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Montreal Police Monitored iPhone of La Presse Journalist Patrick Lagace (www.cbc.ca)

Montreal police have reportedly spied on La Presse journalist Patrick Lagace, tracking his cellphone calls, texts, and locations. According to Legace, the police department "obtained the court-authorized search warrants because they believed the target of one of their investigations was feeding him information." However, he said "the story in question was actually first reported on by a competitor, leading him to believe the investigation was actually a thinly veiled attempt to learn the identity of the sources within the police department." CBC.ca reports: La Press reported Monday at least 24 surveillance warrants were issued for Patrick Lagace's iPhone this year at the request of the police special investigations unit. That section is responsible for looking into crime within the police force. The warrants were used to track Lagace's whereabouts using the GPS chip in his iPhone. The warrants also allowed police to obtain the identities of everyone he spoke to or exchanged text messages with during that time. It's part of a "culture shift" among law enforcement and judges that began with the passing of Bill C-51 under the previous Conservative government, he said. Henheffer pointed to other recent cases where law enforcement has been spying on journalists or fighting for them to turn over the names of anonymous sources in court. In September, the Surete du Quebec seized Journal de Montreal reporter Michael Nguyen's computer because they believed he illegally obtained information cited in a story he wrote. At the same time, the RCMP has been trying to get a reporter from Vice News to hand over background materials used for stories on a suspected terrorist. Last May, CBC News revealed that a rogue group of Mounties investigating the leak of a secret document spied on two Canadian journalists for more than a week without any authorization.

56 comments

  1. Remember the Police Mindset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If you're not a cop, you're guilty.

    1. Re:Remember the Police Mindset by penguinoid · · Score: 2

      And if you're in charge of enforcing the rules, the rules don't apply to you.

      --
      Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
    2. Re:Remember the Police Mindset by Pig+Hogger · · Score: 1

      And we'd like to put everyone in jail, for their safety.

    3. Re:Remember the Police Mindset by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Because we believe we may have reason to be fearing for our lives.

  2. News-speak at 11. by Hylandr · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Last May, CBC News revealed that a rogue group of Mounties investigating the leak of a secret document spied on two Canadian journalists for more than a week without any authorization..

    I read this as :

    Last May, CBC News reported Mounties had investigated two Canadian journalists for more than a week over the leak of a secret document. No charges were filed.

    --
    ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
    1. Re:News-speak at 11. by Korbeau · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I am not sure if your comment is aimed at minimizing the impact of police spying over journalists (business as usual?), but you should note that this snippet from the article is completely unrelated to the main case with the Montreal police.

      About the main case with the Montreal police, it is currently considered a big enough thing that it is monopolizing the news in Quebec and all government levels are actively seeking answers and solutions to this unprecedented abuse of power against freedom of press.

      It now appears that Montreal police has started mass spying over journalists last spring in order to find whistle-blowers inside their organization (http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/montreal/201611/01/01-5036642-le-spvm-avait-lance-une-chasse-aux-sources-journalistiques-au-printemps.php).

      Edward Snowden even twitted on the topic yesterday: https://twitter.com/Snowden/st...

    2. Re:News-speak at 11. by Korbeau · · Score: 1

      | OMG! If Snowden wiped his ass then it makes it REAL!

      I think there are enough evidences to make this a real event. Now I didn't bring Snowden to give any ethical bias, just to highlight it is in fact very current and news-worthy.

      The debate seems twofold: first of all why the chief of police gave orders to hunt on police sources / leaks in the media (on this topic it seems the mayor was putting a lot of pressure on the head of police), and then why municipal judges don't challenge such requests (on this it seems such judges are mostly municipal stamp pushers and underpaid 50% relative to their colleagues, and may have work-history related bias towards law enforcement).

      The fact that a well-known journalist backed by its journal is involved makes it maybe a little more sensational than it seems. But for example, the first thing LaPresse did when learning about it was request a court order to censor all phone numbers in any documents from this operation, because if any of this is used in any kind of process, it could unintentionally unveil other hidden journalistic sources non-related to the affair.

      We can be pretty much sure this guy won't have any more exclusive news for a while as confidential sources will no longer trust contacting him.

  3. Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Police does what they can do, not what they are allowed to do! "The end justifies the means"

    More at 11!

