International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group
November 27, 2020
New ICLMG Video & Action on Facial Recognition!
ICLMG 25/11/2020 - Facial recognition surveillance is invasive and inaccurate. This unregulated technology poses a threat to the fundamental rights of people across Canada.
Federal intelligence agencies refuse to disclose whether they use facial recognition technology. The RCMP has admitted (after lying about it) to using facial recognition for 18 years without regulation, let alone a public debate regarding whether it should have been allowed in the first place.

Across Canada, only one government – the City of Montreal – has debated and put in place any form of regulation on the use of facial recognition by law enforcement.

Send a message to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair calling for a ban now.
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‘You Have Zero Privacy’ Says an Internal RCMP Presentation. Inside the Force’s Web Spying Program
The Tyee 16/11/2020 - A 3,000-page batch of internal communications from the RCMP obtained by The Tyee provides a window into how the force builds its capabilities to spy on internet users and works to hide its methods from the public.

The emails and documents pertain to the RCMP’s Tactical Internet Operation Support unit based at the national headquarters in Ottawa and its advanced web monitoring program called Project Wide Awake.
The files include an internal RCMP presentation that contradict how the force has characterized Project Wide Awake to Canada’s privacy commissioner and The Tyee in past emails. A slide labels the program’s activities “Social Media Surveillance,” despite the RCMP having denied that description applied. Communications show one high-level officer blasting the project before leaving the RCMP for Chinese tech firm Huawei.

Other members were jokingly dismissive of public concerns about privacy violations — a training slide for the project says: “You have zero privacy anyway, get over it.” In seeking contract renewals and wider capabilities, the RCMP claimed its spying produced successful results, including finding online a “direct threat” to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The documents reveal the RCMP:
  • Gained permission to hide sole-source contracts for Project Wide Awake from the public through a “national security exception.”
  • Discussed “tier three” covert operations involving the use of proxies — intermediary computers located elsewhere — to hide RCMP involvement with spying activities.
  • Purchased software with an aim to search “Darknet,” which it defined to include “private communications” and those from “political protests.”
  • Has used a tool to unmask lists of “friends” on Facebook for users that specifically set friends’ information to private on the platform.
  • Was “wasting resources, wasting time, wasting money” on IT projects, according to the then RCMP chief information officer.
  • Took the names for Project Wide Awake and other internet surveillance programs from the X-Men comic book series, in which illegal government programs hunt human “mutants.” Read more - Lire plus





Letter to Prime Minister Trudeau & Public Safety Minister Blair regarding CBSA oversight and Mr. Ebrahim Toure
CARL et al. 26/11/2020 - We write to renew our calls for the establishment of an independent, civilian-led oversight commission with a mandate to provide real-time oversight for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The CBSA remains the only major law enforcement agency in Canada without an external oversight body. For years your government has stated its support for the creation of an accountability mechanism, and in fact has twice introduced legislation to create a CBSA review body. The need for an oversight body is long overdue and urgent.

This urgency has been made clear this last week by the case of Ebrahim Toure. Mr. Toure was first detained from February 2013 through September 2018, the vast majority of which was spent on immigration hold in a maximum security prison. He was transferred to an immigration holding centre in October 2017 after the Ontario Superior Court of Justice determined that his treatment constituted cruel and unusual treatment contrary to s. 12 of the Charter. Mr. Toure was re-detained this month, and his most recent detention review hearing brought to light serious misconduct on the part of CBSA in handling his case.

When testifying at the hearing, the CBSA officer detailed how he sought to secure a travel document for Mr. Toure while he was in Gambia for other purposes, but failed to take notes of his meetings; received a passport delivered in an envelope with no official correspondence; used his personal email and personal WhatsApp messaging application to communicate with Gambian government officials and a confidential informant; and relied on information from the confidential informant despite having no knowledge about the CBSA policy regarding their use. This testimony, combined with facial irregularities on the alleged Gambia documents procured by CBSA, led the Immigration Division to conclude that the officer’s evidence failed to meet the standard of credible and trustworthy as required under section 173(d) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

The Immigration Division does not have the jurisdiction to address the gross misconduct of the CBSA officer in this case. This highlights the need for an effective accountability mechanism. This summer’s prorogation of Parliament terminated the latest legislative attempt to create a CBSA review body. We note with great concern that the legislation is not back on the parliamentary agenda, despite repeated promises for an accountability mechanism, and the continued unchecked egregious conduct of CBSA. This includes commissions and omissions leading to the death of immigration detainees and mistreatment of people while detained, unnecessary detention, and the conditions of detention.

