Feature

Political Activist Ken Stone Takes CSIS to Task for Alleged Harassment

The retired school teacher is making a formal complaint against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) after the sudden appearance of two agents at his Hamilton home two years ago.

By Paul Weinberg
Published February 25, 2015

What is it like to be targeted by Canada's spy agency? Veteran anti-war and environmental activist Ken Stone knows firsthand and is willing to talk about it.

The retired school teacher is taking the legal route: making a formal complaint against the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). This action follows the sudden appearance of two agents at his Hamilton home two years ago.

"The visit was not warranted under the mandate of CSIS. It caused anxiety for me and my family. It was an attempt to intimidate me, and my family members in lawfully exercising our charter rights, of freedom of speech and association, and my right to criticize the government of Canada, and its policies," said Stone.

The Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) will be holding an in-camera hearing on March 26 and 27, where Lawyer Bijon Roy will present Stone's complaint against CSIS and CSIS will offer its rebuttal.

Roy says Stone's unusual experience might be a sign of what's to come after the Conservatives push through Bill C-51's controversial measures, which will expand the scope of surveillance, targeting and disruption of dissenting groups in Canada.

Roy has encountered other politically active people who have had similar CSIS visits, both at home and at work. However, hardly anyone chooses to challenge these unannounced CSIS visits, as has Ken Stone.

"I have heard from a number of people who have had these visits. They have expressed to me their main concern is -- neither they nor their families, acquaintances or community members become aware of that or are affected by that. They are certainly afraid of personal consequences," said Roy.

A visit from CSIS reinforces the sense that a designated person is on the radar of Canada's security agency. Roy said, from personal experience, that it can even intimidate the most politically committed person and force them to scale back their activity. He cited the example of CSIS visits to pipeline protestors.

"People say 'you know what? I am not going to write a letter to the editor, I am not going to go to that protest, I am not going to sign that petition, because I didn't really think doing that was going to put me on a list or attract scrutiny from an agency like CSIS,'" said Roy.

Stone, however, appears impervious to these fears, perhaps because he is retired. He says he doesn't have to worry about a school board, a principal or a parent making fuss about him in front of students in the classroom.

"As to why the visit took place [at Ken Stone's home], the main reasons I can think of would be an effort to intimidate, to gather information, to potentially ascertain whether the person might be capable of being recruited as a source down the road. Clearly, [CSIS] picked the wrong person to contact and it has blown up in their faces," said security and intelligence expert Steve Hewitt.

Stone is a high profile activist in Hamilton, marshalling protests against military intervention in Muslim lands, fighting the local transportation of tar sands oil via Enbridge's Line 9 and writing op-ed pieces in the city's daily newspaper, the Spectator.

His activism goes back to the 1960s when he was, by chance, placed in a Toronto holding sell with future Toronto mayor John Sewell, for allegedly creating a disturbance during an anti-Vietnam war demo in front of the U.S. consulate.

Later, Stone managed to obtain from the Library of Parliament a scrupulously-documented 700-page file that the RCMP kept on him, detailing minutes of political meetings he had attended and the notorious Profunc list of so-called communists targeted for a planned (but never carried out) police roundup and indefinite detention during the Cold War.

The trouble with CSIS all started one day in January 2013 when Stone was sitting with his computer on the front porch of his home and there was a knock on the door.

At the door, he was confronted by two young women in black suits who shoved a badge into his sight to show they were from CSIS. They asked if he was "Ken Stone."

"[What they wore] was like a uniform except it didn't have insignia. They looked like police officers," he says.

When Stone confirmed his identity, the agents inquired about Stone's October 2011 trip to Iran and a subsequent opinion piece in the Spectator.

"We assume you have positive things to say about Iran and we want to hear your views on Iran, and we want to know your relationship with the government of Iran," said Stone, paraphrasing what the agents told him.

Suffice to say, Stone refused to converse with the CSIS agents any further. Instead, he took their business card and said his good byes. "They were not very happy; I could see by their faces," he recalled.

The timing was curious. Just months earlier, in early September 2012, the Harper government had broken diplomatic relations with Iran.

In the months leading up to that event, there were genuine fears that Israel might precipitate a war with Iran over its nuclear energy development, which it claimed would lead to a nuclear bomb.

Stone had criticized Canada's fulsome and unconditional support of Israel's "sabre rattling," in a January 11, 2012 article in the Spectator.