    1. Re:Breaking News! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The police was authorized, so isn't the judge who approved the warrants to blame here? When the police said "we're investigating X and X called Y, so let us spy on Y for 1 year" the answer should have been "hell no, a phone call doesn't mean that Y is a suspect, do you think that I'm stupid?"

  4. Well so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    This is something of a big deal here. There always has been mistrust of police since the 1970's in Quebec.

    When you start spying on journalist, you are are only one Putin away from dictatorship.

    Pun intended.

    1. Re:Well so by zlives · · Score: 2

      you misspelled Trump

    2. Re:Well so by srw · · Score: 1

      In Canada that's "misspelt" (you insensitive clod?)

    3. Re:Well so by zlives · · Score: 1

      Miss Pelt, hmmm sounds weird to me

    4. Re:Well so by zlives · · Score: 2

      Obama only did it because they stopped taking money http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01... .

      me personally, i don't give Obama a pass on anything including the FISA vote before taking the presidency.

      that being said in this particular event of elections coming up... its not a question of Dem. vs Rep. the choice is not equal.

    5. Re:Well so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Let me guess: it is OK when Democrats do it (which they have), but it would be horrible if the Republicans did it (which they haven't yet)...

      Jesus fucking Christ, what are you smoking?

      Bush Lets U.S. Spy on Callers Without Courts

      NSA warrantless surveillance (2001–07)

    6. Re:Well so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Obama only did it because they stopped taking money http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01... .

      me personally, i don't give Obama a pass on anything including the FISA vote before taking the presidency.

      that being said in this particular event of elections coming up... its not a question of Dem. vs Rep. the choice is not equal.

      Classic Republican tactic # 1:

      Accuse your political opponent of doing what you did and at the same time deny that it was you doing it.

      Classic Republican tactic # 2:

      Tell the same lie and just repeat it when you are called on it like you haven't been caught when you have been caught in a lie in front of everyone (Trump has done this 70% of the time!!!!)

      Word of advice to the conservatives, if you are going to lie try making it believable and not something you did if it is an accusation of guilt! It makes you not only look like a hypocrite, it makes you look like an idiot!

    7. Re: Well so by harrkev · · Score: 0

      Funny how the Democrats seem to be doing everything that you claim Republicans do.

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    8. Re:Well so by ChunderDownunder · · Score: 1
      *whoosh*

      I'm pretty sure, amid election fervour, you missed a poutine gag in the grandparent post.

    9. Re:Well so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And we serve putins everywhere in this province.

    10. Re: Well so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And the republicans are doing everything they claim the democrats are doing.

      So how about we stop this partisan crap they want to keep us mired in, and follow the money for once?

    11. Re:Well so by harrkev · · Score: 1

      Funny how I am marked as "flamebait" for simply supplying the truth.

      FACT: Obama administration spied on journalists. I guess the truth is flaimbait.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    12. Re: Well so by RandomAvatar · · Score: 1

      Funny how U.S. politics seems to invade unrelated threads like a virus invades a body... only with a virus, at least you can develop a resistance, U.S. politics just remains annoying.

    13. Re: Well so by harrkev · · Score: 1

      Parent post had to include Trump by saying he would do the same thing. I was just pointing out that Obama had already done this.

      --
      "-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
    14. Re:Well so by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Re: "...only one Putin away from dictatorship."

      I like that. Is the Putin a unit of measure now? I imagine it to be a unit of repression, or authoritarian traits. The Democratic Republic of Congo could rate 100 Putins, for instance. In extreme cases you might have to invoke the kiloPutin or even the megaPutin!

  5. 2 words. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Dudley Do-right. WTFC? This is like saying a bunch of moms from Ensenada examined their kids' Halloween candy.

    1. Re: 2 words. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read correctly, this happened in Quebec where police forces are actually professional and requires years of training. Not some half ass police department in a backward country where anyone with a gun can apply like USA and other developing nation...

    2. Re: 2 words. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly, if they indeed did this on the own, without over site, then multiple laws were broke. The officer's involved knew they broke the law. Even if they were ordered, there is always the caviet of following an unlawful order. I'm not sure what there lingo for that is, but I know the princable exists.

    3. Re: 2 words. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fiche moi le con, salaud.

    4. Re: 2 words. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your lingo is hard to read. The officers got a warrant to search call ID and GPS data. It was all done legally, which is the most concerning element.

  6. Don't talk to the police by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Remember last week when all you bootlickers were telling me that you'd talk to the police because you don't think you'll go to jail for doing it and you want to help others that badly? You know, back there on the article about the cell dragnet the police put together to text 7500 phones that were within the vicinity of the crime scene?

