Get Your Spy On : Bill C-22

International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group : OUR ANALYSIS OF C-22: AN INADEQUATE AND WORRISOME BILL

"The Liberal government has recently tabled Bill C-22, the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians Act, in order to create the long-awaited committee to look over Canada’s national security activities."

Andrew Mitrovica : National security oversight woefully inadequate

"Ralph Goodale's heralded National Security and Intelligence Committee is not robust, independent and meaningful but merely enshrines the lousy status quo into law."

Craig Forcese makes many of the same points - Knee Jerk First Reaction - on the bill designed to deliver parliamentary oversight to CSIS, CSEC, RCMP among 20 other national security agencies, but nonetheless gives Bill C-22 a "high pass".

The committee will consist of seven MPs and two senators, all appointed on the recommendation of the PM. I'm guessing the more stringent security clearance they will need to undergo has something to do with Harper having appointed Arthur Porter to SIRC, the watchdog committee overseeing CSIS.

And yes, CSE really is following 34 people on twitter. I imagine they're also on The Book of Faces. ;-)
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Edward Snowden and "dick-pics"

Funny, sad, brilliant. 

John Oliver has done a very clever thing here ... and that's all I'm gonna say - just watch it.

Bonus: Ex-CIA John Kiriakou on Canada's intelligence safeguards: "You're kidding me."

Toronto lawyer Rocco Galati, whose privileged conversations with his clients were wiretapped three years ago : "It’s all a smokescreen. SIRC isn’t there to do anything but make it look like it’s doing something to oversee CSIS. Nobody is doing anything to oversee CSIS. They’re out-of-control renegades."

Andrew Mitrovica on Spies, lies and the myth of ‘oversight’ at CSIS

 "If CSIS can get away with bugging a lawyer’s phone calls with his client, imagine what the spy service will do when Bill C-51 becomes law."

Update :  Anon in comments : The photos of your junk will be publicized 
and also Boris' brilliance from comments below, reposted here. :

"2015 turned out to be a bizarre year for the surveillance state. 

In April, John Oliver interviewed Edward Snowden about the spy agencies spying and used a "dick pic" to make his point. Later, the Canadian government passed Bill C-51 giving its spy agency free reign. 

The "Dick Pic Revolution" began shortly thereafter and by December googling "dick pic" brought up over 500 trillion hits. It was estimated that 25-35% of all the penises in the world were now digitized and that fewer than 1% of searches would now be free of dick pics within the first 25 hits. 

Rebel hacker group Anonymous joined the fray by hacking into government and corporate email programs and installing a virus, later made available freely for any disgruntled government or corporate employee to install at their workplace, that would attach a random dick pic to every email sent from those addresses."

Heh. 
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A Tale of Eco-Surveillance

Ottawa Citizen June 4, 2014  Government orders federal departments to keep tabs on all demonstrations across country

"The federal government is expanding its surveillance of public activities to include all known demonstrations across the country, a move that collects information even on the most mundane of protests by Canadians.

The email requesting such information was sent out Tuesday by the Government Operations Centre in Ottawa to all federal departments.

“The Government Operations Centre is seeking your assistance in compiling a comprehensive listing of all known demonstrations which will occur either in your geographical area or that may touch on your mandate,” noted the email"

G&M Sept 14, 2014 Environmental extremism a rising threat to energy sector, RCMP warns

“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,” said the report, written in March 2011. Since then, the RCMP has held regular meetings with energy companies and federal officials to review potential threats to infrastructure

RCMP spokesman Greg Cox denied the force is targeting protesters or environmental groups in general

G&M Feb 17, 2015 : ‘Anti-petroleum’ movement a growing security threat to Canada, RCMP say :

"In highly charged language that reflects the government’s hostility toward environmental activists, an RCMP intelligence assessment warns that foreign-funded groups are bent on blocking oil sands expansion and pipeline construction, and that the extremists in the movement are willing to resort to violence.

RCMP spokesman Sergeant Greg Cox insisted the Mounties do not conduct surveillance unless there is suspicion of criminal conduct. 

“As part of its law enforcement mandate the RCMP does have the requirement to identify and investigate criminal threats, including those to critical infrastructure and at public events,” Sgt. Cox said in an e-mailed statement. “There is no focus on environmental groups, but rather on the broader criminal threats to Canada’s critical infrastructure. The RCMP does not monitor any environmental protest group. Its mandate is to investigate individuals involved in criminality.”

... the report which is stamped “protected/Canadian eyes only” and is dated Jan. 24, 2014."

