La Presse journalist spied on by police
Fury in Quebec after officers obtained warrant to track Patrick Lagacé’s cellphone
MONTREAL— Montreal’s police force is under fire after revelations that investigators spied on a newspaper columnist in order to find out which of its members was leaking information to the media.
Internal affairs investigators with the Montreal police were able to get a series of warrants that allowed them to see who was calling or being called by journalist Patrick Lagacé.
Some of the warrants also allowed investigators to remotely activate the GPS on his iPhone, meaning his movements could be followed in real time.
It is a case so blatant that it has unified normally warring political parties, has been denounced by the mayor of Montreal and even sparked a critical tweet from famed American whistleblower Edward Snowden, who knows a thing or two about electronic surveillance.
But Montreal’s police chief, Philippe Pichet, is defending his force, saying that while he is “hypersensitive” to journalistic freedom his officers are also responsible for getting to the bottom of alleged criminal acts.
“We also have a job to do,” he told reporters Monday, adding that all the necessary laws and rules were respected.
Speaking after Pichet addressed the media, Lagacé rejected the police chief’s explanations.
“There were graver events in the past but those events were not subject to journalists being targeted for spying,” he said. “Mr. Pichet is saying that this investigation was more important than terrorism investigations, than national security issues that were the object of journalistic work.”
Lagacé added: “If he knew one thing about freedom of expression and if he knew one thing about press freedom he would never have allowed that.”
According to La Presse, most of the warrants were authorized by Josée De Carufel, a justice of the peace in Montreal who was nominated to the position in 2012 after more than two decades as a lawyer employed by the provincial government.
La Presse editor in chief Éric Trottier said the revelations were an attack on all journalists.
“It irredeemably compromises the confidence that must exist between a journalist and his or her source so that citizens can be informed of subjects that are in the public interest and can participate in an enlightened manner in the democratic life of the country,” he wrote in Monday’s paper.
Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre said he was troubled by the news, but dismissed calls for the city’s police chief to step aside while the decision to spy on Lagacé was investigated.
Quebec Public Safety Minister Martin Coiteux warned that it was not the place of the government to interfere in a police investigation, nor with the decisions of the judiciary.
“Our society is founded on a separation of powers and the independence of institutions. The best way to defend freedom of the press and democracy is to maintain that independence at all levels,” he said in Quebec City.
Pichet said that police went to extraordinary measures in this matter, including sending two investigators to meet with Lagacé last Friday to explain why and how his telephone was monitored.
According to La Presse, the investigators told Lagacé that the probe began in December 2015 into allegations that gang and drug cops had been fabricating evidence. The probe resulted in five officers being arrested in July of this year.
Two of the officers — Faycal Djelidi and David Chartrand — are charged with perjury and obstruction of justice. Djelidi was charged additionally with soliciting and obtaining sexual services as well as breach of trust.
Police investigators found Lagacé’s telephone number among the contacts during a search of Djelidi’s telephone. They also noticed that sensitive newspaper articles had been published a short time later that involved files on which Djelidi was involved.
La Presse said that none of the articles in question were written by Lagacé. At times they were not even published by La Presse. The police officers who met with Lagacé last Friday said that the leaks of information had negatively affected ongoing “criminal investigations.”
That led to the parallel investigation to determine if Djelidi was the source of the information and resulted in officers applying to the judge for search warrants to monitor the journalist’s telephone.
“It was only Faycal (the officer) that we were interested in. In all of this, you were not at all implicated as a suspect. You were like an investigative tool, in a sense,” the newspaper quoted one of the two police officers, Iad Hanna, as telling Lagacé.
The officer said that the Djelidi investigation did not result in any charges.