Secret document shows Canada spies for US in many countries

Another top secret document from whistleblower Edward Snowden shows Canada set up spying posts around the globe to spy on trading partners at the bidding of the U.S. National Security Agency(NSA).

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The leaked Snowden document is being reported on exclusively by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation(CBC). The clandestine spy posts are said to have been set up in "approximately 20 high-priority countries." A redacted version of the document can be accessed here.

Clandestine cooperation between the Communications Security Establishment Canada(CSEC) and the National Security Agency(NSA) of the U.S. is nothing new. Earlier Snowden documents reported on by the CBC, show that CSEC cooperated with NSA when the latter spied on G8and G20 meetings in Canada in 2010. Such revelations could very well result in boycotting Canada for future meetings.

NSA values its relationship with CSEC. Often CSEC is able to access geographical areas that are unavailable to NSA. Both sides would like to see their relationship expanded and strengthened. It already covers "worldwide national and transnational targets." Both groups specialize in signals intelligence or SIGINT:Signals intelligence (SIGINT) is intelligence-gathering by interception of signals, whether communications between people (communications intelligence — abbreviated to COMINT) or from electronic signals not directly used in communication (electronic intelligence — abbreviated to ELINT). Signals intelligence is a subset of intelligence collection management.

The CBC is behind the times. CSEC is now SEC. The "Canada" has been dropped out of the name. After all SEC is no longer so much Canadian but more a junior partner in a global spy operation led by the United States. The UK is also involved through such projects as ECHELONdeveloped by the Five Eyes: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These countries are bound by the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.

Canada is particularly useful to NSA in opening up covert sites on its behalf. Canada has a reputation for being benign as far as such undercover operations are concerned. Wesley Wark, a Canadian security and intelligence expert at the University of Ottawa said: "I think we still trade on a degree of an international brand as an innocent partner in the international sphere. There's not that much known about Canadian intelligence.In that sense, Canadian operations might escape at least the same degree of notice and surveillance that the operations of the U.S. or Britain in foreign states would be bound to attract."

Thomas Drake, a former NSA excutive but now a whistleblower said that Canada has been giving in to NSA requests for years. Drake warned that being caught out in these covert operations such as the CBC has uncovered can have huge diplomatic fallout. He also said such operations require very high level approval within the government. Drake says both the CSEC and NSA lack proper oversight and are a danger to democracy. They are also a danger to the taxpayers of Canada and the US:CSEC employs about 2,000 people, has an annual budget of roughly $450 million and will soon move into an architecturally spectacular new Ottawa headquarters costing Canadian taxpayers almost $1.2 billion. By comparison, the NSA employs an estimated 40,000 people plus thousands of private contractors, and spends over $40 billion a year.

Canada's Communications Security Establishment collecting million of Canadian emails sent to government sites

Canada's Communications Security Establishment(CSE) is collecting millions of emails sent by Canadians to government sites on the Internet. The collected emails are searched for malware that could attack government computer networks.

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A top secret document obtained by the CBC and the US news site The Intercept revealed details about the collection of emails. The document is from 2010. It is among the documents obtained from NSA whistle blower Edward Snowden. The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) is Canada's cryptologic agency, responsible for foreign signals intelligence (SIGINT) and also for protection of government electronic and communication networks. Recently a new headquarters was built for the agency at a cost of $1.1 billion, making it the most expensive government facility ever built. This no doubt shows the priority of the Canadian Conservative government. Many who support the government constantly complain of government spending but when it comes to national security matters efficiency and control of costs do not seem to count. The facilities are on 83 acres and the headquarters occupy 1.2 million square feet. It is next door to the broader spy agency Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

The CSE collected about 400,000 emails sent to government sites each day. Some of the data was stored for years. I expect that the agency thinks that some day it might be useful to mine the data for a specific purpose. The numbers collected have probably grown considerably since 2010 assuming the process is still ongoing. The emails include those of people filing taxes on line, sending emails to members of parliament, and applying for passports.

While the aim of protecting government sites from malware is laudable, there are questions as to the breadth of the collections and whether there are any rules regarding the length of time the emails are kept. As a member of the Five Eyes, these emails may very well be shared with spy agencies in the US, UK, New Zealand, and Australia. The Five Eyes operates beyond the laws of its member countries according to Snowden: The former NSA contractor Edward Snowden described the Five Eyes as a "supra-national intelligence organisation that doesn't answer to the known laws of its own countries".Documents leaked by Snowden in 2013 revealed that the FVEY have been spying on one another's citizens and sharing the collected information with each other in order to circumvent restrictive domestic regulations on domestic spying.While Chris Parsons, an internet security expert, said that there are legitimate reasons why the agency might monitor you communications with the government: “But you should be able to communicate with your government without the fear that what you say … could come back to haunt you in unexpected ways, When we collect huge volumes, it’s not just used to track bad guys. It goes into data stores for years or months at a time and then it can be used at any point in the future.”The CSE uses a tool called PonyExpress to search for suspicious links or attachments.The PonyExpress finds about 400 suspicious emails each or about 146,000 a year. CSE analysts look at each suspicious email to see if it poses a threat. About four emails a day are found to be serious enough a threat for the agency to contact the government departments that may face a potential threat. The emails themselves may be held for days up to months. The metadata containing details about who sent the email, when and where, can be kept for years. The CSE is barred from targeting content of Canadians' emails or phone calls, but it can receive ministerial exemptions if the situation involves protecting government IT infrastructure.

