A former U.S. Navy SEAL turned podcaster has received a cease and desist letter from Canadian special operations forces over an interview he released with a former sniper from Canada’s top counterterrorism unit, citing the unauthorized sharing of classified information.
“I’m sure many of you are aware that I pulled the JTF2 [Joint Task Force-2] Sniper / Dallas Alexander SRS [Shawn Ryan Show] Episode due to a cease and desist from the Canadian Gov,” Shawn Ryan wrote on Twitter on Feb. 14.
“I believe that this is their attempt to silence Dallas from explaining that he left the command for refusing the covid vaccine.”
Ryan posted on Twitter the Feb. 10 letter he received from a legal advisor of the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command (CANSOFCOM), which is responsible for the elite JTF-2 unit.
The letter demands that Episode #47 with Dallas Alexander be taken down from all platforms.
It says the episode contains “information or material that has been properly classified and protected, and which is sensitive information such that its public release is injurious to Canadian national security, national defence, and international relations.”
The Department of National Defence (DND) confirmed to The Epoch Times that the letter is authentic.
DND said that CANSOFCOM “can confirm that we are in touch with the production company referred to in your query, over concern regarding content released in a recent podcast episode.”
The department said it would not provide further information at this time.
At the time of publication, Episode #47 was still available on YouTube and Alexander describes in it the process he says led to him being kicked out of JTF-2.
Alexander says he refused to comply with the COVID-19 vaccination mandate and requests that he wear a mask.
The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) softened its vaccine mandate last fall to limit it to operational roles after hundreds of members were kicked out or left the organization, and months after the federal government lifted its workplace mandate.
The CANSOFCOM letter also demanded that Episode #48 not be published without its prior review.
Ryan complied with that demand and pulled the episode, which went over Alexander’s involvement in a sensitive operation.
“I’m trying to do what’s best for everybody here okay,” Ryan said in a video explaining his decision to comply with the removal of the episode.
“If there is sensitive information within that episode I am not going to be the guy to jeopardize any of the operators within that unit or anything that may compromise that unit as a whole,” he said, adding having worked with JTF-2 operators in the past.
Alexander, reached by The Epoch Times, says that nothing appears “OPSEC related” in Episode #47, in reference to the acronym for “operational security.”
“I also consulted with a lot of current members of the unit to get arcs and have had an amazing response from the community, saying I represented the unit well and they are proud. Many, many,” he says.
Ryan said on Twitter he would let CANSOFCOM review the material but would continue to “push back hard.”
“If they cannot produce what information needs to be redacted promptly, the episode will go live again un-edited, as I have zero legal obligation to abide by Canadian law.”
The CANSOFCOM letter says that Ryan “may be liable under the National Defence Act, the Criminal Code of Canada, or the Security of Information Act” for disclosing the information provided by Alexander.