Stone denies having any special relationship with the Iranian government. Back in 2011 he was in the capital city, Tehran, at the invitation (after someone else in Canada had turned down the same invite) by the country's parliament to attend an international conference on Palestine. Stone is also a campaigner for Palestinian rights.

A member of Independent Jewish Voices, Stone said he was very upset by the presence of a Holocaust denier at the conference and he confronted that person.

"That person was the only negative influence among the 900 delegates. He was the only one that I thought was objectionable," said Stone.

At the heart of Stone's complaint is the allegation that CSIS has unfairly, and without evidence, tarred peaceful activists like himself with the brush of terrorism. He wants the agency to withdraw any hint of association in any file on him and to lay off all similar visits to peaceful activists.

Stone's lawyer suggests the targeting of his client may be related to Canadian foreign policy.

"[Ken] was outspoken on the issue at a time when the Canadian government was rolling out a much more aggressive position about Iran," said Roy.

Also, Roy continued, the widening of the definition of 'terrorism' in Bill C-51 is problematic.

"So, terrorism is no longer just a very violent type activity but it encompasses the ideas that underline or motivate such and such," Roy said.

"What if someone says, 'I can see Hamas's point or I understand Hezbollah does x, y, and z. [Both on Canada's list of proscribed terrorist organizations] Has that crossed the threshold [for CSIS]?" asks Roy.

With the support of his family and local MP, Stone began the complaint process in April 2013 with a letter to CSIS that detailed what had transpired at his door.

He was supposed to officially receive an answer in 30 days from CSIS, but got a response in March 2014. CSIS defended the officers's actions, maintaining they were acting professionally and within its legal mandate.

Stone then made his formal complaint with CSIS to SIRC in June 2013.

It is interesting to note that at the upcoming SIRC hearing in March, there is an exparte meeting within the general meeting that Roy and Stone cannot attend.

In the exparte session, the SIRC official will be hearing evidence presented by CSIS that will explain how Stone came to its attention.

Roy agrees this makes mounting a defense of his client challenging, but not impossible.

"There is still the opportunity to present details of [Ken's] side of the story. I am confident that we will have every opportunity to present that," said Roy.

"We fully expect that the Committee's findings will reflect all of the evidence that is put before them, and that their recommendations will address any concerns which we've raised, even if they are not spelled out in detail," Roy added.

Meanwhile, Stone has spoken to almost ten other people who have been approached by CSIS agents.

"I tell them, take the card, don't talk to them, be polite, send them away, and call your MP," he said.

Stone estimates between 10,000 and 30,000 Canadians have experienced these encounters, although his lawyer is a bit more cautious, declining to offer a figure.

CSIS did not respond to questions on the issue of the home visits by publication time.

If you'd like to support or donate to Ken Stone during this process and to help cover his financial expenses, you can write and send cheques to the complaint at 133 East 17th Street, Hamilton, L9A 4M4.

This article was first published on rabble.ca.

Paul Weinberg is a Hamilton-based freelance journalist and the editor of an upcoming collection, Reclaiming Hamilton: Essays from the Ambitious City. He is also a member of Environment Hamilton.

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By KevinLove (registered) | Posted February 25, 2015 at 20:29:53

I spent 16 years of my life in the Canadian Army because I do not want to live in a country where this sort of thing is done by the government.

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By ugh (anonymous) | Posted February 26, 2015 at 10:14:06

We are becoming no different than many "third world" countries with their dictatorships and secret police.

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By Michael And Ingrid Heroux (anonymous) | Posted February 26, 2015 at 11:14:19

My family and I started warning people about Harper's secret police over 5 years ago and Harper's police murdered our 2 daughters and the Kathy Liknes family and tried to murder the rest of our family over the fraudulent 30-08 warrants against us.

If anyone knows of a good lawyer so we can keep the rest of our family alive please get ahold of us. You can contact us on our website. Thanks

Michael And Ingrid Heroux said

michaelandingridheroux.wordpress.com

plus.google.com/109414718225592332058/about

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By Michael And Ingrid Heroux (anonymous) | Posted April 02, 2015 at 21:39:25

Michael And Ingrid Heroux said

michaelandingridheroux.wordpress.com

plus.google.com/109414718225592332058/about

My wife and I finally got our second reply back from our RCMP freedom of information requests that we sent them to get our 30-08 warrant information and the investigation information that our daughters were working on before they were murdered. We were told our requests needed our signatures, birth dates, and social insurance numbers. We sent in the FOI request forms with a sample of our hand writing, multiple samples of our signatures, our birthdates, copies of our birth certificates and copies of our social insurance cards. My wifes reply from the RCMP was that they needed to know what RCMP detachment has her information so they can find it and my reply from the RCMP was that they needed to know my birthdate before they can find my information.

