Canadian Mounties Seize Reporter's Files in Terrorist Case
Officers of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police raided the home and newspaper office of a reporter for The Ottawa Citizen on Wednesday in an effort to learn how she obtained secret documents concerning a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was arrested in the United States as a suspected Qaeda terrorist. The incident immediately became the biggest constitutional challenge to freedom of the press in Canada in decades, with the reporter, Juliet O’Neill, facing possible criminal charges for violating Section 4 of the Security of Information Act, one of several sweeping measures passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The act strengthens previous prohibitions against possession or communication of many sorts of secret security information. Full Story