Exactly What He Wanted

The persistent goad, University of Ottawa Law professor Amir Attaran, who made a practise of accusing the federal Conservative-led government and the Department of Foreign Affairs of handing over Afghan prisoners to the Afghan prison system, knowing they would be subjected to torture, has found his position claiming his private documents relating to that research to be off limits to scrutiny, validated.

"Academic freedom is a critical underpinning of our institutions of higher learning.  It is a value that I'm delighted to be able to uphold", wrote Ontario's information and privacy commissioner, Ann Cavoukian, upholding the University of Ottawa's decision to withhold research-related expense records of Professor Attaran.

An unnamed individual has filed a number of access to information requests, all relating to Professor Attaran.  Professor Attaran takes exception to his privacy, let alone his entitlement as an academic to performing research being subjected to a tit-for-tat-appearing exercise by someone seeking perhaps to cast doubt on his motivation to embarrass the government.

The John Doe request that set off the debate revolving around academic freedom to explore topics of interest for the purpose of probing and criticizing government actions, was initially rejected by the university administration.  It was informed by the privacy commissioner that the documents should be forwarded nonetheless.

Professor Attaran, with the backing of his academic union, criticized the university administration for not continuing to defy the order to submit the requested materials, and with their support launched an appeal.  Thus ending a dispute between the professor and the school administration.

"This is an important step.  In terms of finding that the documents are lawfully shielded from disclosure, that's exactly what I wanted and that's exactly correct," he stated.  There has been 20 freedom of information requests under the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act launched by that unidentified source related to Dr. Attaran's work.

It does seem paradoxical that a duly elected government, claiming the release of classified documents would be inimical to the safety and security of the country, yet is compelled to provide that information, however well redacted, while the very person who has insisted on examining those documents to provide the basis for his repeated accusations of wrong-doing, is himself exempt from the same process.

An duly elected democratic government, the executive of which is tasked to address issues of primary importance to the country may be compelled to produce data that it feels should be kept from unauthorized sources.  An academic who has a political axe to grind may lawfully insist he has no legal obligation to have his own documents released for scrutiny.

Something doesn't quite add up here.