Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges
What Radwanski did was not cool.. but probably no worse than any other MP or commissioner. Reading his work – an incredible expose and warning of privacy breaches planned by the state – it’s not that difficult to believe he was singled out for political reasons, as the CBC mentions in the middle of this article. Read the shocking report his office produced here.
Just one representative quote: “Police and security will be able to access records of every e-mail we send and every cellular phone call we make. Information on what we read on the Internet, every Web site and page we visit, will likewise be readily available to government authorities.”
Did the government not announce this just yesterday? Thanks for trying to warn us, George.
Flashback: Was Canada’s Privacy Commissioner targeted for opposition to intrusive security policies?
CBC News
February 13, 2009
Judge slams commissioner’s ‘negligent and cavalier’ approach of accounting for expenses
An Ontario judge acquitted former federal privacy commissioner George Radwanski on Friday of criminal fraud charges, but criticized his “negligent and cavalier” approach to accounting for controversial expenses he claimed while in office.
Ontario Court of Justice Paul Bélanger convicted Radwanski’s former chief of staff, Art Lamarche, of breach of trust.
Radwanski and Lamarche were charged with making fraudulent expense claims, including a travel advance and a $16,000 payment in lieu of vacation Radwanski received without first accruing the work time required to earn the holiday.
The Crown’s case centred on the expense and travel payments, which Lamarche arranged and authorized on behalf of Radwanski, a $15,000 personal loan and a $35,000 mortgage loan Lamarche advanced to Radwanski during the same period.
In his ruling released Friday morning in an Ottawa courtroom, Bélanger said Radwanski was “less than meticulous” in keeping track of administrative affairs.
Radwanski “should have recognized that the situation was entirely as a result of his negligent and cavalier approach to accounting for expenses and the onus was upon him – not upon the office – to regularize the situation,” the judge wrote.
“Therefore, it is not without significant misgivings that I conclude that Mr. Radwanski cannot be convicted of fraud or breach of trust in relation to the $15,000 (travel) advance.
He also lambasted Radwanski’s justification for thousands of dollars in hospitality lunches he had with his communications director, saying his behaviour in relation to office expenses was “at the extreme high end of the discretionary range.”
Outside the court following the ruling, Radwanski told reporters he feels vindicated after a “five-and-a-half-year nightmare.”
“It’s wonderful to have my life back,” Radwanski said. “It was really the first fair tribunal I’ve been before … and it’s great to have my good name restored.”
Radwanski acknowledged he wishes he had done some things differently, but insisted he “never acted dishonestly or knowingly improperly in any way.”
Prosecutor Robert Wadden argued that Radwanski failed to report the loans and regularly abused government rules for hospitality and entertainment, telling the court the commissioner and his staff “lived and dined at the public expense.”
‘Ambushed’ by AG’s report, Radwanski told court
Radwanski resigned under fire in 2003, blaming “a powerful political backlash from some who would prefer a less forceful privacy commissioner.” His severance package was initially $82,562, but later cut to nothing.
MPs later voted to find Radwanski in contempt of Parliament for failing to provide adequate information about his spending.
In her scathing audit, Auditor General Sheila Fraser called in the RCMP after documenting hundreds of thousands of dollars in alleged financial abuses during what she called Radwanski’s “reign of terror.”
The report led to a 26-month criminal investigation by the Mounties and the subsequent laying of charges in 2006.
During his trial, Radwanski testified he was “ambushed” by the auditor general’s staff and never given a proper chance to rebut accusations of mismanagement until Fraser’s report was completed.
He and other staff members also described the heavy workload thrust upon his office in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Radwanski told the court many of the expenses being questioned, such as lunches with his assistants, were actually used to get work done.
Before being appointed to the position in 2000, Radwanski won many awards during a 20-year journalism career. He began his career at the Montreal Gazette and later served as editor in chief of the Toronto Star.
He was also a policy adviser to then Ontario premier David Peterson and the author of a bestselling biography of Pierre Trudeau.
Alternate coverage: The Globe and Mail – Radwanksi cleared after five year ‘nightmare’
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February 13th, 2009 at 8:23 pm
George Radwanski is a pompous little narcissist who disgraced the office of the privacy commissioner by wallowing deeply in the public trough. In his mind, he’s been vindicated. Wow! Is this the best Canada can find for positions like this?
February 14th, 2009 at 3:36 am
Meh. But is that worth burying his findings? Perhaps you should step forward. Is Jennifer Stoddart doing a good job? I don’t know. A rose may grow from a pile of manure. I tend to believe he was just following the herd – how expensive are the restaurants within walking distance of parliament? I’ve no idea. How scary are the excerpts from his office’s report? Well, that you may judge for yourself: From http://www.privcom.gc.ca/information/ar/02_04_10_e.asp
————————- 8< —————————————
Specifically, I am referring to: the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency’s new “Big Brother” passenger database; the provisions of section 4.82 of Bill C-17; dramatically enhanced state powers to monitor our communications, as set out in the “Lawful Access” consultation paper; a national ID card with biometric identifiers, as advanced by Citizenship and Immigration Minister Denis Coderre; and the Government’s support of precedent-setting video surveillance of public streets by the RCMP.
