Former CSIS analyst on homegrown terrorism and Islamic doctrine – The Globe and Mail

2015/10/14 Leave a comment

Good interview with Phil Gurski, former CSIS homegrown terrorism expert, regarding the messages in his new book, The Threat From Within. Last para particularly noteworthy:

You write that extremism is like the aphorism about real estate and location – but “narrative, narrative, narrative.”

What they [al-Qaeda-inspired radicals] are propagating and distributing is this conviction they are responding to our aggression as Westerners, and they are merely defending themselves. And that’s not true, but it doesn’t have to be true to be effective. The whole point of the book is there is no pattern to this. We have to accept that terrorists come from us. They come from Canadian society. They are not off-the-boat immigrants.

You point out, though, the narrative is partly rooted in religious doctrine, or at least concepts like jihad, hijra …

Here’s the dilemma that mainstream Muslims face: The people who commit these acts of terrorism see themselves as actually representative Muslims. In fact, they see themselves as the only true Muslims and start criticizing everyone else as being non-Muslims. So it comes from within Islam, but it is not Islam. How do we accept they have taken pieces of 1,400 years of Islamic history, and use it to their advantage?

You write that fundamentalist imams in Canada should be challenged.

Even if we’re not talking about terrorism, if we’re talking about small pockets of society that will basically advocate intolerance and rejection of other parts of society, do we want a country like that? What the [fundamentalist preachers] do is they are very intolerant and rejectionist of other Muslims, let alone non-Muslims. I think we have an obligation to challenge this, to argue against this.

But our political leaders don’t know the difference between Islamic doctrines.

Politicians are going to do what politicians are going to do. That’s fine. Everyone recognizes if we’re going to talk about this issue, to do something about it at an early level, we need early intervention, before it becomes a security-intelligence issue. The government’s role is to foster and encourage the grassroots that are starting in this country. The government role has to be very much a background role.

But if the problem is narrative, and the narrative has had 1,400 years, how does someone in Ottawa come up with a program to counter it?

The line I like to use – and it really shocks some audiences – is that right now the only solution we have is to start with the four-year-olds. If we can get all the four-year-olds to understand what this narrative is saying and reject it, we’ll be fine.

Like in junior-high assemblies where the police used to say, “Don’t do drugs?”

No, it’s more than that. We as a society have to understand the child you’re raising has to be raised in an environment of tolerance and acceptance. So if you can get that right across the board – not just Muslim communities, not just immigrant communities, but in Wonder Bread white communities – we’re going to be in good shape.

Source: Former CSIS analyst on homegrown terrorism and Islamic doctrine – The Globe and Mail

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Spymaster warns foreign fighter phenomenon getting worse

2015/04/22 Leave a comment

Despite the political level over-hyping and using extremism as a wedge issue, the risks remain:

Authorities have multiple concerns about the “foreign-fighter” phenomenon. One is that young Canadian Muslims and new converts travelling to combat zones in Iraq and Syria are engaging in terrorism by supporting the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Those who survive and return to Canada as trained terrorist fighters present a greater danger. Authorities especially fear the longer-term cumulative effect the foreign-fighter phenomenon could have on domestic safety and security.

As well, individuals police and other authorities prevented from leaving the country for the purpose of terrorism, which is now illegal in Canada, might react violently on Canadian soil.

That was the case Oct. 20, when Martin Couture-Rouleau struck and killed Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent with a car in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que. Couture-Rouleau was one of the 90 people on the RCMP’s watchlist of radicalized, high-risk individuals. Police tried and failed to restrict his movements by seeking a court-ordered peace bond. But a Quebec prosecutor believed there was insufficient evidence to take the case before a judge.

Meanwhile, Coulombe singled out to the committee what he said are two common misconceptions about CSIS and its proposed powers under C-51:

First, giving CSIS disruption power will not take away any authority from the RCMP to launch criminal investigations and prosecutions, he said. “The bill will not make CSIS a secret police force. CSIS is not a law enforcement agency, and this bill will not change that, nor confer any law enforcement powers to the service.”