Changes made with respect to the policy and practice of immigration detention must be accompanied by robust, independent and external oversight of CBSA, preferably in a renewed bill that addresses the shortcomings of last session’s Bill C-3. The government must ensure that the accountability mechanism for CBSA is adequately funded and effective, to avoid reproducing the kinds of deficiencies, capacity issues and delays evident in other federal law enforcement accountability bodies. The introduction of an oversight body is only one of many changes required to ensure that people are treated justly by the CBSA.

Mr. Toure’s case is a reminder that an independent accountability mechanism for CBSA cannot wait. We call on your government to re-introduce legislation to create such a mechanism, and to prioritize its consideration by committee in the coming months. In addition, we request that an independent, thorough and transparent investigation be conducted into CBSA’s actions in Mr. Toure’s case, and that Mr. Toure not be removed while this investigation is pending. Read more - Lire plus



How the U.S. Military Buys Location Data from Ordinary Apps, including Muslim Apps
Vice 16/11/2020 - A Muslim prayer app with over 98 million downloads is one of the apps connected to a wide-ranging supply chain that sends ordinary people's personal data to brokers, contractors, and the military.

The U.S. military is buying the granular movement data of people around the world, harvested from innocuous-seeming apps, Motherboard has learned. The most popular app among a group Motherboard analyzed connected to this sort of data sale is a Muslim prayer and Quran app that has more than 98 million downloads worldwide. Others include a Muslim dating app, a popular Craigslist app, an app for following storms, and a "level" app that can be used to help, for example, install shelves in a bedroom.

Through public records, interviews with developers, and technical analysis, Motherboard uncovered two separate, parallel data streams that the U.S. military uses, or has used, to obtain location data. One relies on a company called Babel Street, which creates a product called Locate X. U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM), a branch of the military tasked with counterterrorism, counterinsurgency, and special reconnaissance, bought access to Locate X to assist on overseas special forces operations. The other stream is through a company called X-Mode, which obtains location data directly from apps, then sells that data to contractors, and by extension, the military.

The news highlights the opaque location data industry and the fact that the U.S. military, which has infamously used other location data to target drone strikes, is purchasing access to sensitive data. Many of the users of apps involved in the data supply chain are Muslim, which is notable considering that the United States has waged a decades-long war on predominantly Muslim terror groups in the Middle East, and hundreds of thousands of civilians have died during military intervention in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

Motherboard does not know of any specific operations in which this type of app-based location data has been used by the U.S. military. The apps sending data to X-Mode include Muslim Pro, an app that reminds users when to pray and what direction Mecca is in relation to the user's current location. The app has been downloaded over 50 million times on Android, according to the Google Play Store, and over 98 million in total across other platforms including iOS, according to Muslim Pro's website. "The Most Popular Muslim App!," Muslim Pro's website reads. The app also includes passages and audio readings from the Quran. (After publication of this piece, Muslim Pro said it will no longer share data with X-Mode). Another app that sent data to X-Mode was Muslim Mingle, a dating app that has been downloaded more than 100,000 times. Read more - Lire plus

UN says 50 face possible execution in Iraq after unfair trials
Al Jazeera 20/11/2020 - Some 50 prisoners in Iraq face possible execution on Monday following conviction on terrorism-related crimes in unfair trials, according to the United Nations human rights experts.

In a joint statement released on Friday, UN experts urged the Baghdad government to immediately halt all mass executions, noting that 21 prisoners had been executed in October, followed by a further 21 last week in Nasiriya Central Prison, also known as Al Hoot.

