CSIS destroyed files on Diefendbaker and Pearson to “respect the privacy rights”...
Received this link from a friend. An oldie but goodies I suppose. If you guys think you have it bad in the U.S you need to understand that the activities the RCMP and CSIS have been getting away with has been going on largely unchallenged since the 1950's. Imagine friends and even family members spying on you? That is what we experience in Canada.
I remember reading a great book by Anna Funder titled "Stasiland", in it she describes the immense efforts of the Statsi to burn and shred all files as the Berlin wall was coming down. They needed to do this to protect their secrets, to protect the fact that they employed friends, neighbours, co-woekrs, wives, father-in-laws and anyone else they could to actively spy on their family members and friends. How does an agency get away with this in 2012 in a democracy?
http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1212703--csis-compiled-files-on-john-diefenbaker-lester-pearson-newly-declassified-records-show
OTTAWA—Canadian security agents compiled dossiers on former prime ministers John Diefenbaker and Lester Pearson but the secret files were destroyed in the late 1980s, newly declassified records show.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service, which inherited the highly sensitive files from the RCMP’s security branch, says they were discarded to “respect the privacy rights” of the leaders, both of whom died in the 1970s.
Two intelligence historians dismissed the CSIS explanation as ridiculous.
“How could destroying these files protect Pearson and Dief’s privacy when they were already dead?” asked Steve Hewitt, a senior lecturer in the Department of American and Canadian Studies at the University of Birmingham in England.