We are being stonewalled by the RCMP from getting our information. These are the type of games every government agency we have applied to to get our 30-08 warrant information through the freedom of information system has been playing with us for over a year now. CSIS and CSEC are not even replying back to us and SIRC should of got back to us this week but they just tabled a letter in Parliament yesterday stating they can not properly investigate CSIS. How are we suppose to get our 30-08 warrant information and have a proper investigation done for the torture and murder of our family for the last 6 years? Who is going to help us?

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By Michael_And_Ingrid_Heroux (registered) - website | Posted June 30, 2015 at 04:06:44

Michael And Ingrid Heroux

https://michaelandingridheroux.wordpress...

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-s...

In Windsor Ontario, January 2013, Canadian Intelligence sent a gunman to assassinate my wife and 3 children and I over the fraudulent 30-08 warrants the Harper government tried to frame us with. We manage to evade the gunman and we were able to leave Ontario after Canadian Intelligence tried to have us detained by The Ontario Provicial Police. After explaining to The Ontario Provicial Police what had happened they allowed us to return to British Columbia. We decided to make our way to Vancouver and settle there and procede with our court case to sue the Harper government for the torture and poisonings and the assassination attempts against my family and I. Canadian Intelligence started investigating my wife and I in British Columbia in the late 1990's and they tried to assassinate my family and I when we moved back to Ontario in 2000. The first assassination attempt was in 2003 and we didn't know who tried to blow up our house at the time but since, CSIS agent Danny Palmers 2003 revelations we now know who it was.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

At the time in 2003 when they tried to blow up our house my wife and I had all 5 of our children living with us, that is the same year they poisoned us for the first time.

When we got to Vancouver B.C. in 2013 we moved into a hotel room on the Kingsway for the month of March courtesy of Canadian Intelligence. We picked the hotel but Canadian Intelligence picked the room for us. That is where we were staying when they tried to set us up for assassination throught the SILK ROAD website at the end of March 2013.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

I guess they know that hotel very well and I guess the room they chose must of been the assasination room because there were holes in the ceiling of our hotel room that were patchced up but they didn't re-stucco the ceiling after patching the holes so I thought maybe they were bullet holes. So I did some research and found out there was an attempted assassination in that exact same room 4 years earlier and the police still haven't found the gunman. The spies we spoke to working at the hotel weren't working there then so no one knew about the attempted assassination. Here are the news articles.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-co...

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nati...

http://www.vancouverobserver.com/blogs/p...

We stayed there for 15 months from March 2013 till May 2014. We were in the middle of the hotel so Canadian Intelligence usually had the rooms on either side of us and above and below us also. They had our room wired for sound and they were monitoring us 24/7 with electronic devices.

https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2...

It was that way since 2008 when they got the first terror warrants on us from Judge Richard Mosley. Canadian Intelligence used my family and I to get 30-08 terror warrants from Judge Richard Mosley that would give them unprecedented special powers they never had before that they tried to get from the Courts using us in 2007 but they failed to convince Judge Blanchard to give the warrants to them so they lied to Judge Richard Mosley in 2009 to get the warrants.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/nati...

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

Judge Richard Mosley found out in 2013 that Canadian Intelligence lied to them to get the 30-08 warrants and he was furious. They had been using the warrants from 2009 when they first got the warrants on us until 2013 after the assassination attempts on us. Judge Richard Mosley reopened our case from 2009 and brought CSIS and CSEC before him and ordered them to quit using the 30-08 warrants based on the lies and the torture and assaults and poisonings and attempted murders of my family and I, and they also made us believe that they assassinated our 2 older daughters that were working for Canadian Intelligence. Kathy Liknes was one of the Canadian Intelligence agents that tried to help us survive and they murdered her and her family in the summer of 2014 to cover up the 30-08 warrant abuses.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

After Judge Richard Mosley made his redacted decision public on November 22, 2013 my family and I tried to get the Harper government to give us our investigation information so we can sue them for the abuse. We started our attempt to get our information by contacting The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada, Jennifer Stoddart. We sent an email to Anne-Marie Hayden of The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada on November 26, 2013 to see what she had to say. Here is our email to her.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

