There has been an interesting development in a terrorist court case in Ottawa. The lawyers for Awso Peshdary, accused of being a terrorism financier and recruiter, have argued that in order to defend their client properly they need all the information that the national spy service, CSIS, has collected on him. Complicating matters somewhat (but […]
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How easy is it to stop a terrorist?
It is hard to know what the average person thinks about how intelligence services operate. I suppose it may be a mixture of what people see on TV or in the theatres and the largely negative stories in the press about overreach and shady activities (in all fairness it is not the media’s fault since […]
I know for sure that this blog is going to raise some hackles, especially among my US friends and colleagues. Why? Because I am going to argue that the current US counter terrorism architecture is inadequate to deal with the threat and needs a serious overhaul. The solution I am proposing, however, will go against […]
What should we do with returning “foreign fighters”? A number of recent terrorist attacks were committed by young men and women who had radicalized, went to train with IS in the Middle East, then returned to their home country to commit acts of violence. In this text, Phil Gurski examines why some people decide to […]
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Who should our spies spy on?
In the wake of news out of Quebec that police in that province were given court warrants to intercept the communications of journalists, it turns out that CSIS cannot rule out the possibility that sometime over its 30+ year history that it too listened in on some members of the fifth estate. In a session […]
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How not to win the “war on terror”
Soon to be former US President Barack Obama once famously said with respect to foreign policy “don’t do stupid shit (or” stuff” depending on your sensitivity to salty language)”. That maxim could just have easily been applied to domestic policy. And it is something that incoming president Donald Trump might want to pay attention to. […]
A new salvo has been fired in the continual contest that pits national security vs. privacy rights in Canada. A federal court judge has ruled that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) illegally held on to data that was not threat-related for an unnecessary period of time. The judicial decision was announced the same week […]
In many instances historically amnesties were offered to former combatants in the interests of getting the violence to stop and giving a society a chance to rebuild itself. A really good example where amnesty seemed to work would be in South Africa where it was part of that nation’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission after Apartheid […]
OK, I admit I am a little sensitive when it comes to the term “intelligence failure”. You would be too if the profession you devoted three decades to was constantly criticised in the media for screwing up. The failure to predict 9/11. The failure to predict India’s acquisition of a nuclear weapons capacity. The classic […]
By now I am sure that you are aware of the fact that a referendum carried out by the Colombian government on a peace deal with the FARC was narrowly defeated. The difference between those in favour and those opposed was razor-thin, something like 50.2-49.8% In other words, the vote could have gone either way. […]