A lawyer for a former RCMP intelligence official charged with leaking secrets told a jury on Nov. 16 that his client did not betray Canada, but acted on a “clear and grave threat.”
During closing arguments in Ontario Superior Court, Jon Doody said Cameron Jay Ortis, who led the force’s Operations Research group, was a dedicated member concerned with protecting Canadians.
“Cameron Ortis was not and is not an enemy to the RCMP, or to the citizens of Canada,” Mr. Doody told jurors.
Mr. Ortis, 51, has pleaded not guilty to violating the Security of Information Act by revealing secrets to three individuals in 2015 and trying to do so in a fourth instance, as well as breach of trust, and a computer-related offence.
Mr. Ortis has told the jury he didn’t commit a crime or lose sight of his mission.
On the contrary, Mr. Ortis said during testimony earlier this month that in September 2014, he was contacted by a counterpart at a foreign agency who advised him of a particularly serious threat.
Mr. Ortis said the counterpart told him in strict confidence about an online encryption service called Tutanota that was secretly set up to spy on adversaries.
Mr. Ortis said he then devised a plan to dangle secret material to investigative targets to get them to use the encryption service.
For its part, the company, now known as Tuta, denies having ties to intelligence agencies.
The Crown argues Mr. Ortis lacked authority to disclose classified material and that he was not doing so as part of some kind of undercover operation.
Prosecutor Judy Kliewer said the former intelligence official’s story has fatal flaws that undermine its believability.
“I will ask you to find that Mr. Ortis had no authority to communicate this special information,” she said to jurors on Nov. 16. “And the story that he told you about why he did what he did doesn’t have the slightest ring of truth.”
The jury has heard that the RCMP follows extensive protocols when conducting undercover operations.
Mr. Ortis told the court he decided the covert operations policy did not apply to his secret plan because, unlike a traditional undercover assignment, there was no intention of collecting criminal evidence or intelligence.
He has also said he didn’t tell superiors about his plan because he was sworn to secrecy by the foreign ally, and had learned there were moles inside law enforcement agencies that could thwart his efforts.
Ms. Kliewer said Mr. Ortis’s Operations Research group, which compiled and developed classified information on terror cells and transnational criminal networks, was not involved in communicating special operational information to targets of interest.
She suggested his story of a clandestine solo operation simply did not make sense.
“Just like the air traffic controller doesn’t fly the plane, everybody has their part. No mission is accomplished by one man.”
Ms. Kliewer also took issue with Mr. Ortis keeping the possibility of a mole in the RCMP quiet from his superiors, saying he would have a duty to report it.
Mr. Ortis was taken into custody in September 2019.
The trail to his arrest began the previous year when the RCMP analyzed the contents of a laptop computer owned by Vincent Ramos, chief executive of Phantom Secure Communications, who had been arrested in the United States.
An RCMP effort known as Project Saturation revealed that members of criminal organizations were known to use Phantom Secure’s encrypted communication devices.
Mr. Ramos would later plead guilty to using his Phantom Secure devices to help facilitate the distribution of cocaine and other illicit drugs to countries including Canada.
A retired RCMP investigator told the jury he found an email to Mr. Ramos from an unknown sender with portions of several documents, including mention of material from the federal anti-money laundering agency, the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, known as Fintrac.
The sender would later offer to provide Mr. Ramos with the full documents in exchange for $20,000.
Mr. Ortis acknowledges he was behind the messages to Mr. Ramos and others, saying it was all part of the clandestine operation involving Tutanota.
But he has generally played down the sensitivity of the information.
Ms. Kliewer painted a far more damaging scenario on Nov. 16, saying the materials were “not the kind of information that you use to nudge targets to use a certain platform for communication.”
The sensitive information could enable the targets to alter their activities to evade law-enforcement efforts and frustrate progress against criminal networks, she said.