Global, March 17, 2015 CSIS helped government deal with Northern Gateway protests

"Canada’s spy agency helped senior federal officials figure out how to deal with protests expected last summer in response to resource and energy development issues – including a pivotal decision on the Northern Gateway pipeline.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service prepared advice and briefing material for two June meetings of the deputy ministers’ committee on resources and energy"

CBC March 12, 2015 SFU Prof. Tim Takaro called by RCMP after taking photos near Kinder Morgan site

"A B.C. climate change scientist says he got an "intimidating" call from RCMP because he had taken pictures on Burnaby Mountain near the site of a proposed [Trans Mountain] Kinder Morgan pipeline.

Tim Takaro, a health sciences professor at SFU, says he was having lunch in Tofino with his family on Wednesday when his daughter's [unlisted] cellphone rang. When she answered it, she was told it was the Burnaby RCMP calling and they were looking for her father."

Prof. Takaro works at SFU on Burnaby Mountain. He was taking pictures in a public park.
You can listen to his account at the link.

Some good news ...
Forum Research and VICE have a poll out today on plummeting support for Bill C-51 from 1370 online Canadian voters surveyed March 13 and 14th :

"When asked their approval of a number of specific provisions of bill C51, the majority disapprove of the Bill allowing security services to infiltrate and track environmentalists, First Nations and pipeline protesters (61%)"  

Support for tracking and infiltrating environmentalists, FN, and pipeline protesters came from Alberta (32%) and federal conservatives (56%)

Support for the overall stiffer legislation of C-51 (just under half of respondents) :

"is common to the oldest (62%), the wealthy ($80K to $100K - 62%), in Quebec (72%), among Conservative voters (84%), Bloquistes (76%), the least educated (74%), mothers of children under 18 (65%), Catholics (72%) and Evangelicals (82%)."

Figures.
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Bill C-51 - Conservative 'values'

Uncanny resemblance, isn't it?  Your 'values' not looking too good at the moment, Mr Blaney.

Having rushed the 62 page omnibus anti-terrorism bill C-51 through Parliament, the Cons are now demanding it be rushed through committee as well. They wanted to restrict expert testimony to three Public Safety Committee meetings - with one of them taken up entirely by Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney - but a successful NDP committee fillibuster has now ratcheted it up to eight .

Among the expert witnesses proposed by the NDP are former Supreme Court Justice Frank Iacobucci (Almalki, Abou-Elmaati, and Nuredinn inquiry) and former associate Chief Justice of Ontario Dennis O'Connor (Arar inquiry).

Now why wouldn't the Cons want to hear from them?

A report in the Ottawa Citizen yesterday details new documents on how in 2001 the RCMP talked up Ottawa's Abdullah Almalki to the CIA and Syria as a terrorist threat despite having been given CSIS intelligence to the contrary.

An RCMP memo, dated Sept. 5, 2001, generated after a meeting with Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials, said that “CSIS have not uncovered information that would lead them to believe the subject (Almalki) is doing something illegal.”

On Oct. 2, 2001, the RCMP sent a fax to its liaison officers in Islamabad, Rome, Delhi, Washington, London, Berlin and Paris, reporting that CSIS had described Almalki as an “important member” of al-Qaida. Days later, the RCMP liaison officer in Rome sent letters to agencies in several countries, including Syria, labelling Almalki as an “imminent threat” to Canada’s national security.

After Almalki was arrested and was being tortured in Syria, the RCMP helpfully sent along three pages of questions for them to ask him.

One of the provisions of Bill C-51 allows government departments to share private information more widely. 

Maher Arar was likewise renditioned to Syia and tortured based on bad RCMP intel and then RCMP Commissioner Zaccardelli and CSIS Asst Director Jack Hooper tried to cover it up.

Hill Times Oct 2, 2006 : CSIS didn't want Arar returned to Canada

"In May and June 2003, the Canadian government intended to send a letter to Syria indicating that it spoke with "one voice"–seeking the powerful support CSIS and the RCMP–to call for Mr. Arar's release. But according to Justice Dennis O'Connor's report, CSIS "was uncomfortable" with a statement in the letter that there was "no evidence" that Mr. Arar had links to al-Qaeda. The agency argued "very strongly" against a letter that it saw as sending the wrong message to U.S. authorities.

"CSIS wanted to make it clear to the Solicitor General that there was 'political jeopardy' in signing a joint letter and that bringing Mr. Arar back to Canada was going to be a political 'hot potato' with American authorities," Justice O'Connor wrote in the report, which cleared Mr. Arar.

