Dozens rejected at Canada-U.S. borders, airports for suspected links to terrorism

OTTAWA — Dozens of people from Canada have been turned back at the U.S. border or prevented from boarding U.S.-bound airplanes in recent months because of suspected links to terrorism, sensitive U.S. government documents show.

The incidents are detailed in a series of daily briefs published between September and this month by the Department of Homeland Security's operations center. They contain no classified information but are generally intended to remain secret.

The briefs reveal details of numerous individual cases and provide insight into the close co-operation between Canadian authorities and the U.S. security department.

Alex Swann, a spokesman for Anne McLellan, Canada's Minister of Public Security and Emergency Preparedness, declined to comment Thursday on the specific type of information shared between U.S. and Canadian security agencies.

But Department of Homeland Security spokesman Brian Roehrkasse confirmed that the memos posted this week on the Cryptome Web site, a New York-based resource dedicated to shedding light on the workings of the security world, were legitimate. Roehrkasse said they contained "sensitive information."

The publication — at http://cryptome.org — apparently resulted from an unsecured link on the U.S. Energy Department's Web site that has since been corrected.

The cases concerning Canada involved individuals on a U.S. "no-fly" list and others who showed up on the State Department's Tipoff watch list, which contains the names of more than 100,000 possible terrorists.

The memos feature a disclaimer noting the documents "may contain initial and preliminary reporting which may or may not be accurate."