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.

Comments

Re:News-speak at 11.

[Korbeau]

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...

Good

[frovingslosh]

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.