26 November 2004

RCMP reveals secret documents
used to authorize raid on reporter

Legal battle to overturn search warrant gets fresh ammunition

OTTAWA | TNG Canada/CWA

More than 1,000 secret documents used by the RCMP to authorize raids on the home and office of Ottawa Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill were released today in compliance with a court order.

An Ontario Superior Court ruling on Nov. 12 overturned a secrecy order for the search warrant issued under the Security of Information Act. Madam Justice Lynn Ratushny had given the federal government and the Mounties 12 days to appeal her decision, which neither elected to do.

Although heavily censored, the documents will nevertheless give the newspaper's lawyers fresh material to bolster their legal bid to have the search warrants thrown out as violations of constitutional press freedom.

"The sealing orders limited the applicants' Charter rights including the fundamental right of freedom of expression and freedom of the press," Ratushny wrote in a 24-page decision. "They limited the public's right of access to our court system. They limited these fundamental rights in both an unauthorized and unjustifiable way."

The raids on Jan. 21 were widely condemned as assaults on press freedom and privacy. TNG Canada/CWA and the Ottawa Newspaper Guild were among those who expressed outrage and demanded that Prime Minister Paul Martin reconsider anti-terrorism laws and the Security of Information Act in particular.

RCMP officers are attempting to identify the sources who provided information for a story O'Neill wrote about Maher Arar, the Canadian deported as an alleged terrorist by U.S. authorities to Syria where he was imprisoned for a year. That deportation is currently the subject of a federal inquiry.

O'Neill's legal battle to protect her sources has been joined by the CBC, the Toronto Star, the Globe and Mail and the Canadian Civil Liberties Union.

The Canadian Association of Journalists welcomed the Superior Court ruling. "This judgment takes some first steps toward strengthening protections for the public's right to know," said CAJ president Paul Schneidereit. "Judge Ratushny's ruling has recognized that journalists are the main conduit through which citizens are informed about matters of vital importance to a functioning democracy, and that infringing upon media freedoms turns journalists into agents of the state and harms their ability to serve the public."

The CAJ, says the news release, has documented a steady string of instances in which journalists have been legally threatened or forced to hand over material and reveal their sources. The RCMP raids in the O'Neill case follow a pattern of police interference that treats journalists as agents of the state.