By Bal Brach. Published: Sunday, March 23, 2008 OTTAWA — Canada has officially declared a partnership with Israel on issues of public safety, according to an agreement of intent signed Sunday in Israel.  Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day met with the Avi Dicter, Israel’s Minister of Public Security on a visit to the country during Easter weekend.  Although no details of a timeline or meetings was announced, a statement issued by Day’s office said the declaration seeks to establish a more “structured framework” for work in areas such as organized crime, emergency management, and crime prevention.

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The Toronto-area man who is the first person in Canada to be charged with helping finance terrorists was granted bail in a British Columbia court Tuesday. Prapaharan Thambithurai, the first man in Canada to be charged with terrorist financing, was granted bail Tuesday by a Vancouver court. Prapaharan Thambithurai, 45, was released on $25,000 bail. After leaving Vancouver Provincial Court, he was picked up by his wife, who was driving a black Cadillac Escalade.

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As Agency Sweeps Up Data Terror Fight Blurs. By SIOBHAN GORMAN, Wall Street Journal. March 10, 2008; Page A1

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Five years ago, Congress killed an experimental Pentagon antiterrorism program meant to vacuum up electronic data about people in the U.S. to search for suspicious patterns. Opponents called it too broad an intrusion on Americans’ privacy, even after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. But the data-sifting effort didn’t disappear. The National Security Agency, once confined to foreign surveillance, has been building essentially the same system. The central role the NSA has come to occupy in domestic intelligence gathering has never been publicly disclosed. But an inquiry reveals that its efforts have evolved to reach more broadly into data about people’s communications, travel and finances in the U.S. than the domestic surveillance programs brought to light since the 2001 terrorist attacks.

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Ian MacLeod. Canwest News Service  Thursday, March 06, 2008

OTTAWA – Canada’s biggest case of alleged homegrown terrorism – the “Toronto 18” – is turning out to be little more than a bunch of “wanna-be jihadists” who posed little real danger, says a member of the Advisory Council on National Security to the cabinet. David Charters says what initially appeared to be a frightening plot to bomb Toronto landmarks and storm Parliament appears to be something far less sinister. “I will be surprised if more than two or three are ever convicted of serious crimes. To anyone the least bit familiar with security, their so-called ‘plans’ were scarcely credible,” Charters said in a keynote address Thursday to the Canadian Aviation Security Conference. “While not calling into question their desire to dosomething dramatic, it is clear their reach exceeded their grasp.”

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Tim Shorrock , Special to CorpWatch. November 27th, 2007

A new intelligence institution to be inaugurated soon by the Bush administration will allow government spying agencies to conduct broad surveillance and reconnaissance inside the United States for the first time. Under a proposal being reviewed by Congress, a National Applications Office (NAO) will be established to coordinate how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and domestic law enforcement and rescue agencies use imagery and communications intelligence picked up by U.S. spy satellites. If the plan goes forward, the NAO will create the legal mechanism for an unprecedented degree of domestic intelligence gathering that would make the U.S. one of the world’s most closely monitored nations. Until now, domestic use of electronic intelligence from spy satellites was limited to scientific agencies with no responsibility for national security or law enforcement.

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