By: E&P Staff The Canadian security law used to justify a 2004 police raid on an Ottawa Citizen reporter's home and office should be overturned, a civil liberties attorney argued in court Wednesday.
"This is a case that strikes at the heart of civil liberties protected by the (Canadian) Charter (of Rights and Freedoms)," Stuart Svonkin, a lawyer for the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, told the court, according to an account on the Citizen's Web site written by Don Butler.
Svonkin ecohed the argument of the lawyer for Citizen reporter Juliet O'Neill, who on Monday argued in the same Superior Court in Ottawa that parts of the Security of Information Act are unconstitutionally vague and broad. ''These provisions have been the subject of consistent criticism throughout the Commonwealth,'' David Paciocco said. ''We do not declare citizens criminal in this country, in 2006 on the basis of statutes like this.''
O'Neill and the newspaper are in court seeking to have the search warrants used in the raids declared unconstitutional, and for the return of items seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
The Mounties raided O'Neill's home and office in the Citizen on Jan. 21, 2004 following publication of an article she wrote about a Canadian citizen who was detained by U.S. authorities and deported to Syria. Arguing the article was based on government leaks, the Mounties obtained search warrants alleging possible violations of the security law.
Police seized notes, files and computer drives in the raid.
Lawyers for O'Neill and the newspaper, however, won an immediate court order sealing the seized item.
The government argues the items should be returned to the Mounties so they can continue their investigation of the leak.
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