Vikileaker says he acted alone, but Tories skeptical

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Vikileaks creator Adam Carroll, appears at Commons eithics committee to discuss the anonymous use of House of Commons resources against a Member of Parliament on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Tuesday April 24, 2012. (ADRIAN WYLD / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

OTTAWA – The man behind Vikileaks says he acted entirely on his own when he decided to make an example of Public Safety Minister Vic Toews by posting details of Toews’ public divorce file on Twitter.

However the Conservatives insist there was no way he could have done it all by himself and allege there was a greater conspiracy at work by a Liberal Party, which they said has a history of launching baseless smears at political opponents.

Adam Carroll, a former Liberal staffer, testified at the House of Commons ethics committee today, after being summoned by the Conservatives.

In February, Carroll launched a Twitter account, @vikileaks30, in protest to Toews’ introduction of bill C-30. The legislation would give the government power to compel Internet service providers to give up client information including names, phone numbers, addresses and Internet Protocol addresses. IP addresses are numeric codes which identify certain computers on the Internet. Experts say having an IP address can allow police or government to track certain activities online, including participation in chat rooms or posts on blogs.

The government says it needs the information to more easily track and arrest child pornographers. Critics of the bill argue if the activities are illegal, a judge should issue a warrant and that the private information of law-abiding citizens should not be fair game without a warrant.

Carroll told the committee he set up the account when Toews suggested in the House of Commons that Canadians could either stand with the government and support the bill, or with child predators and oppose it.

"I am Vikileaks30," Carroll said. "I and I alone am the author. I was never ordered nor asked to do it."

However Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro said he just did not believe that to be true.

"I think you’ve been a good soldier," said Del Mastro. "It’s clear someone in your position couldn’t have undertaken this on your own."

Del Mastro and other Conservatives worked throughout the 90 minutes or so of testimony, to show that Carroll had to have had help. They repeatedly demanded the names of other Liberals who might have had access to the divorce file. At one point, it was suggested Liberal MP Justin Trudeau had to be in on it because he retweeted the @vikileaks tweets shortly after the account began.

Carroll said he’d never even met Trudeau. He called Del Mastro’s accusations ridiculous.

"I disagree with everything Mr. Del Mastro said," Carroll said, speaking with his lawyer at his side. "To use his words, they are baseless smears or the acronym BS."

Carroll repeatedly pointed out none of the information he tweeted was protected, it was all contained in a public accessible divorce file. He pointed out even Toews acknowledged in a committee appearance recently that the private lives of public figures are fair game.

He said he felt strongly if Toews was asking Canadians to accept having their privacy breached by the government, perhaps Toews should get a taste of that medicine by having his private life made public.

Carroll said he launched the account from home but conceded he did post to it from his desktop computer on Parliament Hill. He shut it down after an Ottawa Citizen reporter managed to track the IP address to Parliament Hill. At first the IP address was connected to an NDP staffer but it was later discovered there are only four IP addresses used on all Parliament Hill computers.

Speaker Andrew Scheer launched an investigation at the behest of Toews and it was that investigation which led to Carroll. Interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae asked Carroll to resign and he did.

Carroll said the irony that the speaker’s investigation of perfectly legal activities by tracking an IP address is somewhat ironic considering the legislation in question posits to do almost the same thing.

The NDP and Liberal MPs on the committee reiterated their objections to the whole thing, calling the committee hearing a circus and a mockery of Parliament. They repeatedly objected and raised points of order accusing the Conservatives of trying to use the committee to glean information about the Liberal Party and how it operates.

Del Mastro and the Conservatives tried to find out how the Liberals ended up with the divorce file in the first place and Carroll said the file was in the Liberal office before he started working there last summer. He said he doesn’t know who put it there or who had seen it, despite repeated questions from Conservative MPs demanding the information.

Del Mastro said it was clear to him the only reason the Liberals would have such a file is to use it for exactly the purposes Carroll ultimately did.

"I would think it was done with the full knowledge of the leadership of the Liberal Party that files like this were being compiled with the intention of turning someone like yourself loose with it."

Carroll retorted that was a bit hypocritical.

"Are you suggesting the Conservative Party of Canada’s opposition research files are just perfectly clean with encyclopedia-level information about every member of Parliament in opposition? Is this what you’re suggesting? Would you be willing to invite the media over to take a quick look?"

Mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca