Cops, spies and journalists: Top Mountie Bob Paulson speaks out
Spying by officers was not approved, RCMP commissioner says – so officers kept asking
In a broad and candid statement to CBC News, RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson explains why (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)
So, instead of punting the question to a communications officer, the head of the RCMP sat down on Tuesday night and tapped out his own version of a tangled story about illicit spying by his officers.
Yes, he said, the Mounties put two journalists under surveillance. And no, they did not have his approval — which was required. Three times, he’d turned them down. But they’d already done it anyway.
Who’s the leaker?
The tale begins with disclosures made in June of 2007 by Joel-Denis Bellavance, a highly-regarded reporter for the Montreal newspaper, La Presse. These indicated that CSIS had intelligence — or claimed to have it — about a bomb plot involving Adil Charkaoui, a suspected Al Qaeda sleeper agent.
A briefing note prepared late last year reveals that RCMP officers conducted unauthorized physical surveillance of journalists Gilles Toupin, left, and Joel-Denis Bellavance in an attempt to discover the source of a leaked CSIS document. (Twitter photos)
One question bothered CSIS: how did Bellavance get that secret document?
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