National Security Law

A brief nutshell lecture prepared for Canadians participating in the Georgetown National Security Crisis Law Simulation. The purpose of this nutshell is to provide a high level overview of US constitutional law, as contrasted to Canadian equivalents. The podcast also provides a general overview of the legal basis for some of the key members of the US intelligence community.

Brief podcast on international and Cdn law controlling proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and also a brief discussion of export control law in this area.

Brief podcasts discussing legal responses to epidemics and disasters, including the federal Emergencies Act, Emergency Management Act, National Defence Act "public service" powers, and Quarantine Act and a general discussion provincial disaster and public health laws.

Brief podcast on anti-terrorism peace bonds (recognizance with conditions), so-called "preventive detention" and the "threat reduction activities" of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service created by bill C-51.

Brief podcast on intelligence sharing by Cdn agencies to both domestic and international partners. Includes discussion of Five Eyes and the issue of intelligence sharing and risk of torture.

Brief podcast on what I call "interdiction", focusing on border control measures, passport revocation, no fly lists, immigration security tools (like security certificates) and the controversial concept of citizenship revocation.

Brief podcast on "intelligence to evidence"; that is, challenges and conundrums of using information collected by intelligence services in the prosecution of crimes, such as terrorism offences.

First brief nutshell lecture on Canadian anti-terrorism criminal law. This lecture focuses on the predicate of (most) Canadian terrorism offences: that the impugned conduct involve "terrorist activity". Because of the complexity of this area, it may be best to view this lecture in video, where I present relevant text: http://tinyurl.com/z3owo2g

Second podcast in the mini-series on anti-terrorism criminal law in Canada, focusing on the concept of "terrorist groups" in Canadian law.

Brief nutshell podcast summarizing the most important terrorism crimes in the Canadian Criminal Code, focusing on instruction, facilitation and participation offences and discussing the controversial new "advocacy and promotion of terrorism offences in general" speech crime.

Brief podcast on accountability review of Canadian national security agencies. An earlier video version of this lecture is at http://tinyurl.com/z4jtr33

Brief podcast on national security secrecy law in Canada, focusing on justifications for secrecy, secrecy in court proceedings and the Canada Evidence Act, national security and the Access to Information Act and the secrecy offences for unauthorized disclosures.

A brief podcast describing the law governing the international and domestic deployment of the Canadian Armed Forces

Brief podcast providing an overview of Part VI of the Criminal Code, the CSIS Act surveillance warrant regime and the CSE foreign intelligence system, as well as introducing thorny issues around the collection of metadata.

Brief podcast lecture on the concept of metadata, private communications, foreign intelligence and the Communications Security Establishment, given controversies associated with the Snowden disclosures. Video version: http://tinyurl.com/znonx87

Brief podcast on the federal Emergencies Act in Canada and its affect on law and governance.

Brief podcast on the structure of Canadian national security institutions.