On November 26, 2001, the CIA’s Office of General Counsel proposed a legal workaround to get away with “torture”. Note that the Orwellian term “enhanced interrogation” was not deployed in these early days to varnish the reality of the acts anticipated.
Project MKUltra (or MK-Ultra)was an illegal human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), intended to develop procedures and identify drugs that could be used in interrogations to weaken individuals and force confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture.It began in 1953 and was halted in 1973. MKUltra used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects' mental states and brain functions, such as the covert administration of high doses of psychoactive drugs (especially LSD) and other chemicals, electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, and verbal and sexual abuse, in addition to other forms of torture
In 1967, it was suspected that there was a Soviet infiltrator in the ranks of Canadian intelligence. Suspicion initially fell upon Leslie James Bennett. With Bennett's personal leftist politics and past acquaintanceship with defector Kim Philby, he has been pilloried as the most likely suspect by the RCMP themselves, although the RCMP was asked to investigate Bennett by James Jesus Angleton of the CIA. The accusations and interrogations by the police led to the breakdown of Bennett's marriage and early retirement.In the 1980s it was discovered that the mole had actually been Sergeant Gilles Brunet, the son of an RCMP assistant commissioner.
On the night of May 6, 1972, the RCMP Security Service burned down a barn owned by Paul Rose's and Jacques Rose's mother in Sainte-Anne-de-la-Rochelle, Quebec. They suspected that separatists were planning to meet with members of the Black Panthers from the United States. The arson came after they failed to convince a judge to allow them to wiretap the alleged meeting place. This was later admitted by Solicitor General Francis Fox on October 31, 1977. RCMP Assistant Commissioner Rod Stamler later said that the barn-burning operation was "morally wrong and unlawful" and if the police leadership condones such actions, it will lose control of the (police) force.Staff Sergeant Donald McCleery (1934-2014) was involved in the operation, and following his retirement from the RCMP ran his own "investigation and surveillance" company in Montreal, Quebec. The firm was acquired by Gardium Sécurité in 2008.