    You still willing to talk to the police?

    Canadian police are corrupt. Keep your yap shut, always. Or take a risk. But realize, they have no respect for you or your rights.

    1. Re:Don't talk to the police by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Remember last week when all you bootlickers were telling me that you'd talk to the police because you don't think you'll go to jail for doing it and you want to help others that badly? You know, back there on the article about the cell dragnet the police put together to text 7500 phones that were within the vicinity of the crime scene?

      Yes, my memory works just fine, and my sense of morality is largely unchanged. Yes, I remember thinking that that was a fairly 'clever' modern way of canvassing the neighbourhood!

      You still willing to talk to the police?

      Yes, absolutely.

      Canadian police are corrupt. Keep your yap shut, always. Or take a risk.

      I'd certainly go as far as to say that some people are corrupt, some people are police and there's probably a non-zero subset of these groups. However I don't see this as sufficient reason to abrogate my 'civic duty' or my responsibility to assist in the shaping of a society in which I'd be happy to live, so, thanks for the 'advice', but I'll take the risk.

      But realize, they have no respect for you or your rights.

      You do realise this isn't the 70's anymore right? I'm pretty sure the number of incidents in which a 'suspect' has been tied to chair and beaten with a rubber hose until they squeal like a pig to the pigs has fallen, since then, to approximately zero (in my country and the country in question, at least). Furthermore, you do realise that, in the case in question, the police applied for and got legal warrants for their surveillance. Journalists may not be compelled to reveal their sources, but there's no absolute protection on them for crimes they might commit in pursuit of a story, nor is there any protection on their sources if they can be identified without the journalist intentionally giving them up.

      Depending on what you do there's a healthy level of paranoia (don't carry your cellphone if you're going to meet with your snitch; don't set your dead drop in an area covered by cctv cameras; etc.) and then there's batshit crazy. I can't help thinking you're heading towards the second camp...

  7. What the media can learn by AHuxley · · Score: 1

    If your going to have a cell phone on you know the gov, mil, police will track you.
    The ability to plot you and your contacts is easy. The ability to log what other phone stopped with and for how long is within a nations city or state police budget per case.
    A park bench, a cafe, walking side by side for any length of time can all be discovered. With cell phone mapping it will all be logged and can be played back.
    Don't meet contacts with your phone. Have a friend take your phone with them into an area and wonder around to create a fake map.
    You can still be tracked on CCTV, by vehicle registration plate but thats is a given.
    Do not trust any soft power down, remote turn on is alway a gov/mil supported option in many devices.
    Anyone in the press should be aware of how police counter the media with all the tools they can get.
    Journalists caught on tape in police bugging (21 September 2002)
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk...
    Your phone is designed to be wire tap friendly as sold globally. Don't carry it near contacts or use it to create vast amounts of disinformation.

    --
    Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    1. Re:What the media can learn by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      What surprised me most from TFS is that it puts GPS in the mix. By nature, GPS is a passive technology: you can not track something using GPS without the device itself cooperating. To be able to track a phone using its own GPS receiver you must have a way for that phone itself to switch on the GPS receiver and relay this information to who-ever wants to know it. Normally the only way to do this is to hack into someone's phone: install some malware that relays the info, or break into someones anti-theft account or so.

      This in contrast to normal mobile location data, as obtained by triangulating a phone using the network's transmitters. That's the network figuring out where a specific device is, no access to the device needed. This only requires cooperation from the network much easier to obtain using warrants (and of course without the subject knowing they're under surveillance), and is much more in line with the rest of the info cited: being able to get info on phone calls and text messages.

      But anyway, sure, all phones can be followed to a certain degree of accuracy. Switching off your phone is the only way to prevent this. Giving it to a friend all the time beats the purpose of having one in the first place.

    2. Re:What the media can learn by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      A telco log will give you time, a street like resolution and advanced software will do the rest.
      Too long near another phone with a fancy map overlay will show two people sitting or in contact.
      Back in 2003 it was more a security forces export product globally, government to government on request for special trusted and cleared mil/police units. Software like that is now very common now and very low cost for any local police.

