The lawyer for a Canadian naval officer who confessed to selling military secrets to the Russians says he was stunned his client wasn't caught sooner by domestic intelligence officials who failed for years to pick up on his illicit behaviour.
Mike Taylor said he finds it baffling that Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle used such crude methods - floppy discs and thumb drives - to smuggle sensitive data from his secure office in Halifax to his home and then on to Russian agents via an online email provider.
The way the 41-year-old spy was paid by the Russians should also have been picked up by Delisle's superiors at HMCS Trinity, the Defence facility where he worked as a threat assessment analyst since 2010, said Taylor.
"It's amazing he wasn't caught long before he was - absolutely amazing," Taylor said in an interview. "There are lots of things about security at that place that would make you shake your head.
"I was astounded the more I heard about it. I just thought, 'How in the name of God did anyone miss all of this?' Well, the answer may be in the fact that security is just ridiculous. It's Swiss cheese," he said.
Delisle pleaded guilty earlier this month to breach of trust and espionage. He might testify at a sentencing hearing in January.