The wave “seems to be part of a larger plan to execute all prisoners on death row”, read the statement. Some 4,000 prisoners, most of them charged with terrorism offences, are believed to be on death row in Iraq, the experts said. Hundreds of executions are imminent after their execution orders were signed off, they said.

“We strongly urge the Iraqi government to respect its international legal obligations and to immediately halt further plans to execute prisoners,” said the UN investigators, who focus on torture, arbitrary killings and protecting human rights while countering terrorism.

Trials under anti-terrorism laws have been marked by alarming irregularities, they added. “Defendants have frequently been denied the most basic right to an adequate defence and their allegations of torture and ill-treatment during interrogations have not been investigated.” Read more - Lire plus
Pakistan: 1,000 residents booked under Anti-Terrorism Act
The News 21/11/2020 - Police have registered a case against around 1,000 residents of Manzoor Colony and Mehmoodabad for staging a violent protest and attacking the authorities during a drive on Thursday to remove encroachments along the Mehmoodabad Nullah.

An FIR No 526/20 under the sections 147, 148, 149, 341, 186 and 427 of the Pakistan Penal Code and the section 7 of the Anti-Terrorism Act was registered at the Baloch Colony police station on behalf of city warden Nadir Khan, who was also wounded during the violent protest. The police said the case was registered against 800 to 1,000 unidentified residents of the area but no arrest was reported till the filing of this news report. The campaign to remove encroachments along the Mehmoodabad Nullah has been postponed for an indefinite period. [...]

Movement of traffic on the Korangi Expressway, Shaheed-e-Millat Road as well as the causeway was completely suspended, resulting in a massive traffic jam in the entire area and their adjoining localities. A resident claimed the police attacked the peaceful
protesters, following which violence erupted. “The nullah isn’t encroached upon. The KMC had given us this land,” he said, adding that the drain needs to be cleaned and the road on its both sides needs to be constructed, without demolishing any house. Read more - Lire plus
A Path for Renewing Guantanamo Closure
Just Security 17/11/2020 - With the ballots cast and counted, Joseph R. Biden, Jr. is president-elect of the United States. He must look forward to assembling his team, to inauguration, and to beginning the work of “building back better.” Although closing the 20-year-old detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba (GTMO) may not be a marquee issue among the many significant challenges Biden will face as president of the United States, it is a prerequisite for both restoring America’s global leadership by “salvag[ing] our reputation, rebuild[ing] confidence in our leadership” and for ending the so-called Forever Wars.

Closing GTMO is long overdue. As President George W. Bush recognized nearly 15 years ago, GTMO is “a propaganda tool for our enemies and a distraction for our allies.” Indeed, GTMO’s continued operation has been a drag on U.S. efforts to promote human rights and law-of-war compliance abroad. It also has proven to be a significant and continuing impediment to American counterterrorism efforts, most recently and prominently in negotiations with the United Kingdom over the disposition of the two surviving ISIS “Beatles.”

President Barack Obama understood the imperative of closing GTMO, repeatedly championed it, and made substantial progress toward that goal. His administration established a rigorous policy process to scrutinize each detainee and each proposed detainee transfer. But those efforts were stymied in part by the sudden and inexplicable transformation of GTMO closure into a partisan political issue after his inauguration. And they were dogged by specious claims of risk that reflected, without proper attribution, mistakes made during the Bush administration’s transfer of some 530 GTMO detainees. In fact, by the end of his administration, Obama had transferred 196 men from GTMO while improving the security of those transfers by a factor of five over the Bush administration’s efforts.

Today, closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay requires the United States to transfer just 40 men. Biden’s administration can safely complete that task with only moderate political, policy, and fiscal investment. Several of the steps the Biden administration should take to close GTMO are familiar—in fact, many of them were communicated to both the Trump and Biden campaigns before the election. Indeed, the reality is that Biden’s administration can accomplish 75 percent of the closure job simply by restoring, with slight modification, the successful GTMO closure policy process developed during the Obama administration. To finish the remaining 25 percent of the project, however, Biden will likely need the historically elusive support of Congress.

