U.S. lawyer targeted by Trump cautions Canada on AI and attacks on dissent

An American lawyer stripped of his security clearance by U.S. President Donald Trump says Canadians need to be vigilant about attacks on political freedom south of the border.

Mark Zaid, a speaker at the Web Summit Vancouver tech conference, said he never expected to get "attacked" by a sitting president over the work he's done in his three decades practising law, representing clients from the worlds of intelligence and national security. 

He said Canadians need to be wary of the rise of artificial intelligence that could be used to either target political dissent or shield it, warning that it's hard to prevent attacks on democratic norms, rather than react to them. 

Zaid said that there were rumours in Washington about how AI was potentially used to sniff out anti-Trump dissent.

"This is more about whether or not political dissent is going to be tolerated, and so I think AI and the tech community is the next sort of shield," he said Thursday. 

Zaid is co-founder of the non-profit Whistleblower Aid and he said Canada is not immune to the forces that have shaped American political culture under Trump. 

"We share so much with our television, the news broadcasts, everything. We're watching each other all the time and so I think what's going on in the United States could easily happen in Canada, which I hope never will," he said. "But that's why you watch what's going on elsewhere to make sure it doesn't happen here." 

Zaid is suing Trump and others after the president stripped him of his security clearance at the same time as former president Joe Biden and other political figures.

The lawyer had represented a whistleblower during the first Trump administration, and has practised law in the national security space since former president Bill Clinton was in power. He touts himself as non-partisan, and says he is registered as an independent. 

Zaid -- who said he didn't bring his cellphone across the border in case it got confiscated on his return -- said artificial intelligence may be in its "infancy" but it is at the "forefront of everything that's going on." 

He said technology's impacts on politics knows no borders, with social media bot accounts from outside the country demonstrating how "you don't any longer have to be local to be able to have an effect. In fact, you can be across the world." 

"Before Twitter became X, much of the disinformation that was being targeted at the United States during the elections in 2016 in particular was coming from overseas," he said. 

Zaid said the work Whistleblower Aid does in the U.S. "is needed in every country around the world," to protect people who take great professional risks to reveal institutional wrongdoing and face potential political retribution. 

He said he'd recently began watching the television show "The Handmaid's Tale," based on Canadian author Margaret Atwood's book, which is "not a very positive thing to watch." 

"Canada is the home for U.S. asylum seekers in 'Handmaid's Tale.' So for those of you who are Canadian, do not become our 51st state. Stay free, please," he said. "In both countries, the power is with the people to hold the government accountable, not the other way around." 

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz