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Perspectives

9/11: looking back and looking forward

This piece is a bit of a cheat. Rather than an entirely new thought it is a cut and paste from the introduction to my fourth book An End to the War on Terrorism, published in 2018. Given that today marks the 18th anniversary of the single greatest terrorist attack in our planet’s history I […]

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Perspectives

A humble plea for transparency and honesty when declaring ‘expertise’ on terrorism

We all know that ‘experts’ are a dime a dozen. It seems that you cannot read an article or watch an interview without someone introduced as an ‘expert’ on this topic or that topic. And in truth it is good to have real experts available to help us understand complicated topics as none of us […]

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Perspectives

Determining the reliability of your news sources relies on you

If you live in the National Capital Region of Canada and have never been to one of the public talks organised by The Panel or – horror of horrors! – never heard of The Panel you really need to do your homework.  The Panel is an Ottawa-based organisation that hosts two live events each year […]

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Perspectives

Why intelligence services need access to your phone

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on October 8, 2018. How many of you recall the terrorist attack in San Bernardino back in December 2015?  An Islamist terrorist couple went in to a California health sector office’s Christmas party and opened fire, killing 14 and wounding 22.  The two were later killed in a […]

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Perspectives

A ruling on CSIS that is not helpful

If you were to ask most Canadians about our intelligence services the first response would very likely be “Wait!  We have intelligence services??” I am being only slightly facetious.  I imagine everyone knows about CSIS – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (where I worked for 15 years) – and maybe a few recognise CSE – […]

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Perspectives

An unhelpful ruling in Canada on intelligence gathering

If you were to ask most Canadians about our intelligence services the first response would very likely be “Wait!  We have intelligence services??” I am being only slightly facetious.  I imagine everyone knows about CSIS – the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (where I worked for 15 years) – and maybe a few recognise CSE – […]

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Perspectives

The implications of the US-Canada tiff for national security

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on June 25, 2018 Canada and the US cooperate on many issues in many forums: the G7 (even with last week’s horror show thanks to the US President), the G20, the UN as well as a whole host of international bodies, in addition to numerous bilateral councils and […]

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Perspectives

The perils of predictive analysis

I know that I have written on this topic before so I am sorry for the repetition.  You probably don’t need to read yet another blog on that terrible Tom Cruise film but in the wake of CBC reports that alleged gay serial killer Bruce McArthur had been assessed way back in 2003 a “very minimal” […]

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Perspectives

A few thoughts on the US decision to axe the Iranian nuclear deal

This piece was published in The Hill Times on May 14, 2018. I must confess that I hesitated quite a bit before putting pen to paper (fingers to keyboard?) on this topic.  I was sitting in a Maple Leaf lounge at LaGuardia Airport in New York when CNN broadcast its ‘breaking news’ coverage of US […]

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Perspectives

CSE should be allowed to go on the offensive

This piece appeared in The Hill Times on February 26, 2018   I still remember my first day at CSE. I had moved to Ottawa from London (Ontario) where I had been interviewed by CSE representatives and later offered a job.  I knew little of what I was being asked to do since the poster […]