And Congress should aid the president-elect in closing the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay because doing so is both the right and fiscally responsible thing to do. Congress should support the responsible closure of GTMO because it will improve American security while restoring American leadership. And Congress should support the responsible closure of GTMO because it will help achieve finality and a long-sought measure of justice for the 9/11 attacks and the U.S.S. Cole bombing, among other terrorist acts. Read more - Lire plus
Kill lists: Barack Obama’s blind spot
Al Jazeera 22/11/2020 - The first volume of former President Barack Obama’s memoirs, A Promised Land, has recently been published. Most of the commentary about these memoirs has contrasted the former constitutional law professor’s polite and consensual approach to government to the mayhem that has taken place under his successor, President Donald J Trump. [...]

Very little has been said about Obama’s immoral and counterproductive approach to the so-called “war on terror” – which has set human rights back a long way, and only encouraged his successor to behave even more reprehensibly. I should preface any discussion by saying that I voted for Obama twice, and I do not regret this, given the alternatives – just imagine John McCain dying, leaving Sarah Palin in the White House. Also, it must be said that, in the unlikely circumstance that I was somehow installed as president, I would have a great time running the most powerful nation on earth, but I would get plenty of decisions wrong.

It would, though, be important to recognise my mistakes and try to correct them. Obama spends plenty of pages on challenges and achievements, but less on accepting his errors.
On his very first day in office, as Obama proudly writes, he made two commitments: “One … was closing Gitmo, the military prison at Guantanamo Bay – and thus halting the continuing stream of prisoners placed in indefinite detention there. Another was my executive order ending torture.” Both were indeed important announcements although, instead of being closed in 12 months, Guantanamo remains open 12 years later, and my clients continue to be abused there.

Obama writes that his “highest priority was creating strong systems of transparency, accountability, and oversight – ones that included Congress and the judiciary and would provide a credible legal framework”. All the sadder, then, that Obama sided with Republicans to suppress Senator Dianne Feinstein’s Senate torture report, so that much of the truth remained behind the sealed doors of the CIA. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.
Perhaps even more important, in a little-noted but extraordinary development, Obama ramped up the use of “kill lists” where he acted as judge and jury in the White House and imposed a secret death sentence on people who had hitherto been taken to prison, albeit Guantanamo. This policy was proudly leaked to the media, dubbed “Terror Tuesday”: Obama himself would watch a slide presentation of bearded Muslims and then, like a latter-day Emperor Caligula in the Colosseum, turn his thumb down to authorise their assassination by Hellfire Missile. [...]

In other words, the law professor who opposed the racist imposition of the death penalty by state courts jettisoned all his principles in the interests of domestic poll numbers and applied the death penalty without trial exclusively to Muslims. Read more - Lire plus
Saudi activist Loujain al-Hathloul sent to terrorism court
The Toronto Star 27/11/2020 - A Saudi criminal court has transferred the case of the imprisoned women's rights fighter to a special court with a "notorious" reputation. Al-Hathloul's family told DW she has already faced abuse in prison. "My family has not heard from my sister since she was taken back to prison," Lina al-Hathloul said of her sibling, Loujain al-Hathloul. The prominent Saudi Arabian women's rights activist has been imprisoned for over two years. On Wednesday, her case was transferred from a criminal court to a special anti-terrorism court for "lack of jurisdiction," her family said. "Now she is facing her trial at a far more secretive court," her sister explained to DW on Friday. Lynn Maalouf, Amnesty International's Deputy Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa, called the transfer "a disturbing move." "They transferred her case to the Specialized Criminal Court (SCC), an institution used to silence dissent and notorious for issuing lengthy prison sentences following seriously flawed trials. This is yet another sign that Saudi Arabia's claims of reform on human rights are a farce," Maalouf told DW.