We weren't sure if she would get back to us so we sent The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada Jennifer Stoddart a notification email on November 28, 2013 and that is the same day the The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada Jennifer Stoddart changed her mind against Bill C-13, she knew who our family was and that our family was being abused by Canadian Intelligence so there was no way she could continue to back a bill that she was backing to give Police and Intelligence unprecedented powers to invade everyones privacy. Jennifer Stoddart received Bill C-13 on November 20, 2013 and she was pleased with giving the police and intelligence unprecedented powers to invade everyones privacy just like they have been doing with our family for many years now but after Anne-Marie Hayden of The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada told her we were trying to contact her she knew she could no longer back Draconian laws like Bill C-13.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/poli...

http://blog.privacylawyer.ca/2013/11/pri...

https://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/2013/s...

Our internet was being monitored by Canadian Intelligence then as it still is now and they were listening to us in our room and thanks to Edward Snowden's revelations we now know Canadian Intelligence monitors all Canadian's communications with their government anyways.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

We took alot of heat from Canadian Intelligence for contacting her, we were getting death threats, they were threatening to kill our children and they were going to try and run us over on the streets again but it was no different than what has been happening to us for many years now. I think Gregor Robertson told them to lay off because he doesn't put up with much bullshit here in Vancouver.

On November 30, 2013 we submitted our case to The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada and the Privacy Commissioner Of Canada Jennifer Stoddart stepped down as Privacy Commissioner, she was supposed to retire in 2 days but she stepped down 2 days early because of our case, we read 5 different news articles saying she stepped down early and when we went back to read those news articles 5 news agencies pulled their news stories of her stepping down early because Harper decided to cover up the 30-08 warrant abuses of our family.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

That is why Harper's Federal Conservative MP for Ontario, John Baird stepped down and Harper's Federal Conservative MP for British Columbia, James Moore stepped down and that is why The Justice Minister Of Canada Peter Mackay stepped down. They didn't want to be associated with covering up the Harper government's and the Liberal government's corruption anymore, the abuse against our family started with Paul Martin's Liberal government that Justin Trudeau inheritted. The Justice Department Of Canada has been ignoring our requests for our information and The Public Safety Minister Steve Blaney and The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada has been covering it up for Harper and they had led us to believe that our 2 daughters who would be our main witnesses when we sue the Harper government were murdered. We have been trying to get our information since November 26, 2013 and the Harper government has been denying us our own information.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada is refusing to acknowledge that we even submitted our case to her on November 30, 2013 and she is trying to make people think that she knew about our abuse even before she read Bill C-13. The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada is trying to make the public think we submitted our case to her on November 19, 2013 a day before she read Bill C-13 because she didn't want anyone to know she changed her mind about Bill C-13 because of our case and she doesn't want anyone to know she jump the gun and stepped down 2 days early because of our case. We have the letters and emails to prove it. She is covering up for Harper.

We sent Anne-Marie Hayden of The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada another letter on December 2, 2013 and we submitted another privacy complaint to The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada on December 5, 2013.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

We got a reply back from Anne-Marie Hayden of The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada the same day after submitting our second privacy complaint with The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada on December 5, 2013.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

The Harper government was getting nervous about Judge Richard Mosley's Rebuke against them. It was unprecedented for a Judge to have to deal with such corruption coming from a Canadian government. The Justice Minister needed some advice on how to try and cover up their corruption.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

Just to make sure they weren't going to ignore us like most government agencies have been we decided to submit a third privacy complaint on December 18, 2013.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

We had to wait a long time for The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada to get back to us and they still won't acknowledge that we contact them on November 28, 2013 the same day Jennifer Stoddart changed her mind against Bill C-13 and they still won't acknowledge that we submitted a privacy complaint with them on November 30, 2013 the same day Jennifer Stoddart stepped down. They sent us a letter stating that we submitted a privacy complaint to them for the first on November 19, 2013, a day before Jennifer Stoddart got Bill C-13 given to her for review. That is false, we didn't even have Judge Richard Mosley's 30-08 warrant decision yet because it didn't come out until November 22, 2013.