These initiatives are all cause for deep concern because of the intrusions on privacy that they directly entail. But they are even more disturbing because of the thresholds they cross and the doors they open. Each of these measures establishes a devastatingly dangerous new principle of acceptable privacy invasion.
The CCRA’s database introduces the creation of personal information dossiers on all law-abiding citizens for a wide variety of investigative purposes. Section 4.82 of Bill C-17 requires, for the first time, de facto mandatory self-identification to the police for general law enforcement. The “Lawful Access” paper advocates the widespread monitoring of our communications activities and reading habits.
A national ID card would remove our right to anonymity in our day-to-day lives. The RCMP’s video surveillance constitutes systematic observation of citizens by the police as we go about our law-abiding business on public streets.
These are not abstract or theoretical concerns. If these measures are allowed to go forward and the privacy-invasive principles they represent are accepted, there is a very real prospect that before long our lives here in Canada will look like this:
* All our travels outside Canada will be systematically recorded, tracked and analyzed for signs of anything that the Government might find suspicious or undesirable. “Big Brother” dossiers of personal information about every law-abiding Canadian – initially travel information, but eventually supplemented by who knows what else – will be kept by the federal Government and will be available to virtually
every federal department and agency, just in case they are ever handy to use against us.
* Any time we travel within Canada, we will have to identify ourselves to police so that their computers can check whether we are wanted for anything or are otherwise of interest to the state.
* Police and security will be able to access records of every e-mail we send and every cellular phone call we make. Information on what we read on the Internet, every Web site and page we visit, will likewise be readily available to government authorities.
* We will all be fingerprinted or retina-scanned by the Government. This biometric information will be on compulsory national ID cards that will open the way to being stopped in the streets by police and required to identify ourselves on demand.
* Our movements through the public streets will be relentlessly observed through proliferating police video surveillance cameras. Eventually, these cameras will likely be linked to biometric face-recognition technologies that will match our on-screen images to file photos – from such sources as drivers’ licences, passports or ID cards – and enable the police to identify us by name and address as we
go about our law-abiding business in the streets.
March 18th, 2009 at 7:11 am
[...] ancestor’s remains | Lax rules on political financing No. 1 global corruption threat: report | Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges | Investment industry criminal makes a run for it, gets caught at border with money stuffed in [...]
April 15th, 2009 at 12:40 pm
[...] for alleged fraud | Lax rules on political financing No. 1 global corruption threat: report | Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges | Investment industry criminal makes a run for it, gets caught at border with money stuffed in [...]
April 28th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
[...] for alleged fraud | Lax rules on political financing No. 1 global corruption threat: report | Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges | Investment industry criminal makes a run for it, gets caught at border with money stuffed in [...]
May 2nd, 2009 at 10:08 am
[...] for alleged fraud | Lax rules on political financing No. 1 global corruption threat: report | Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges | Investment industry criminal makes a run for it, gets caught at border with money stuffed in [...]
June 8th, 2009 at 5:14 am
[...] withholds listeriosis notes | Behemoth budget bill to be rammed through parliament unread | Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges | Harper drops Cadman libel lawsuit against Liberals | Ignatieff seeks Harper-like control of party [...]
September 11th, 2009 at 9:59 am
[...] for alleged fraud | Lax rules on political financing No. 1 global corruption threat: report | Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges | Investment industry criminal makes a run for it, gets caught at border with money stuffed in [...]
September 11th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
[...] civil rights | Do We Need a New Internet? | UK: Landlord fights police plan for CCTV at pub | Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges | New law to give police access to online exchanges | Security cameras proposed for downtown Sydney [...]
January 20th, 2010 at 4:29 am
[...] up. Wake up, Canada, for goodness sake, and resist the tyranny. Your national Privacy Commissioner warned you about this, right before they went after him for the sort of expense indiscretions everyone in Ottawa is [...]
January 27th, 2010 at 9:22 pm
[...] withholds listeriosis notes | Behemoth budget bill to be rammed through parliament unread | Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges | Harper drops Cadman libel lawsuit against Liberals | Ignatieff seeks Harper-like control of party [...]
March 5th, 2010 at 5:06 pm
[...] withholds listeriosis notes | Behemoth budget bill to be rammed through parliament unread | Former privacy czar Radwanski acquitted of fraud charges | Harper drops Cadman libel lawsuit against Liberals | Ignatieff seeks Harper-like control of party [...]