The CSE refuses to provide any specifics about how much email and metadata they collect or when they are deleted. They insist such information could be helpful to those engaged in malicious cyberactivity directed against government networks. Michael Vonn, policy director at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association argues that Canadians could be told how long the agency holds the data without putting the security of government networks at risk. Vonn said: “It’s distressing that we have to find [details] out in dribs and drabs as opposed to having the appropriate discussion nationally and democratically. If we're going to have trust that our agencies are acting responsibly, we need as much light shone on the architecture, the laws and the rules, as possible."Actually, much information only comes courtesy of whistle blowers such as Snowden who make public classified information.The CSE mandate allows it to hold email addresses, IP addresses, and other identifiers for up to thirty years. It can then transfer it to Library and Archives Canada. CSE claims that hackers probe government networks about 80 million times a day searching for vulnerabilities.

Green Party and civil liberties groups criticize Harper's anti-terror bill

While leaders of the two main Canadian opposition parties the New Democratic Party's Thomas Mulcair, and Liberal, Justin Trudeau, have been muted in criticism of Harper's new anti-terrorism legislation, Green Party leader Elizabeth May is quite critical.

Both Trudeau and Mulcair have asked for more oversight of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), given that they are given considerable more powers under the new legislation than they previously had. However, Liberal leader, Justin Trudeau, said that his party would vote for the legislation even if the Conservative government of Stephen Harper did not accept changes suggested by his party. The NDP is building a case against the bill and Mulcair, the leader, is likely to announce his opposition to the bill when parliament meets later in the month. However, while the NDP caucus build its case, Mulcair asks questions about oversight and seems wary of being targeted as soft on terrorism.


 A major Canadian newspaper the Globe and Mail published a quite critical editorial on the Bill-C51 the new anti-terror legislation. May said on her website: “I completely agree with the editorial in the Globe and Mail today that Parliament must reject this bill. In the House of Commons today, I urged all MPs to read the editorial and not allow the Conservatives to turn CSIS into a secret police force.The words found under the definition of ‘activities,’ which affect the ‘security of Canadians,’ are so broad that the definition can apply to almost any activity, including nonviolent civil disobedience. This bill could now treat peaceful protesters as potential terrorists. Is Stephen Harper using the imagined fear of widespread security threats to score political points before the next election?”

The Globe and Mail article notes, as do commentators on May's site, that the Harper legislation can be used against many other groups than terrorists associated with Islamic radicalism. Harper has long been suggesting that radical environmentalists out to block projects favored by the Harper government and the oil industry are "public enemies", as far back as 2012. In 2014 an RCMP report joined the chorus suggesting that radical environmentalists were a larger threat to Canadian energy development than religious extremism: “Environmental ideologically motivated individuals including some who are aligned with a radical, criminal extremist ideology pose a clear and present criminal threat to Canada’s energy sector. The Canadian law enforcement and security intelligence community have noted a growing radicalized faction of environmentalists who advocate the use of criminal activity to promote the protection of the natural environment.” No doubt aboriginal activists may also expect to come under increased scrutiny by CSIS under this new legislation.

 Even US whistleblower, Edward Snowden, warned Toronto high school students about the new legislation. Along with journalist Glenn Greenwald, Snowden delivered a keynote speech at Upper Canada College's annual World Affairs Conference. Snowden spoke through a Google Hangout connection from somewhere in Russia. Snowden claimed that the new bill "fundamentally changes the balance of power between the citizen and the state." Responding to some remarks about his violating his commitments not to divulge secrets and the view of some that he is a traitor, Snowden said: “Regardless of how bad a guy I am, ultimately the revelation of warrantless wiretapping, mass surveillance on a global scale is something that we the people deserve to know. And if the government will not tell us, it falls to journalists ... to find and publish the information that informs our voting habits.”Snowden was critical of the mass media who tried to change the narrative as to whether he was a hero or traitor instead of focusing on the substance of what he had revealed.

 The Globe and Mail editorial notes that CSIS will now have powers to actively stop any activity that "undermines the sovereignty, security or territorial integrity of Canada. Activities listed include 'interference with critical infrastucture" or "interference with the capability of the Government in relation to..the economic or financial stability of Canada." The Globe points out that an environmentalist who blew up part of a pipeline would be covered under the law as being a terrorist. A Quebec separatist party could be regarded as terrorist since it would "undermine the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Canada." Aboriginal activists who block a train line could be terrorists. No doubt union activity that interfered with production could become terrorist action.

 Sukanya Pillay, executive director of the Canadian Civil Liberties Assocaition (CCLA) claimed that no explanation had been given as to why our existing laws were not adequate to deal with terrorism. She complained that "advocacy of terrorism" was undefined and that criminalizing such an undefined action could have a chilling effect on what academics and journalists might feel that they could say or write. That probably is the whole idea of leaving the phrase undefined. The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association said that the bill would produce "an unprecedented expansion of powers that will harm innocent Canadians and not increase public safety." Unfortunately, the many forceful critiques of Bill-C51 are unlikely to cause the Harper government to change the legislation substantially.