A jury has convicted a former high-ranking civilian official in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police under the Security of Information Act.
Cameron Ortis was convicted this week on six charges of leaking secret information to police targets.
When he was originally charged in2019, there were also allegations that he was on the verge of sharing info with a foreign entity if some sort. Although those allegations were raised by the Crown at the bail hearing, those charges were dropped because the government decided it did not want to put highly secret info into evidence at trial.
Much of the proceedings have been covered by publication bans pending the jury trial, to avoid taunting tainting the jury pool, but now that the jury has reached its verdict, those restrictions are lifted and full reporting now allowed.
[in keeping with thread topic, correction has been made following information received from an informant whose identity will be protected]
From the article re bail hearing and searching his apartment:
Ortis, a civilian with a doctorate in international relations, was serving at the time as the director of the RCMP’s national intelligence co-ordination centre in Ottawa. He had access to Canada’s Top Secret Network (CTSN), a computer network used by the federal government to share classified information. CTSN held intelligence from Canada’s allies in the Five Eyes, an intelligence-sharing network that includes the U.S., Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom.
During his bail hearings in October 2019, federal prosecutor Judy Kliewer alleged Ortis was in the final stages of a plan to pass state secrets to a “foreign entity.”
Those charges were apparently stayed by the court, and the Crown proceeded with charges relating to breaches of data to criminal figures within the country:
After growing up in British Columbia, Ortis joined the RCMP in 2006. In 2015, he used an alias to make an unusual offer to a British Columbia businessman named Vincent Ramos.
Ramos headed a company, Phantom Secure, that sold encrypted phones to members of organized crime and was already in the sights of police forces in several countries.
“You do not know me. I have information that I am confident you will find very valuable,” Ortis wrote in an email under a pseudonym, adding his pitch was a simple “business proposition.”
He also proactively offered Ramos information that the Crown said could have endangered the life of an undercover RCMP officer who had attempted to infiltrate Phantom Secure. Ortis rejected that claim during his testimony, saying he never released the undercover agent’s name.
One of the articles indicates he could be looking at 20 years.
$20K seems kinda low. Looking forward to watching this unfold more.
And they didn’t have any proof he ever was paid. It all sounds very odd.
Both the Crown and defence lawyer say it was a hard case to handle:
The Ortis trial was the first to test Security of Information Act charges in court. The trial heard from nearly a dozen witnesses and received more than 500 pages of evidence. Some of the evidence has been redacted due to national security concerns.
[Crown prosecutor] Kliewer said prosecuting the case was “very tricky.”
“It’s like you’re walking on eggshells the entire time … because of the national security issues, because you’re worried about what you can and cannot put into evidence,” she said.
Defence lawyer Mark Ertel said he was “shocked and extremely disappointed” by the jury’s decision.
“I’ve had my faith in the jury system shaken before. I’m really at a loss for words. I cant believe what happened,” Ertel told reporters. He said he plans to appeal the decision.
“If you can’t say who gave you information or what the information was, and then you’re found guilty of acting without authority — what other rational conclusion could be drawn other than you defended yourself with one hand tied behind your back? That’s not our system of justice,” he said.
Hmm, interesting case. I could see him winning on appeal.
Mk_VII
November 25, 2023, 12:28am
7
Calling it Canada’s Top Secret Network is a bit of a giveaway. Couldn’t they have just called it Treadstone, or something?
Plus, the natural abbreviation is Canada’s TSN, which is a bit confusing at Grey Cup time.
It’s the fundamental tension between keeping secrets and open court.
They’d have to say, “Sorry, Eh!”
“You shouldn’t’na tried to sell our nation’s secrets, hoser!”
Another article has come out with a bit more detail, including discussion of the tendion between secrecy and open court ;
Defence lawyer Jon Doody argued the evidence rules handcuffed Ortis’s defence.
“It becomes a difficult dichotomy between protecting Canada’s national security and prosecuting people who may have offended that act. And so it’s a difficult decision and some individuals might argue that in order to protect Canada’s national security, you have to give up trying to prosecute someone for it,” he told reporters before the verdict.
It’s very difficult to try and walk both lines … and we are seeing that difficulty play out here."
The defence apparently did have some success with that argument in pre-trial motions:
The Crown argued back in 2019 that Ortis was “on the cusp” of passing state secrets to a foreign entity. Court documents from 2020 suggest the RCMP feared he was preparing to leak to Chinese officials.
Those charges were dropped before the trial began. In a ruling that was under a publication ban until Wednesday, the court concluded that restrictions on the use of classified information would prevent Ortis from presenting a full defence on those charges.
Next up - sentencing:
The Crown said it will seek a severe prison sentence for Ortis in the range of 20 years or more. The defence said Ortis already served three years waiting for the trial.
“Mr. Ortis has served enough time and there’s no basis to further incarcerate him,” Mark Ertel told reporters after the verdict.