2012-02-02 PCO WTF – Inside Canada's WikiLeaks Task Force

Authored by Joe B.

Today I received another large stack of LEGAL from the Privy Council Office regarding WikiLeaks. Back in July of 2011, I wrote about the DFAIT WTF, where I got the e-mails from the various diplomats who headed the WikiLeaks Task Force in Canada. Unlike the PCO, DFAIT gave me a CD, and sent me back my cheque because I hopped on someone else’s ATIP. However, this was probably the worst ATIP I have received from the PCO, most likely in revenge for the PROFUNC ATIP that I requested earlier.

I’ve lost about 10% of the documents to the scanner as I scanned this thing in. However, there’s still a lot of information remaining regarding the impact Cablegate had on Canada, and this includes the redactions. At first, it seems that the WTF was scouring the web for news articles, and they even visited wlcentral.org for information on the cables. The first PDF is old news, and contains the same e-mails that we already had from DFAIT. However, as we progress we get into relatively newer material.

There’s an e-mail about the CSIS/Judd cable which had the infamous quote about Omar Khadr (which was the basis for the name of paroxysms.ca). They then produced the transcript of CBC-NN which talked about the cable. Following that, they report on the other Canadian leaks of notice. However, the main issue of concern by DFAIT is Omar Khadr. However, one the cables relevant to Canada truly start appearing, so does the redaction square.

The silliest part of the document is the fact that all the actual Wikileaks cable names are redacted, but the dates of the release are still on. This means that someone with the time can figure out what exactly the Canadian Governemnt was concerned about. This level of secrecy is even dumber than the US Government, especially since DFAIT insists numerous times that “These cables are not of Canadian Origin”.

As usual, here are the documents as produced by the PCO. The reference number is A-2011-00235, so others can request the same document and fill in the blanks that my scanner produced by eating the crap paper that the PCO provided. Here’s an interesting side note. I mentioned the other ATIP departments to Normand Sirois of the RCMP ATIP when talking about V2010ISU docs, and he seems to think I should file a complaint for this nonsense. After the misadventure with the scanner, I’m thinking he’s most likely right about that one.

wikileaks_pco_01.pdf
wikileaks_pco_02.pdf
wikileaks_pco_03.pdf
wikileaks_pco_04.pdf