Second, the bill will not increase CSIS’s ability – or desire – to target environmentalists or other activist groups, he suggested. Under the 31-year-old CSIS Act, which remains unchanged under C-51, the definition of threats to the security of Canada excludes lawful advocacy, protest and dissent, he stressed.

However, with respect to C-51, it may be time for a Reagan (recycled Russian) quote “trust but verify” rather than reassurances from the bureaucratic level (or the political level).

To be reframed: “trust with oversight.”

 Spymaster warns foreign fighter phenomenon getting worse | Ottawa Citizen.

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CSIS highlights white supremacist threat ahead of radical Islam

2015/03/17 Leave a comment

A reminder that the threats are broader than government messaging and labelling would suggest:

“Lone wolf” attacks more often come from white supremacists and extreme right-wing ideologies than from Islamic radicalism, internal CSIS documents say.

Citing recent academic research, the unclassified documents note extreme right-wing and white supremacist ideology has been the “main ideological source” for 17 per cent of so-called lone wolf attacks worldwide.

Islamic extremism accounted for 15 per cent of such attacks, the document noted, while left-wing extremism and “black power” groups followed with 13 per cent. Anti-abortion activism (8 per cent) and nationalism/separatism (7 per cent) rounded out the list, while in 40 per cent of cases there was no clear ideological motivation.

“Lone actors tend to create their own ideologies that combine personal frustrations and grievances, with wider political, social, or religious issues,” note the documents prepared for Michael Peirce, assistant director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.

“This study confirms that lone actor terrorism runs the gamut of ideological persuasions.”

CSIS highlights white supremacist threat ahead of radical Islam | Toronto Star.

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Un mouvement anti-musulmans menaçant sur le web

2015/03/06 Leave a comment

Not surprising that these movements are migrating to Canada although unlikely to have the same success as in Europe. But CSIS doing its job in monitoring:

Mais sous la rubrique «Extrémisme intérieur», le SCRS évoque l’envers de la médaille de ces menaces islamistes: l’apparition récente sur internet, au Canada, d’un mouvement anti-musulmans semblable à ceux qui existent déjà en Europe.

Les «Patriotes européens contre l’islamisation de l’Occident» (Pegida) attirent par exemple depuis quelques mois des foules impressionnantes sur les grandes places de villes d’Allemagne et du Royaume-Uni.

Le SCRS estime que ce mouvement représente un risque réel, surtout parce que ses sympathisants ont tendance à préconiser la violence dans leurs actions.

La note au ministre Blaney est datée du 18 septembre 2014, soit un peu moins d’un mois avant les attentats meurtriers de Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu et d’Ottawa, les 20 et 22 octobre. Deux militaires ont perdu la vie dans ces attentats commis par des jeunes qui, selon les autorités, se réclamaient de l’islam radical.

Peu après ces événements, des gestes de vandalisme contre des mosquées ont été signalés à Ottawa, et à Cold Lake, en Alberta, des menaces ont été proférées contre l’Association des musulmans de la Colombe-Britannique, et on a fait état d’une augmentation générale dans les signalements d’intimidation et d’harcèlement public de musulmans.

Néanmoins, le SCRS est probablement plus intéressé par le sentiment anti-immigrant et anti-Islam qui a pris racine dans certaines régions du nord de l’Europe, même parmi la classe moyenne, a fait valoir Lorne Dawson, enseignant de sociologie à l’Université de Waterloo et codirecteur du Réseau canadien pour la recherche sur le terrorisme, la sécurité et la société (TSAS).

M. Dawson soupçonne que le SCRS ait été surtout ébranlé par le massacre horrible en juillet 2011 de 77 personnes en Norvège par Anders Behring Breivik, qui avait laissé un manifeste détaillant son idéologie d’extrême-droite, incluant une perspective radicale anti-musulmans.

«En Europe, cela a tendance à attirer les individus violents. Alors s’il y a la moindre chance d’une emprise au Canada, on peut comprendre pourquoi ils sont inquiets, a-t-il évoqué. Je soupçonne qu’il s’agit simplement de diligence raisonnable pour être préparé le plus rapidement possible à la lumière (des gestes) de Breivik.»