Loujain Al-Hathloul was arrested in May 2018, along with about a dozen other female activists, while driving a car — only weeks before Saudi Arabia lifted the ban on female drivers. The women were subsequently accused of "suspicious contact with foreign parties," providing financial support to "hostile elements abroad" and recruiting government workers, according to the Saudi authorities. While some of the detainees have been provisionally released, Al-Hathloul has remained imprisoned since her arrest. She has repeatedly told her family that she has been subjected to sexual harassment, electric shocks and waterboarding. During the hearing on Wednesday, which al-Hathloul's parents attended, the activist raised these experiences in court. The judge consequently said that an investigation would be opened. "This came as a massive surprise," Lina said, while voicing doubts as to how credible it was, given that "at court, any torture was denied." Read more - Lire plus
Islamophobia in France Prompts Baseless Arrests, Viral Video Shows
Morocco World News 02/11/2020 - Muslims in France are facing “pre-crime” arrests and police harassment on baseless suspicions of extremism, a video going viral online clearly evidences.  A Muslim family of five were shocked to find at least four armed men, their faces covered in balaclavas, banging on their door. The family told the French TV program Quotidien that the heavily-armed men forced their way into the apartment and searched the family’s possessions.

The reason for the shocking invasion of their home revolved around something their young daughter said at school. Her teacher had asked the class what they thought of the murder of Samuel Paty. The young girl responded, “I am sad about it, but if the teacher didn’t show his students caricatures this wouldn’t have happened.” Someone either in her class or at school reported her response to the authorities, prompting the armed raid on the innocent family’s home. Her family had been marked as possible extremists because of the words of a middle school-aged girl. 

The raid was a shocking example of what the Amsterdam-based Transnational Institute (TNI) labels as “pre-crimes.”  The term originates from a Philip K. Dick’s short story titled “The Minority Report,” released as a blockbuster movie starring Tom Cruise in 2002. The concept of a pre-crime revolves around arrests made not for crimes committed, but for those the state expects someone to commit. The raid in France exemplifies how Islamophobia is leading to pre-crime arrests as the suspect’s faith prompts suspicions over their possible intentions. “Muslims are discursively and politically constructed as a threat,” TNI explained about the troubling trend that is also present in Britain and the Netherlands.

Anti-terrorism policies fueled by islamophobia legitimize “institutionalised prejudice and suspicion against Muslim populations,” the NGO warned in February. The organization released a comparative study on the troubling trend, titled “Stranger than Fiction: How ‘pre-crime’ approaches to ‘Countering Violent Extremism’ institutionalise Islamophobia.” It highlights how since 2014 France’s counter-terrorism apparatus has shifted its approach to catching potential extremists before they commit a suspected future crime. France’s separation of religion and state long prevented such targeting of minorities, but as the raid based on a child’s remarks has shown, rising Islamophobia is leading to the targeting of innocent families over baseless suspicions. Read more - Lire plus

ACTIONS & EVENTS
Two recent court decisions revealed the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) engaged in potentially illegal activities and lied to the courts. This is utterly unacceptable, especially given that this is not the first time these serious problems have been raised. CSIS cannot be allowed to act as though they are above the law.

Send a message to Public Safety Minister Bill Blair demanding that he take immediate action to put an end to this abuse of power and hold those CSIS officers involved accountable. Your message will also be sent to your MP and to Minister of Justice David Lametti.
Read our full statement on the issue here for more information. Please share it on:

NEW Stop Upload Filters - Send Letter to EU Legislators
Liberties, 11/2020 - Upload filters are not effective and also violate freedom of expression set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The main points of criticism are:
  1. Mandatory automated filters are not legal under EU law. Mandatory upload filters compromise freedom of expression, freedom to access information and personal data protection.
  2. Active monitoring of users’ content contradicts EU law, such as the GDPR and CJEU decisions.
  3. Automations are contextual blind and easily prevent uploading lawful content as well. This especially threatens legitimate journalistic coverage, art and science online that might be banned by the filters.
  4. The problem of terror will never be solved by content regulation. It only gives us false hope.
  5. The one-hour time frame is too tight for small platforms and EU start-ups. We should require them ‘acting without undue delay’.
Protect Encryption in Canada
Our ability to use the Internet safely, securely and privately is under threat. Canada wants to create 'back doors' into encryption like some of our partner countries in the Five Eyes Alliance have already done. This weakens Internet safety for all of us. If we don’t act, Canada could be next. We need a policy that explicitly protects our right to encryption.
Repatriate Canadian Children from Syria
Official Parliamentary petition to the Canadian government:

