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By Jordan Press

A member of the Royal Canadian Navy has become the first person charged under the country’s post-9/11 secrets law for allegedly passing protected government information to an unknown foreign body.

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Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle, 40, was charged Monday under the Security of Information Act, which came into effect in 2001. The navy intelligence officer is charged with communicating information that may “increase the capacity of a foreign entity or a terrorist group to harm Canadian interests.”

Before Monday, no one had ever been charged under the Security of Information Act, part of a sweeping package of anti-terrorism laws introduced in the wake of of the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks in the U.S.

“It’s completely unprecedented, post-9/11,” said Wesley Wark, a national security expert from the University of Toronto.

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The secrets law updated the Official Secrets Act, a law that was rushed into force on the eve of the Second World War. The updated law also broadened the definition of secret information from “classified information” to cover anything the government wished to protect from any foreign organization, government or group.