Un mouvement anti-musulmans menaçant sur le web | National.

But under the heading Domestic Extremism, the spy service also underscored what might be the flip side of that coin — the recent development “of a Canadian online anti-Islam movement, similar to ones in Europe.”

CSIS characterized it as an “ongoing risk, particularly as its proponents advocate violence.”

The Sept. 18 briefing for Blaney’s office came a little more than a month before soldiers were killed in Canadian attacks just two days apart — murders committed by young men that authorities say were motivated by Islamic extremism.

Shortly after the killings, there was vandalism of mosques in Ottawa and Cold Lake, Alta., threats against the B.C. Muslim Association, and a general increase in reports of public bullying and harassment of Muslims.

However, CSIS is likely more interested in the kind of anti-immigrant, anti-Islam sentiment that has taken root in some parts of northern Europe, even among the middle class, said Lorne Dawson, a University of Waterloo sociology professor and co-director of the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society.

“They’re just not used to dealing with immigrants at all, let alone immigrants that are quite different,” Dawson said of Europe. “We have a much longer track record of immigration in general — waves and waves of immigrants that have come for decades.”

Dawson suspects CSIS is motivated by the horrific July 2011 slaughter of 77 people in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik, who penned a manifesto outlining his far-right ideology, including an extreme anti-Muslim outlook.

“In Europe, it tends to attract violent individuals. So if (there’s) any chance it’s starting to take wings in Canada, then you can see why they’re concerned,” he said. “I suspect they’re just seeking due diligence to be on top of this at the earliest possible moment in light of Breivik.”

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RCMP counter-terrorism outreach efforts are ‘piecemeal and disjointed’: U.K. report

2015/02/12 Leave a comment

A bit surprising, given all the work and thinking by Public Safety, the RCMP and CSIS, and the lessons learned by the various iterations of the British PREVENT program and those of other countries:

Knowing that it can’t fight terrorism alone, the RCMP has reached out to Canada’s diverse communities — participated in Muslim youth forums, attended cultural events and dinners, even held yoga classes for women of different cultural backgrounds.

But is any of this feel-good community outreach working?

A report released Tuesday at a public safety conference in Ottawa suggests while the Mounties have made inroads, its outreach initiatives are “piecemeal and disjointed” and suffer from a “lack of a clear overall strategy.”

Some community members remain suspicious when police show up at gatherings, according to the report by researchers at the Royal United Services Institute, a British defence and security think tank.

Even Mounties are confused as to what the overall aims of community outreach are: is it to project a smiling face and inform people what the RCMP does or is it to collect hard intelligence? Should success be measured by the number of cultural events attended or the number of leads generated?

What’s not helping, one Mountie told the authors, is that some CSIS intelligence agents are using the RCMP “brand” to gain access to community members, further hindering trust-building efforts.

Lead author Charlie Edwards said the allegation has not been substantiated but was included in the report to reflect the fear among some RCMP members that the “firewall” between community outreach and intelligence gathering may be “difficult to maintain.”

A CSIS spokeswoman said agents do not pass themselves off as RCMP.

“I see no value,” added Ray Boisvert, a former CSIS assistant director. “CSIS officers have developed their own unique narrative to approach and engage people.”

An RCMP spokesman said the force was still reviewing the report’s findings and unable to comment.

The study, which received funding from the Canadian government, wasn’t all bad news. The RCMP’s outreach to the Muslim community around the time of the arrests of two men for allegedly plotting to derail a Via passenger train in Ontario was “universally hailed” as a great success, the study reported.

Comment about ‘firewall’ between RCMP and CSIS, and how this can weaken outreach and engagement efforts, interesting in light of proposed new powers for CSIS.