We, the undersigned citizens of Canada , call upon the Government of Canada to immediately repatriate the 25 innocent Canadian children living in inhumane conditions in the camps of northeast Syria.
Reject Dr. Carvin's Offensive Actions and Promote Anti-Racism
On September 3, 2020, Dr. Stephanie Carvin, Assistant Professor at Norman Paterson School of International Affairs (NPSIA) at Carleton University, proudly shared on her Twitter account gruesome depictions of killings of Muslim and Brown bodies as terrorists on cakes. As members and allies of the Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour (BIPOC) community, we are denouncing her actions and we are calling on Carleton University and NPSIA to publicly denounce Dr. Carvin's actions and to commit to an anti-racist environment by offering the necessary training and resources to its faculty members.
#FreeCihanErdal #LiberezCihanErdal
Cihan Erdal, a queer youth activist and a PhD Candidate in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Carleton University, was detained in Istanbul, Turkey on September 25, 2020 along with 81 other politicians, academics and activists.

We call on Canadian and Turkish authorities to take urgent action and demand Cihan’s immediate release and Cihan’s safe return to Canada!
Pardon Edward Snowden for exposing the government's illegal surveillance
Edward Snowden exposed the U.S. government’s illegal mass surveillance programs, along with shocking collusion between large technology companies and spy agencies. He risked everything to blow the whistle and help protect all of our basic human rights. He’s been in exile for long enough. It’s time to bring him home. Everyone from the ACLU to Senator Rand Paul has spoken out in support of the embattled whistleblower, and now even President Trump has indicated his potential support for a pardon. The administration is testing the waters. If we show overwhelming support to #PardonSnowden right now, we could finally get justice for him, and set a precedent that protects whistleblowers, journalists, and defenders of human rights in the future.
Reunite Ayub, Khalil, and Salahidin with their families
Ayub Mohammed, Salahidin Abdulahad, and Khalil Mamut are three Uyghur men who left China after childhoods of discrimination, persecution, and hopelessness.

They were sold by Pakistani bounty hunters to the US military in 2001 and taken with 19 other Uyghurs to Guantanamo Bay. Despite being exonerated as early as 2003, they were kept in Guantanamo for years.

Now in forced exile - Ayub in Albania, and Salahidin and Khalil in Bermuda - their families are here in Canada; and their kids growing up without their fathers.

Despite posing no threat to Canadian national security, these men have been waiting over five years to reunite with their families and find a safe place to live.
China: Free Canadian Huseyin Celil
The Chinese authorities accused Huseyin of offences related to his activities in support of Uighur rights. They held Huseyin in a secret place. They gave him no access to a lawyer, to his family, or to Canadian officials. They threatened him and forced him to sign a confession. They refused to recognize Huseyin’s status as a Canadian citizen, and they did not allow Canadian officials to attend his trial. It was not conducted fairly, and resulted in a sentence of life in prison in China. His life sentence was reduced to 20 years in February 2016. Huseyin has spent much of his time in solitary confinement. He lacks healthy food and is in poor health. Kamila needs her husband, and the boys need their father back.
Canada must act to end Islamophobia in Xinjiang, China
There is credible evidence that up to one million Uyghurs, Kazakhs and other mainly Muslim groups in China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region are being detained in secret internment camps. Detainees are brainwashed, tortured and are forced to renounce their religion and culture.


And send a message to Chrystia Freeland demanding that Canada actively support an independent and unrestricted international fact-finding initiative to Xinjiang.
Stop CSIS from targeting everyday citizens & community groups
A recent report revealed that CSIS, Canada’s spy agency, collected over 8,000 pages of documents, spying on citizens like you, people who exercise their democratic rights by attending a community meeting at a local church or taking peaceful action for what they believe in. And CSIS shared this info with Big Oil corporations. Sign this petition to tell the govt to stop using taxpayer money to unconstitutionally spy on Canadians part of peaceful community groups.
All-in-one action page: Stop Mohamed Harkat's Deportation to Torture
Call PM Trudeau, write a letter to Public Safety Minister & your MP, and sign Sophie Harkat's petition to stop the deportation of Moe Harkat.

