is the role of CSIS in Canada and do they need to be more open? | Your Morning

Some Canadians don’t know what CSIS does and former CSIS analyst Phil Gurski says that is due to a lack of communication that should be fixed.

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Perspectives

What the Annual CSIS Report tells us about national security and public safety

CSIS is far from perfect but it is an excellent, dedicated and professional security service. Canadians should be glad we have these people watching out for us.

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Perspectives

When we torture the terrorists we become the terrorists

What Islamic State (IS) stood for and did while it governed its so-called ‘Caliphate’ is no secret. The terrorist group threw gays off rooftops, burned or drowned captives alive, raped women and girls (including the Yazidis, whom the jihadis considered apostates) and made their prisoners wear orange jumpsuits before beheading them. All of these actions […]

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Perspectives

Is Alberta’s inquiry into the foreign financing of environmentalists really necessary?

Here is an extract from the CSIS Act for those who have not memorised it. It is from section 2, the section which outlines what CSIS has the authority to investigate: (b) foreign influenced activities within or relating to Canada that are detrimental to the interests of Canada and are clandestine or deceptive or involve a […]

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Perspectives

Bad actors are winning the online battle. It is time for the majority good actors to step up

News flash! The Internet is not always used for good! What are we going to do about it???? I don’t suppose these headlines strike anyone as real ‘news’, do they? We have long known that any technology can be leveraged for good or for bad (dynamite was developed by Alfred Nobel – yes, he of […]

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Perspectives

Why terrorists’ use of CBRN is less frequent than you would think

FaceBook has pissed a lot of people off lately. If it is not their use of your data (which, by the way, you gave freely to the company) it is their inability to prevent or take down extremist material from their platform in a timely fashion or sanction those seeking to circumvent the democratic process […]

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Perspectives

The pitfalls of negotiating ‘peace’ with terrorists

War is draining. Whether we are talking about the men and women whom we send to war on our behalf, and who to be honest are the greatest at risk and hence usually the last ones who want to go and fight, or societies in general, I think we can all agree that war should […]

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Perspectives

CSIS is damned when it does and damned when it doesn’t

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 24, 2019. Cast a sympathetic eye on Canada’s spy agency, CSIS (when is the last time someone asked that of you?). It is subject to incredibly intense scrutiny from all sides and also to oversight from multiple angles. This is, of course, as it should be […]

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Perspectives

Why did it take Canada so long to list a far right terrorist group?

Canada’s ‘listed terrorist entities’ program is an odd beast. It only came into force after 9/11 and that is odd in that terrorist groups certainly existed prior to that day. As we all know, however, 9/11 changed EVERYTHING when it comes to our reaction and responses to terrorism and I suppose the list was just […]