RCMP counter-terrorism outreach efforts are ‘piecemeal and disjointed’: U.K. report

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Radicalization: Les lois existantes suffisent, disent des experts

2014/10/25 Leave a comment

Will be part of the debate next week as the Government introduces its new measures to give CSIS more powers:

Pour Kent Roach, professeur de droit à l’Université de Toronto et expert reconnu des lois antiterrorisme au Canada, les services de sécurité ont déjà tout ce qu’il faut. « Avant d’attribuer les événements de lundi [Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu] et mercredi [Ottawa] à des carences dans la lutte antiterrorisme canadienne, il faut être prudent », dit-il au Devoir. Il suggère d’« éviter d’aller vers des changements législatifs faits dans l’urgence ».

Selon lui, « l’enjeu est beaucoup plus de mettre en application les lois existantes que d’en adopter de nouvelles », même si le cas de Martin Couture-Rouleau qui a tué un militaire à Saint-Jean montre qu’il peut être difficile d’accumuler une preuve suffisante permettant d’arrêter une personne que l’on sait potentiellement dangereuse. « Mais dans ce cas, nous ne savons pas pourquoi son passeport a été confisqué sans que d’autres actions soient prises », dit-il prudemment.

L’avocat criminaliste Jean-Claude Hébert pense sensiblement la même chose que M. Roach. « Il est faux de prétendre que les lois ne prévoient pas les outils juridiques nécessaires, au contraire », dit-il. M. Hébert estime que les forces policières et de renseignement ont le « fardeau de la preuve de démontrer qu’ils manquent de pouvoirs et que cela empêche les agents de faire leur travail correctement ».

Les lois existantes suffisent, disent des experts | Le Devoir.

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ICYMI: CSIS has tabs on radicalized Canadians who have fought abroad

2014/10/23 Leave a comment

Good analysis of the challenges in knowing the numbers and the nature of radicalized Canadians:

“When we’re talking about 80 returnees, we’re not talking about 80 people who have fought in Iraq and Syria, and we’re not necessarily talking about people who were directly involved in planning terrorist activities,” Coulombe told the committee. “We have Canadians in Afghanistan, in Pakistan, in Yemen, in Lebanon, in the Sahel, in the Maghreb, who are involved in terrorist-related activities. But it could be fundraising, could be propaganda, so I don’t want people to believe that we have 80 returnees who are hard fighters in Iraq and Syria, because that is not the picture we have at the moment.”

CSIS has tabs on radicalized Canadians who have fought abroad.

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ISIS threat could mute objections to expanded anti-terror laws, critics fear – Politics – CBC News

2014/10/20 Leave a comment

Will be interesting to see if the Bill is narrowly focussed on the stated gaps or whether, as is often its want, the Government over-reaches to the point of provoking opposition.

The oversight issue is critical as more powers are provided. We have seen the risks of lack of oversight in the US, with the CIA essentially spying on Congress among other things:

Independent MP Brent Rathgeber agrees that the current international crisis and threat of homegrown terror “will provide cover for the government to expand the roles of CSEC and CSIS, and what they share with the Five Eyes.”

The Five Eyes is the collective name for Canada and its intelligence-sharing allies — the U.S., Britain, Australia and New Zealand.

Rathgeber stressed some of those powers may very well be necessary, “given that the ISIS threat must be taken seriously.”

The issue, he said, is to balance those national security concerns with privacy rights.”

Security agencies unchecked will grow both in times of imminent threat and in times of comparative security,” he told CBC News. “Therefore it is incumbent on civilian oversight and Parliament to provide checks and balances.”

Even so, he said he’s not expecting to see any increased oversight powers in the new bill — and “given the legitimate climate of fear, or at least concern,” he said, “the public will be complacent.”

By a twist of procedural timing, MPs may find themselves with an opportunity to debate greater oversight when a private members bill, sponsored by Liberal defence critic Joyce Murray, comes before the House this fall.

The bill would create a special parliamentary committee to monitor legislative, regulatory, policy and administrative framework for intelligence and national security in Canada, and review activities of all federal agencies, including CSIS.

Murray told CBC News she “has no problem in principle” with giving CSIS more leeway to keep track of suspected terrorists abroad.But shes not ready to give up on transparency and accountability.

“The absence of parliamentary oversight and review mechanism for our security agencies means an absence of accountability to the Canadian public.”