Justice O'Connor also revealed in his report that CSIS, "for reasons of its own, preferred that Mr. Arar not return to Canada." While DFAIT drafted its letter to argue for Mr. Arar's release in June 2003, Jack Hooper, assistant director of operations for CSIS, called an assistant deputy minister at DFAIT to explain why it opposed the return of Mr. Arar. CSIS feared that if Mr. Arar returned with a public story of torture it could "impair" deportations from Canada to Syria, according to the report."

Sure, let's give these guys a freer hand to operate in secret without oversight.

Perhaps the committee should hear from Mr. Arar. 

As he points out, if C-51 were in place when he was in Syria, it could have been used legally to prevent his return to Canada. 

A week ago former Prime Ministers Jean Chrétien, Paul Martin, Joe Clark, and John Turner plus five former Supreme Court Justices, three former Ministers of Justice, four former Solicitors General of Canada, and three former SIRC committee members expressed their dismay with the bill in a G&M editorial pointing out Justice O'Connor's recommendations following the Arar inquiry had not been implemented. They called for greater oversight at a minimum.

In the House on Tuesday, Harper termed Thomas Mulcair's calls for greater oversight and a full review of evidence "ridiculous" :

"I would urge the committee to study the bill as quickly as possible in order to ensure the adoption of these measures to ensure the security and safety of Canadians."

while Blaney "slammed Mulcair for 'attacking the credibility' of CSIS officers".

"These people respect the law, and I call on him to present arguments, and not lies to defend his position."

Greg Fingas provides excellent C-51 links and a column in the Leader-Post on "the risks of allowing CSIS to self-assess the scope of Canadians' Charter rights under C-51". 

From Stephen Lautens : For those of you keeping score at home (updated April 20, 2015) :

UPDATE : DAMMIT JANET! : FASCIST C-51 : FEET ON THE STREET TIME!

and Reddit hub on planning Canada-wide protests.

Friday update : Open letter to Parliament: Amend C-51 or kill it
  A letter from over 100 Canadian law professors. Clear concise objections.
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Canada on torture : We're buying if you're selling

Canada's collateral fallout from Tuesday's Senate Intelligence Committee summary on the torture of prisoners at CIA “black site” prisons around the world.

"A spokesman for Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney’s office said Wednesday that Canada does not engage in, or condone, torture by national security agencies but ...  Canada will act on “a tip from any source” if Canadians’ lives are in danger."

This is our usual "we're buying if you're selling" approach to torture.

Feb. 2012 : "The latest directive says in "exceptional circumstances" where there is a threat to human life or public safety, urgency may require CSIS to "share the most complete information available at the time with relevant authorities, including information based on intelligence provided by foreign agencies that may have been derived from the use of torture or mistreatment."

April 2010 :  Day One of Omar Khadr's trial at Guantanamo. Confessions elicited via sleep deprivation, denial of pain medication, stress positions, being forced to urinate on himself and being used as a human mop, being terrorized by barking dogs, and being threatened with rape and torture. Khadr's defence team was only allowed to interview three of Khadr's 30 interrogators at Bagram and Gitmo, two of whom admit the 15 year old Khadr was threatened with rape.

FBI agent Robert Fuller

"... elicited from Khadr the identification of another Canadian, Maher Arar, who Khadr during interviews by Fuller claimed was training with al Qaeda operatives at a training camp at a time that, it later turned out, Arar was actually at home in Canada.

"In contrast to testimony he gave Monday, [FBI]special agent Robert Fuller told Khadr's war-crimes hearing that the young Canadian was not immediately able to name Arar, but did say he looked familiar." 

Shortly after Fuller reported the identification of Arar to the government, Arar was apprehended at JFK airport and rendered to Syria for interrogation there.

FBI agent Fuller also got Khadr to confess to throwing a grenade at US forces."

December 2009 : Harper shuts down parliament for two months in what turned out to be a successful strategy to muzzle parliamentarians regarding Richard Colvin's testimony about the torture of random Afghan farmers and taxi drivers under Canadian watch. 

Harper hired Bruce Carson to "stickhandle" the Afghan file "on a daily basis, involving senior officials from departments such as foreign affairs, defence, RCMP, justice and corrections". In 2007 a requisition for special boots to allow Correctional Services Canada inspection teams to wade through blood and shit in Afghan prisons was made public.

I think it's fair to say any report similar to the US Senate summary made partially public on Tuesday would never see the light of day in Canada.

April 2009 : "More than 16 months after Canada's security agencies cleared Abousfian Abdelrazik, government lawyers are now pressing him to admit to being a senior al-Qaeda operative, echoing American accusations extracted from Abu Zubaydah, water boarded more than 80 times under the Bush administration."