If sent back to Algeria, Moe faces detention, torture and death.

No one should be deported to torture. Ever.
Defund the police & the RCMP
More and more people are calling on their city councils to reduce and eliminate budgets for policing. We are no longer going to pay for police to harm our communities. These funds can be re-directed to support the recovery and provide much need improvements to public housing, transit, and food security programs among other basic needs. Please use this e-mail tool to tell your City Councillor to act now to defund the police in your communities. Together we keep each other safe.


Philippines: Junk the terror bill and uphold human rights!
The Anti-Terrorism bill is a clear and direct attack against our academic freedom, right to organize, and freedom of expression to air out our grievances towards the inefficiencies and deficiencies of the government's mandate to serve its people through government services.

This positions the government to silence the any dissenter or organizer and given the rich history of harassment of law enforcement agencies and military personnel, harassment and terror-tagging has been a step further for even more killings and silencing.
Call on Justin Trudeau to ensure justice for Abousfian Abdelrazik
In September 2003, Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik was arrested in Sudan, while he was back in the country visiting his ailing mother. Over the next three years he was imprisoned for nearly 20 months and was held under house arrest for 12 months. He was denied a lawyer, and was never charged or brought before a judge. During that time he was badly tortured in three different prisons.

Not only did Canada fail to take steps to protect him, CSIS officials frequently obstructed efforts to secure his release.
Your phone is not safe at the border
Canada’s border agents can search your phone and laptop at borders and airports, including looking through your private photos, personal messages, and call history.

These ‘digital strip searches’ are allowed because our laws are incredibly out of date. But politicians are refusing to update them for our digital age.

Fight back with us: demand updated laws, learn more about your rights, and make a complaint if your privacy has been violated at the border.
MORE NEWS - AUTRES NOUVELLES
From January to July 2020
ICLMG - The first half of 2020 has been very difficult given the impact of the pandemic, but we continued working hard to protect our civil liberties. Below you can see what we have accomplished so far this year, but first here is a sneak-peek into what we plan to do for the rest of 2020:

  • We will continue to protect our civil liberties and human rights against the threat of digital surveillance in the response to COVID-19, as well as the growing dangers of facial recognition technology.


  • We will continue to monitor the implementation of the National Security Act, 2017 (formerly Bill C-59), especially around mass surveillance and immunity for CSIS employees.

  • We will continue to push for greater accountability and transparency for the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), including the establishment of a strong, effective and independent review mechanism.

  • We will continue advocating for the repeal of the Canadian No Fly List, and for putting a stop to the use of the US No Fly List by air carriers in Canada for flights that do not land in or fly over the US.

  • We will continue to call for justice for Dr. Hassan Diab and for the reform of the Extradition Act.

  • We will continue to pressure lawmakers to protect our civil liberties from the negative impact of national security and the “war on terror”, as well as keeping you and our 47 member organizations, informed via the News Digest.
Les opinions exprimées ne reflètent pas nécessairement les positions de la CSILC - The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the positions of ICLMG.
THANK YOU
to our amazing supporters!
We would like to thank all our member organizations, and the hundreds of people who have supported us over the years, including on Patreon! As a reward, we are listing below our patrons who give $10 or more per month (and wanted to be listed) directly in the News Digest. Without all of you, our work wouldn't be possible!

Mary Ann Higgs
Kevin Malseed
Brian Murphy
Colin Stuart
Bob Thomson
James Turk
Jo Wood
The late Bob Stevenson

Nous tenons à remercier nos organisations membres ainsi que les centaines de personnes qui ont soutenu notre travail à travers les années, y compris sur Patreon! En récompense, nous nommons ci-dessus nos mécènes qui donnent 10$ ou plus par mois et voulaient être mentionné.es directement dans la Revue de l'actualité. Sans vous tous et toutes, notre travail ne serait pas possible!
Merci!