MacKay’s office alleged that the information was the result of a leak, even though Citizen reporter David Pugliese identified on four occasions that the details came from a U.S. Navy news release.
According to documents released under access to information, MacKay’s office requested that the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service (NIS), which is called in for serious crimes or sensitive matters, track down how Pugliese obtained information, setting in motion a month-long probe.
Pugliese, the Citizen’s defence reporter, provided details of Canada’s involvement in RIMPAC, the world’s largest international maritime exercise, in a May 10, 2012 item on his Defence Watch blog, repeatedly attributing the information to the U.S. Navy.
Despite that, the NIS conducted a thorough “investigative assessment,” including a search of email traffic through DND’s firewall, in an effort to identify the source of the “leak” before concluding that no offence had occurred.
Citizen editor-in-chief Gerry Nott said the conduct of the NIS “would be humorous if it wasn’t outrageous. For investigators to be tied up chasing a phantom leak of publicly available information speaks to both paranoia and incompetence.’
In an email, Jay Paxton, MacKay’s director of communications, said the minister’s office “disapproves of the unauthorized release of information that can be damaging to the defence team’s ability to communicate with Canadians and views any release of unauthorized information as a breach of ethical conduct.
“Such a breach of conduct includes information that is damaging to the activities of the defence team or individuals of that team.”
Paxton added that MacKay and his staff do not authorize NIS investigations, “but this Office agrees the defence organization needs to address leaks.”
The Citizen filed several access to information requests after sources told the newspaper the military police force was being used inappropriately to investigate journalists who wrote or broadcast embarrassing information about MacKay and the Canadian Forces leadership.
In response, DND released details of four NIS investigations involving the unauthorized release of information to the news media in 2011 and 2012, three of which were prompted by Pugliese’s stories or queries. DND withheld information about a fifth investigation because it was ongoing, but sources say it too involved Pugliese.
The NIS began its investigation into Pugliese’s blog item on RIMPAC after receiving a complaint from Josée Touchette, then DND’s assistant deputy minister, public affairs. But the access documents make it clear that she was acting on allegations from officials in MacKay’s office.
In her written complaint to the NIS, Touchette says MacKay’s office “alleges that information was passed on to David Pugliese” by someone in her office.
The allegation is curious, because MacKay’s office was advised that the U.S. Third Fleet had made its own RIMPAC announcement — including information about Canada’s participation — on May 8, two days before Pugliese’s blog item appeared.
According to Touchette’s complaint, MacKay’s office had been sitting on a news release from the Royal Canadian Navy about Canada’s involvement in RIMPAC since May 7.
Following the release by the U.S. Navy, Commander Hubert Genest, director of public affairs for the Royal Canadian Navy, “highly recommended” that DND proceed with the Canadian announcement on May 9.
In an email later that day, Quinn Watson, a DND public affairs official, said MacKay’s office “has advised that (the announcement) will not be approved today due to conflicting priorities. They will look at it as soon as they are able.”
On May 10, Pugliese published his blog item under the heading, “Conservative government won’t give the Canadian Forces permission to talk about their involvement in RIMPAC 2012 but here are the details.”
Pugliese noted that it was even difficult for the Canadian Forces to get permission from the government to talk about what they consider good news. “It’s almost a total clampdown on information,” he wrote, referring to departmental policies that prevent officers — even public affairs officers — from speaking to journalists. Instead, they must respond to media questions by sending talking points in emails.
On May 11, Lieutenant-Colonel Rob Delaney, the NIS’s commanding officer, sent an email to Major Phil Casswell, head of the NIS’s central region, advising that Touchette had “brought forward concerns that stemmed from the MNDO (minister of national defence’s office) that her office had leaked information to the media” regarding RIMPAC.
Delaney instructed Casswell to have central region do an “investigative assessment on the situation to determine if there is in fact any service or criminal offence for us to investigate.”
On May 14, Sgt. Rod O’Brien, a central region investigator, received an email instructing him to begin the investigative assessment.
On May 23, O’Brien interviewed Touchette, and later summarized her comments in a short report released under access to information.
According to his summary, Touchette said MacKay’s office “assumed the leak had come from the Public Affairs office as they had already been advised by the Navy that it had not come from their department.”
Touchette also told O’Brien that “this was not the first instance of this type which has been raised by the minister’s office.”
O’Brien also reported that Touchette was “aware there was no security classification or designation of the information and as such there was likely no offence present.”
The following day, O’Brien interviewed Brigadier-General Sylvain Bedard, DND’s director general of public affairs, who also told him there was likely no criminal or National Defence Act offence applicable in the case.
On June 12, O’Brien contacted Touchette’s executive assistant, Daniel Lebouthillier, to brief him on the findings of the investigative assessment. In a summary of that discussion, O’Brien said Lebouthillier “was advised that the file assessment had found no evidence of an offence and all avenues explored to identify the source of the leak had met with negative results.”
Casswell endorsed O’Brien’s findings the same day, declaring that “the investigative assessment into this matter is now concluded.”
But the NIS wasn’t finished with the file quite yet. Three months later, on Sept. 11, 2012, Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Frei, the new commanding officer of NIS, briefed Bedard and two senior officials from MacKay’s office — Paxton and John MacDonell, MacKay’s chief of staff — on the results of the investigative assessment.
Frei summarized the results in a letter, saying documents provided by Touchette’s officials — including Pugliese’s blog item — “clearly identify his source of information … as a United States Third Fleet news release.” Pugliese, he said, “had ample information from which to extract and produce his subsequent news article.
“The only information that could be deemed to have been leaked is the fact that the Government of Canada’s news release had not yet been authorized for release,” Frei wrote.
But, he added, “it is very possible that (Pugliese) made a simple inquiry and was told that DND was not yet authorized to release any information.”
Given that there was “absolutely no evidence that classified and/or designated information was released to the news media, no security breach has been committed,” Frei concluded.
In a summary note on the meeting, Frei wrote that MacDonell had asked if he could retain a copy of Frei’s letter for MacKay. But Frei declined, pointing out that the letter was addressed to Touchette, not to him.
Frei wrote that he explained to MacDonell that “if he could provide us with a suspect, the NIS could investigate further to determine if the nature of the ‘leak’ might constitute an offence.”
But, he added, MacDonell “did not provide any additional information that would enable this investigation to be reopened.”
The Canadian government isn’t alone in using questionable and aggressive methods to track down the source of media leaks. In the United States, the Obama administration has admitted seizing two months’ worth of phone records of calls made by Associated Press reporters and editors without first informing the organization.
The seizure was an apparent attempt to identify sources of an AP story about the CIA foiling an alleged terrorists plot in Yemen.
Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com
Author: Don Butler
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