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    3. Re:What the media can learn by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      Re "Giving it to a friend all the time beats the purpose of having one in the first place." Just when meeting contacts.
      Fill the telco logs with everyday random junk walks and shopping all the time to make it look used and the data of use.
      The really fun part is that phone is now an active informant. So surround it with bureaucrats, technocrats everyday for a few mins.
      Anyone of them could be an informant or whistleblower given a few mins contact with the press phone of mischief.
      Cascades of secret internal security reports about unreported press contact from been detected near a journalists phone of interest.
      Fill the phone with notes and hints about whistleblowers at the same locations :)

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
    4. Re:What the media can learn by wvmarle · · Score: 1

      I know all that, but those technologies don't use the GPS from the phone. TFS explicitly mentioned using the phone's built in GPS chip.

    5. Re:What the media can learn by AHuxley · · Score: 1

      People wonder why so few informants get information out or can help the press. The first meeting is tracked from one or both phones.
      The GPS part could be more easy to understand for readers or part of internal malware logging. Always telco logs to fall back on :)

      --
      Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
  8. Only hanging work. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You hang these folks no one else doe it, The west can learn a lot fro the middle east.

  9. How do they turn on the GPS? by fred6666 · · Score: 1

    They must share the bed with Apple, otherwise, doesn't the carrier only have access to much less precise cell tower localization?
    Isn't that a serious back door?

  10. Yeah but thé thing we want to know is... by Eloking · · Score: 1

    Was he using an iPhone or an Android?

    --
    Elok
  11. Good by frovingslosh · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I hope the press gets really indignant about this. They sure don't seem to care much when it is not a member of the press whose privacy is violated.

    --
    I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
  12. Contradiction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... under the previous Conservative government.

    Canada isn't the only country whose war on terror laws include the power to censor the press (beyond the ancient 'do not publish' orders from the department of defense).

  13. What shocks me by ptaff · · Score: 2, Insightful

    What shocks me the most: the public reaction to the news. I'm from Quebec, saw the local news and everyone from mayors to prime ministers had their word about the incident.

    It's mostly about the police's power and journalist's source protection. Almost no one mentions how the whole operation was sanctioned by law, and that *anyone* can easily be spied on the same way (that seems to involve way more than cell tower math), and almost nobody seems to question the fact that most phones are manufactured in a way where the consumer has no reasonable way to opt-out of surveillance.

    Am I late to the party or is this dystopia something humanity wilfully agreed on?

    Oh, right, convenience of a portable candy crush game trumps everything, don't make me think.

  14. Re:Canadian Freedom of Speech and the Press by sproketboy · · Score: 1

    I wish I had mod points to mod you up. You're apparently being voted down for truth.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  15. And now Android is now as secure as the iPhone! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And now Android is now as secure as the iPhone!
    Whooppie!

  16. Re:Canadian Freedom of Speech and the Press by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I wish I had mod points to mod you up. You're apparently being voted down for truth.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    I did my best to rectify this for the GP but it seems he has a LOT of negative karma on that post.

  17. Warrants by DarthVain · · Score: 1

    Sounds like they used proper procedure which is good. However considering the change of what was actually taking place the big question is A) Did the police lie to get the warrants from the Judge, or B) Did the Judge make a mistake and overstep? I'm guessing A. They likely made up a bogus reason in order to get at what appears to be whistle blowers. Which if that is the case I expect some heads to roll. I don't see this as something where law enforcement will be "closing ranks" as sometimes happens, as if the above is the case you have a situation where the police are making the judicial system, and a particular Judge look bad, and undermining not only their authority but their reputation which is a pretty big deal when the whole thing really depends on the people having confidence in the system. As such, I suspect if this makes it before a Judge, I expect the reaction to be severe...

    Anyway I guess we'll see.

  18. Remotely activated GPS by castus · · Score: 1
    Slightly OT:

    A tracking warrant also allowed the SPVM to activate the GPS chip in the iPhone

    Is this actually possible or did the journalist make this up because cell tower triangulation sounds too complicated for the average reader?

    1. Re:Remotely activated GPS by castus · · Score: 1

      I'm being an idiot. Activating the GPS remotely would be pointless because you would still need to install some malware that sent the coordinates to the police.

    2. Re:Remotely activated GPS by Hylandr · · Score: 1

      Except Google collects that information which could then be requested.

      --
      ~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
  19. Police Creeping on Reporters by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Police started creeping on citizens, now they are creeping on reporters. Once they begin creeping on politicians, they will be able to intimidate lawmakers and any possibility of civilian oversight. Hello again, tactics of J. Edgar Hoover!