http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Eulogizing+life+secrets/3846302\ /story.html#ixzz15ejSjXLA <http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Eulogizing+life+secrets/384630\ 2/story.html#ixzz15ejSjXLA> Eulogizing a life of secrets Tyler Anderson, National Post
Maureen Hooper, the wife of former Canadian spy Jack Hooper, pays her last respects at his funeral in Toronto on Wednesday. Comments <http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/#Comments> Stewart Bell, National Post ยท Wednesday, Nov. 17, 2010 When members of Canada's intelligence community gathered at a Toronto cemetery on Wednesday to pay their respects to veteran counterterrorist Jack Hooper, a lot was left unsaid. At the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, where he was Deputy Director of Operations, Mr. Hooper took part in all the country's major counterterrorism investigations, from Air India to the Toronto 18. But how do you eulogize a life of secrets? From time to time, Mr. Hooper's name surfaced at public inquiries but much of what he did during his lengthy public service will never be known outside intelligence circles. "Unfortunately we can only communicate part of the story but that's the nature of our work and we accept it," said Charles Bisson, also a former CSIS Deputy Director of Operations. "Doing our work is our own gratitude; we're not expecting publicity or any type of gratitude. That's the work we do and we can't speak about many things." At the packed service at Mount Pleasant cemetery, one eulogist described how, when CSIS was planning to send people to Afghanistan, Mr. Hooper went first to check things out. A photo of Mr. Hooper holding a military assault rifle was included in the memorial's slide show. Friends and associates remembered him as an influential intelligence officer who helped guide CSIS through the turbulent years after 9/11, and on whose watch al-Qaeda and its followers never succeeded in attacking Canada. "No one worked longer hours nor digged down deeper into a case," said Charles Coghlin, a former CSIS colleague and one of several current and former senior intelligence officials in attendance. "I am absolutely certain that Canadians are more secure because he was one of us." Mr. Hooper collapsed and died last Friday. He was 57. He left CSIS in 2007. Since then he had lived in Peachland, B.C., with his wife Maureen, worked for Public Mobile and volunteered at True Patriot Love, a foundation that helps military families. Frank and passionate about counter-terrorism, he was the public face of CSIS for a time. At the Air India inquiry, he testified about the agency's controversial decision to destroy surveillance tapes of the suspects, and a blunt memo he wrote was released at the inquiry into the Maher Arar affair. His colleagues said that while he has been caricatured as a "maverick spy," that is off the mark; while he was colourful and opinionated, he was a meticulous stickler for detail in a field where mistakes can cost lives. "He was always very thorough in his work and checked everything he handled with a fine tooth comb," said a former CSIS colleague, Stewart Sweet. Mr. Hooper constantly reminded those around him "that counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence are 24-hours-a-day occupations, that there can never really be any total down-time," he said. Luc Portelance, who worked with Mr. Hooper at CSIS and is now president of the Canada Border Services Agency, described him as "a very intelligent individual, very rigorous ... his attention to detail was quite significant. He was a guy I had a lot of respect for in terms of his approach, his rigour, his commitment." William John "Jack" Hooper began his career in the RCMP in 1974. Posted to Burnaby, B.C., he joined the RCMP security service in 1981 and was assigned to various counterintelligence and counter-terrorism desks. In 1984, he was among those who left the RCMP to join the new civilian intelligence service, CSIS. A year later, Sikh extremists from B.C. bombed Air India Flight 182, killing 329 people, most of them Canadians. Preventing another such disaster became his guiding philosophy. He rose through the ranks from counter-terrorism analyst to manager of the Threat Assessment Program, section chief responsible for terrorist threats from the Middle East, and Deputy Director General in charge of counter-terrorism investigations. When terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, he was the Director General of the Toronto region and helped organize Canada's response to al-Qaeda's campaign of mass casualty anti-Western attacks. Among the tricky cases the Toronto office dealt with at the time was that of Mohamed Jabarah, a young Canadian who had left his home in St. Catharines to join al-Qaeda and, after training, was sent to Southeast Asia to bomb U.S. embassies. CSIS brought Jabarah back to Ontario, convinced him to confess and helped him surrender to the FBI, but the Security Intelligence Review Committee later criticized the service for helping hand a Canadian over to U.S. authorities. Also during that period, CSIS came under scrutiny for sharing information that could lead to the torture of terror suspects overseas. Friends and associates said Mr. Hooper had to make difficult decisions in difficult times, and under tremendous pressure. "He did what he thought was right and I think people supported him," said former CSIS official Barry Denofsky. Mr. Hooper was named Assistant Director of Operations in 2002, and Deputy Director of Operations in 2005, a year when the focus was on Operation Claymore, the investigation into a group of radicalized Canadian Muslims who were planning bombings in Canada. Police arrested the so-called Toronto 18 in June, 2006. The ringleaders have since pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit terrorist attacks, including twin truck bombings in downtown Toronto. One of the targets was the CSIS building. "He led us through one of the most challenging periods in our history," Al Jones, the CSIS Assistant Director, said in his eulogy. sb...@nationalpost.com <mailto:sb...@nationalpost.com> --------- IN HIS OWN WORDS "We do a good job of containing the threats we know about; we stay up at night worrying about the threats that we do not know about. We used to work on a ratio of 10 to 1, that is, for every one we knew about there were probably 10 that we did not. We strove to identify these unknowns. I worry that the ratio has increased. I think there may be more unknowns now than ever." -- Jack Hooper, testimony to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence, 2006. <http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Eulogizing+life+secrets/384630\ 2/story.html#ixzz15ejSjXLA> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, discuss-os...@yahoogroups.com. -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor biso...@intellnet.org http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: osint-subscr...@yahoogroups.com Unsubscribe: osint-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtmlYahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: osint-dig...@yahoogroups.com osint-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: osint-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
