Canadian military aspires to be global Orwellian Big Brother

Canada's military wants to monitor social media streams 24/7 on popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, but not in Canada — only from "non-democratic" states outside of Canada.

While the military wants to monitor these social media, it does not want anyone knowing that it is doing so. Kamran Bokhari, a lecturer on national security and intelligence at the University of Ottawa, sees the new Internet-monitoring platform of the military as part of a larger push by the military to enlarge its intelligence gathering capacities.

The Canadian Department of National Defence research wing, Defence Research and Development Canada, are looking for a new Internet-monitoring platform that can analyze and also filter material from social media posts. Part of a document posted on line reads: “At an operational and tactical level, social data can provide information on events as they unfold, key influencers, sentiment of local populations, and even help to geo-locate people of interest.Given the reactive and long-term nature of DND intelligence operations, access to this information is essential to maintaining situational awareness and achieving our global mandate.”As well as the most popular social media websites, the platform would monitor material from blogs, message boards, Reddit, and also comment sections on news sites. The monitoring will require as many as 40 intelligence officers. Big Brother is a great job creator. In spite of all this snooping, the Department of National Defense (DND) insists it is not directed at Canadians and it would comply with Canadian privacy laws.

The platform is said to be directed at "non-democratic states" but no hint is given as to which countries are the intended target of the monitoring. The platform will be required to monitor data in English in French, but also be able to process languages such as Arabic, Chinese, and Russian. The tender calls for analysis and filtering of historical as well as real time data. Note that the development of the platform is being outsourced to the private sector allowing for more integration between the private sector and the military and further enlarging the military-industrial complex.

The documents said:“Restrictive governments are and will continue to develop more nuanced, insidious and effective mechanisms for exploiting social media while maintaining already pervasive control over traditional media sources. Social media, and specifically Twitter, could be used to help understand populations and governments in countries of interest as a novel sensor for instability.”Naturally, the DND does not want the target governments to know what is going on. The platform should not be directly attributable to the Canadian military. Data must be stored on secure servers in Canada. As Bokhari notes, these types of programs are being mounted by all major powers: “And Canada is not alone. Pretty much any major power in the world that’s concerned about terrorism, cybercrime, cyberattacks from hostile countries, they have to be looking into this.”

Some analysts such as Christopher Parsons, a Toronto researcher, question how the DND project can minimize incidental collection about Canadians:“They might try to exclude Canada itself, but of course Canadians travel all around the world. So if you’re targeting people or monitoring social media in certain regions of the world, you can be guaranteed that there are Canadians travelling there for business or pleasure or what have you.”Given that Canada is a member of the Five Eyes, any information that Canada wants about Canadians can be obtained from one of the four other eyes who collect information on Canadians: 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 surveillance of citizens.[7][8][9][10]

Global News was able to contact Captain Travis Smyth at DND who said of the program:“Social media monitoring and analysis for the purpose of defence intelligence collection may provide new and unique information of intelligence value, that can be used to corroborate, refute or substantiate existing information from other collection sources. It will also allow Canadian Forces Intelligence Command to adapt to developing social media technologies with the safety and security of Canadians in mind.”In case you think that encryption will enable you to subvert the snoopers the really Big Brothers such as NSA and the UK GCHQ are working on blocking that route.

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.