Mar. 13, 2007: Security, Corruption, Gangs ...

Laptop, Computer Security, Privacy

Stolen laptop sparks Order by Commissioner Cavoukian requiring encryption of identifiable data: Identity Must be Protected , TORONTO, March 8, 2007, CNW

www.newswire.ca/en/releases/archive/March2007/08/c8227.html

[....] A physician at SickKids, who also functions as a researcher there, left the hospital on January 4, 2007, taking one of the hospital's laptop computers,.... leaving the laptop under a blanket between the front seats of the van (which had no trunk). When he returned, he discovered that the front passenger window had been broken and the laptop had been stolen.

The personal health information stored on the stolen laptop ....

... very sensitive information was also included such as drug therapy and HIV status. The health information of the patients was being used in 10 different research studies. Some of the patient information had been provided to SickKids by the University Health Network (UHN), since roughly 350 of the patients had been treated at both SickKids and UHN.

All of the data on the laptop was also saved on the SickKids' main server, but the only security measure on the laptop was a login password. [....]

Corruption -- Gang Land

Meet the FBI's ‘Best Undercover Agent' , By Jerry Capeci, NY Sun, March 1, 2007 -- and List of Results for Topic: Gang Land -- Related Articles from the New York Sun

www.nysun.com/article/49571
www.nysun.com/related_re
sults.php?term=Gang+Land&topic=TRUE

At 6-foot 4-inches and more than 300 pounds, veteran FBI agent Joaquin "Jack" Garcia is a small mountain of a man who is hard to miss. That's never stopped him from being a master of disguises. In recent years, the expert undercover agent's appointment calendar must have read a bit like the script for the 1960s screwball comedy "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium.

Mr. Garcia surfaced last year when he took the stand in a closed courtroom to describe how he had played the role of a Gambino associate for 27 months. At the same time, Mr. Garcia was also posing as a New York capo in a 36-month FBI sting against crooked Florida cops in which four police officers were nailed last week on corruption charges (thus the reason for the secret testimony). [....]

FBI officials, not to mention Mr. Garcia and 12 other agents who worked undercover in the investigation, are furious about the leak, and are likely to point to it the next time the agency gets accused of not sharing information with local police.

On the bright side, Messrs. Companion and Courtney called in sick and began to inquire about retirement benefits when they got wind of the probe. They didn't react the way New York's infamous Mafia Cops, Louis Eppolito and Steven Caracappa, often did during their careers. The dark side — that the lives of FBI agents were put at risk if the Hollywood cops had taken the same path as the murderous New York duo — doesn't sit too well with the FBI. [....]

Lengthy, detailed, fascinating -- more here: GangLandNews.com


Security, Terrorists, Charter

'Give me your tired, your poor ?and your terrorists' -- A Canadian version of the Statue of Liberty , letter, National Post, March 07, 2007

www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/editorialsletters/story.ht
ml?id=73a7c3c6-4e70-4380-b1c8-ae3af05e678e

Amid reassurances by RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gary Bass that the gutting of Canada's anti-terror legislation "won't derail" the Air India probe, the idea of a Canadian version of the Statue of Liberty -- which would serve as a re-affirmation of the universality of our beloved Charter of Rights and Freedoms --is gaining renewed strength.

... "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. We'll also take terrorists with internationally acknowledged credentials and offer them the benefits of our world-renowned judicial system, providing all comers with generous and virtually unlimited litigation support and the additional bonus of a better than even chance of acquittal in the unlikely event of criminal prosecution."

"So send these, the homeless, tempest-tost travellers to our shore, I lift my lamp beside the Charter's golden door!" ...

Memory Lane: Nuclear Security, Pakistan, Nuclear Scientists

Canada-trained Pakistani nuclear scientists 'defecting' -- or here , January 16, 2003

At least five of nine Pakistani nuclear scientists who have 'secretly' left their country to seek more money and better working conditions were trained in Canada ...

Another top scientist, Dr. A.Q. Khan, the man who made Pakistan's nuclear bomb and who has been linked to assisting Iran, Iraq and North Korea weapons programs, was also hosted by the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd, (AECL).

... fears of the world community about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear weapons falling into wrong hands. [....]

Pakistani scientists like Dr. Khan, Sultan Bashiruddin Mahmood and Chaudhry Abdul Majeed got uranium enrichment expertise courtesy of AECL which had helped build a Candu reactor near Karachi.

Some 50 other leading Pakistani nuclear engineers, including the five of nine who have 'absconded' were also trained in Ontario and New Brunswick.

The nine scientists who are said to have left Pakistan are listed in an internal CHASNUPP memo as Muhammad Zubair, Asst. Engineer, (CNS Fellow, Electrical Division, April 1997), Murad Qasin, Senior Engineer (KINPOE fellow, Mechanical Division, Maintenance, Feb 2000), Tariq Mahmood Senior Engineer, (CNS Fellow, Operation Division, May 2000), Saeed Akhther Senior Engineer, (CNS Fellow, Training Division, June 2000), Imtaz Baig, (Senior Engineer KINPOE Fellow, Operation Division July 2000), (Weheed Nasir, Senior Engineer, KINPOE Fellow, Mechanical Division Aug 2000), Munawar Ismail Senior Engineer (CNS fellow Technical Division Oct. 2000), Shaheen Fareed (Senior Engineer CNS fellow Operation Division Feb. 2002) and Khalid Mahmood (Senior Engineer, Operation Division, July 2002). [....]