Thursday, November 16, 2006

Debatably a hanging offense.


(CC NEWS) -- In a shocking reminder of the old days of the Cold War, Canadian authorities arrested a suspected Russian spy as he was about to board a plane out of the country.

The man, who had been living in Canada under the name Paul William Hampel, was taken into custody on Tuesday at Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport in Dorval, Quebec.

According to Canada's Minister of Justice and Attorney General Vic Toews, Hampel, under interrogation, admitted to having been sent to Canada to snoop on "Canada's New Government" and steal any information related to the Conservative Party of Canada's new policies on women's rights, gay tolerance and environmental protection.

Toews suggested that, given the severity of the crime and the inherent value of the data collected by Hampel, he was recommending a sentence of 10 days in prison for Hampel, to be served on alternate weekends and followed by 100 hours of community service. Hampel's lawyer, horrified by the unfairness of the sentence, has already promised to appeal.

Canadian security officials are still uncertain how Hampel planned on smuggling the stolen information out of the country and continued to search his luggage for high-tech items such as microdots and encoded data but found nothing out of the ordinary, although they admit being puzzled by the presence of both a postage stamp and a shaving brush.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's interesting that the Russians are spying now that the Conservatives are the government. The Russians didn't think the Libs were doing anything useful, I guess.

Anonymous said...

I hope you're kidding, anonymous. You do realize CC was mocking the 'New' Government of Canada, right?

Anonymous said...

Phong,

CC was mocking but behind this is a real story here

Anonymous said...

Phong,

The link doesn't seem to work directly; I got it from Google news. Try here

Anonymous said...

Anonymous, I suggest you read all of the article you linked to. It says that the spy has been here for several years.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it says he slipped in to Canada under the previous Liberal government several years ago and was maintaining a low profile, building his 'legend', until something interesting happened. Then the Conservatives were elected.
It just goes to show how competent the Liberals are at security when it takes Stockwell Day and his crew to catch him.

Anonymous said...

Yeah, it's great to know that the New Government of Canada is, once again, "getting things done".

"It just goes to show how competent the Liberals are at security when it takes Stockwell Day and his crew to catch him."
LOL. Stop it, you're killing me.

Anonymous said...

Jesus. Next thing you know, they'll be blaming Rona's yeast infections on the Liberals.

Ewps. Sexist. My bad!

Anonymous said...

How many other countries detain someone who is boarding a plane leaving the country, in order to deport them?

Anonymous said...

Oh, puleeze - Anon, who's paying you?

I am not privy to all the details, but I suspect that this particular spy was more interested in technology and/or industrial secrets.
Canada is a breeding place for technology, pharacuticals, space technology etc. Despite the fact that we consistently underfund the sientific communities, they still come up with the goods, and their discoveries are worth millions of dollars of dollars.