She’ll need to the support of the government to pass her bill, however, which doesn’t seem to be forthcoming.

“There is robust oversight of national security agencies in Canada,” Public Safety spokesman Jason Tamming told CBC News.

“We are always focused on protecting the rights of Canadians,” he said, adding the government appointed a former Ontario NDP MPP to the civilian oversight body in 2009.

“We don’t need to strike any new committees to create duplicative oversight.”

As to the last point, given the overall Government approach (e.g., cyberbullying bill which included increased surveillance powers), impossible to take seriously.

ISIS threat could mute objections to expanded anti-terror laws, critics fear – Politics – CBC News.

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Experts cautious about boost in powers for spy agency | Ottawa Citizen

2014/10/18 Leave a comment

Some initial reactions to the proposed changes to CSIS to allow it to counter extremism and terrorism. Seems like the informant issue may be more problematic than the “Five Eyes” sharing issue:

One measure would let CSIS work more closely with its allies in the “Five Eyes” spy network, which is made up of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand. This would allow CSIS to obtain information from the others on Canadians fighting abroad with terror groups, and would allow it to help another Five Eyes country track its nationals working with terror groups in Canada.

A second measure would give CSIS informants the same anonymity that already exists for police sources, who are not subject to cross-examination and can have their identities hidden, even from trial judges.

“What we’re trying to do is give our sources a class privilege akin to that of law enforcement,” said Andy Ellis, CSIS’s assistant director of operations, citing a “chilling effect” on informants without such protections.

“They’re going to have to be fairly careful in how they draft this,” said Craig Forcese, associate professor of law at the University of Ottawa. “The devil’s in the details in terms of what’s in the bill.”

Both changes come as courts have slammed CSIS’s approach to investigations.

Last year, a federal court judge said Five Eyes warrants were being used as a back-door way to spy on Canadians, putting them at risk of being detained abroad.

“If you throw some info over the fence, the allies can do whatever they want,” said Forcese, expressing concern over cases like that of Maher Arar, a Syrian Canadian detained and deported to Syria while in the United States. Arar was tortured during his imprisonment in Syria but later completely exonerated in Canada from any links to terrorism.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in May that CSIS informants already have sufficient protection, with their anonymity decided on a case-by-case basis.

Intelligence expert Wesley Wark served as an expert witness in that case, in which CSIS revealed one of its sources had failed lie-detector tests. He said not allowing informants to be cross-examined in secret trials would be “very problematic.”

“The court said informants need more protection, but not blanket protection. Why are they going to ignore that ruling and introduce something into legislation?” said Wark, adding that he’s never heard of a CSIS informant’s identity being publicly revealed since the agency’s creation in 1984.

Forcese said police informant anonymity has developed in case law — not through legislation — so enshrining it in legislation will require close constitutional scrutiny to make sure the right of a fair trial isn’t infringed.

Experts cautious about boost in powers for spy agency | Ottawa Citizen.

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Canadians in terrorist armies threaten us all – CSIS and Canadian Responsibility

2014/08/25 Leave a comment

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Director Michel Coulombe’s op-ed on radicalization. Not much new in his overview, and no particular insights into why some are radicalized or not, but nevertheless worth reading.

I found however his comment below interesting in light of the Government’s recent changes to the Citizenship Act providing for revocation in cases of dual nationals engaged in terrorist activities.

Coulombe is saying that this is a “Canadian problem.”

Indeed, so why therefore should we banish or exile them, rather than locking them up in Canada?

Even if a Canadian extremist does not immediately return, he or she is still a Canadian problem. No country can become an unwitting exporter of terrorism without suffering damage to its international image and relations. Just as Canada expects other nations to prevent their citizens from harming Canadians and Canadian interests, we too are obligated to deny Canadian extremists the ability to kill and terrorize people of other countries.

 

Same point made by Chris Selley of the National Post, among others (Stripping jihadis’ citizenship feels good. But what good does it do?, Actually, my citizenship is a right):

Canadians in terrorist armies threaten us all – The Globe and Mail.

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