Canada’s Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault waits to testify before the Commons ethics committee on Parliament Hill in Ottawa
The Defence Department is prepared to go to Federal Court and spend whatever it takes to prevent the public from seeing government photos of Taliban hairdos because it believes the captured insurgents have a right to their privacy.
The department’s decision, outlined in newly released documents obtained by the Citizen, is the result of a test of the Access to Information law by two Ottawa lawyers, Paul Champ and Amir Attaran.
To see how far DND would go to prevent the release of information about captured Afghan insurgents, Attaran requested copies of photographs the military took of such individuals but asked that the faces of the prisoners be completely blacked out and that only the hairdos of the detainees shown.
Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault, the government watchdog for the Access law, also recommended DND release the heavily censored photos.
But the DND documents obtained by the Citizen through the Access law outline the department’s view: releasing the photographs of the hairdos of captured insurgents would violate their privacy rights and could hurt national security.
“National Defence will not follow the recommendation made by the Information Commissioner of Canada regarding disclosure of photographs covered by this file and is prepared to defend the decision in court if necessary,” Julie Jansen, head of DND’s Access to Information branch, wrote in the October 2010 briefing note.
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Attaran said DND’s claim it can’t release photos of hairdos because it must protect the privacy of the alleged insurgents is ludicrous. “The same government that says those detainees have no rights under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms now embraces the idea that detainees have rights under the Privacy Act,” he explained. “The government’s position is that these persons have privacy rights but no constitutional right to avoid torture.”
An email sent Friday by DND noted the decision to withhold the 28 photographs was based entirely on enforcing the privacy issue. It did not mention the earlier claim by Jansen that releasing photos of detainee hairdos would harm national security.
The email noted the Privacy Act protects the privacy of individuals with respect to the information held by the Canadian government about them.
Some legal specialists, however, have noted that Canada’s Privacy law applies only to Canadians and permanent residents.
Bernd Pulch 