The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada finally sent us a letter on January 23, 2014 and here it is.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

We contacted The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada's office on February 4, 2014 by phone to give them the additional information they required. They wanted to know the names of the agents that we met between 2008-2009 and they wanted to know the names of the agents that had sex with my wife while I watched. I told them that I will get back to them with the names of the agents my wife and I met in Windsor Ontario between 2008-2009. In the mean time I gave them the names of 2 of the agents we met in 2008. Bianca and Laticia Vaneyk. Our 2 daughters that were sent back home to live with us in 2008 by Canadian Intelligence.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

I guess The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada decided she didn't want to know the names of the agents we met and had sex with between 2008-2009 after all because she sent us a new letter the same day we spoke with them by phone February 4, 2014. Here is the letter.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada couldn't wait to close our case with them. The letter was a lie, we never spoke about taking our case to another government agency at all, they were going to wait for additional information from us. Don't ever speak with a government agency over the phone. Always get everything in writing. The Privacy Commissioner Of Canada is just ignoring us now just like The Justice Department Of Canada, they won't answer us anymore. Here are a couple follow up letters we sent them but they never answered our letters back. Don't mind the messy hand writing, I know it's bad.

http://michaelandingridheroux.blogspot.c...

THANKS FOR READING - FOLLOW THE MONEY

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By Michael_And_Ingrid_Heroux (registered) - website | Posted August 21, 2015 at 13:21:48

Michael And Ingrid Heroux - michaelheroux1967@gmail.com - Text-604-360-2162 - @michael_ingrid1

My family and I have been struggling with the Harper government and more recently with the RCMP just to get our investigation information they have on us. I used to work undercover for the RCMP to help them get their arrest warrants from the Judges and the RCMP just notified us by mail that we are not even entitled under the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT to get any of that information at all.

They have been leading us on since the begining of this year by telling us to get our investigation information from them that they need this information from us, and they need that information from us, before they can give us our investingation information to us under the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT, and after jumping through hoops to give them what they asked for they just sent us a letter saying we are not entitled under the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT to have access to even just basic criminal investigation information. We know we have been investigated on and off by the RCMP for close to 30 years but we are not allowed to know what the investigations were about even though the investigations never amounted to any charges against us.

We understand why CSIS and CSEC are not able to give us our 30-08 warrant investigation information because they said it is classified even though CSIS never charged us for anything either after investigting us from 2008-2010, but the RCMP says we are not even entitled to our regular investigation information from them.

We applied to the Justice Minister of B.C. for our investigation warrant information to find out what we were and are being investigated for here in B.C. but all she would send us is court documents from when I was in trouble with the law over 15 years ago for prescription medication abuse that I was getting from my doctor. I was addicted to sleeping pills and alcohol over 15 years ago and I did some stupid things that I didn't even remember doing the next day. I took a whole bottle of sleeping medication one night and I guess I left my house and went to a 7-11 variety store and stole a handful of change from the clerk there. I didn't remember taking the sleeping pills or stealing the change from the clerk at the store but I was arrested and I spent about a week in jail and they ended up charging me with theft when my court dates were done with. I don't even remember much of being in jail either and the courts said the only reason they kept me in jail for a week was because I was so out of it from the sleeping pills that the jail guards had to carrying me into the court to see the Judge.

It was a generic brand of that Ambian type sleeping medication and I was addicted to that for quite a while. It was really bad stuff, it was highly addictive for sleeping medication and that was the last time I ever got that stuff from my doctor again. I was taking sleeping medication for many years for a sleeping disorder and they changed my medication to that stuff and that was really powerful medication for a sleeping pill.

The courts gave me a years probation and community service and that is the last time I was in trouble with the law. Since then, the Canadian government has gotten a number of different criminal and terror warrants on me and my wife in B.C. and Ontario but we are not allowed to know anything about what for. We know the 30-08 warrants were fraudulent because CSIS used my wife and I and lied to Judge Richard Mosley to get the warrants, and Judge Richard Mosley sternly rebuked CSIS and CSEC for doing that but we can't even get our RCMP criminal warrant investigation information to know what the government was up to.

All we know is from our 2 older daughters that were sent back home to live with us by the RCMP in 2008 to investigate us. We don't think they told our daughters the whole truth either. We don't think our daughters even knew what they were getting into. My wife has never broken the law in her life and she has no criminal record at all and the RCMP won't even give her a single piece of her investigation information and now they are telling us that all of our information can be held back from us because of certain clauses in the FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT. It doesn't make sence to us so we are going to have to try and find a lawyer and ask the courts to help us secure our personal information from the government.

THANKS FOR READING - FOLLOW THE MONEY

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