As noted by POGGE at the time : 

"While the rest of the world is coming to terms with the fact that the Bush administration was actually using torture to elicit false confessions in an effort to justify their invasion of Iraq, the Hapless Government™ is trying to use statements from a man who was waterboarded 83 times to prove that Abdelrazik is a terrorist."

March 2009 : The same day that CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O’Brian told the public safety committee there is no absolute ban on using intelligence that may have been obtained from countries with questionable human rights records on torture, RCMP spokesman Gilles Michaud tells the same committee :

"I want to be clear here - there is no absolute ban on the use of any information by the RCMP."

November 2006 : CSIS director Jim Judd said it had done nothing wrong by accepting as genuine the confession of Maher Arar, who was secretly and illegally bundled off by extraordinary rendition to a prison in Syria where he was held and tortured for a year.

"It does not necessarily follow that because a country has a poor human rights record that any information received from it was the product of torture," Judd told Parliament's public safety committee.

G&M : "In an Oct. 16, 2003 e-mail marked “secret,” officials of the intelligence unit of Foreign Affairs note that CSIS agents will pass on details of their then just-completed interrogation of Omar Khadr in Guantanamo and planned to “send two officers to Sudan next week to interview Abdelrazik.” 

Dec. 9, 2014 CBC : "This is a report of the United States Senate," Harper told the House of Commons on Tuesday. "It has nothing to do whatsoever with the government of Canada."
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Update : Tom Tomorrow
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SIRC - the other board members

Big stink this week because in addition to being SIRC Chair, Chuck Strahl is also a registered lobbyist for Enbridge and for Alberta Frog Lake Energy Resources Corp, a First Nations firm that has partnered with a Chinese-company to drill for oil. This would probably never have blown up the way it did this week if ...

• if the Harper government as a whole didn't behave like pro-pipelines lobbyists and activists themselves,  
• if CSIS, the spy agency which SIRC oversees, didn't spy on anti-pipelines activists, and 
• if CSIS director Richard Fadden hadn't publicly expressed concerns in 2010 about "public officials and cabinet ministers in BC/Alberta being under the influence of China"

Strahl has stated he would recuse himself from any SIRC oversight of CSIS operations as they pertain to Enbridge - which not only doesn't seem very useful in a watchdog chair but could have been a useful reason to appoint Strahl to SIRC in the first place. Anytime SIRC is looking into whether CSIS is complying with the law in operations Strahl has a financial interest in, Strahl will be out in the hall.

Kady O'Malley pointed out that Strahl however is only one of five SIRC board members. 
Ok. How many of the other four of Steve's SIRC appointments also have grounds to be out in the hall when any oversight of CSIS operations re pipelines activities come up?

Denis Losier - appointed to SIRC from 2008-03-17 to 2014-03-16 is a member of the board at Enbridge Gas NB, a subsidiary of Enbridge Inc.

L. Yves Fortier - appointed to SIRC from 2013-08-08 to 2018-08-07 is a former director at TransCanada Pipelines

Deborah Grey - appointed April 2013 to April 2018
I don't know how former Chilliwack MP Strahl came to lobby for the First Nations Frog Lake Energy Resources in Alberta. Possibly through his contacts as Minister of Aboriginal Affairs or via the former SIRC chair till 2010 Gary Filmon, who is on the board of directors of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd which Frog Lake Energy Resources thanks as a partner. But fun fact - before Grey and Strahl led a Reform breakaway group together opposed to Stockwell Day in 2001 and prior to her distinguished career as a Reform MP, Deborah Grey was a high school teacher for ten years at Frog Lake Indian Reserve.

The fifth member, Frances Lankin's term is up this month. As CEO of United Way Toronto from 2001 to 2011, probably her partnership with Enbridge in the annual Enbridge CN Tower Stair Climb for United Way fundraiser would not be enough to put her in the hall.
It will be interesting to see who Steve nominates to replace her.


Additional ...
In his remarks to the Standing Senate Committee on National Security and Defence three weeks ago, Strahl tentatively endorsed a parliamentary oversight committee of intelligence agencies as recommended by Justices O'Connor and Iacobucci and like other Five Eyes partners have. "Not reinventing the wheel," he said, " just filling in the missing bits" - possibly alongside SIRC, with the proviso that such a body should retain independence of the minister. He did however mention this caveat if such a body is peopled by MPs: 

"... careful of what you ask for because you might actually get it. In this case, once you're privy to top-secret information, you can no longer stand for your constituents or your region or your province or anyone else and say, "I am appalled at what's happening in whatever," because now you are privy to top-secret information you're not allowed to talk about."

I blogged about his testimony at the time - which impressed me with its forthrightness - but I recommend reading the full transcript yourself, via Lux ex Umbra, your one-stop for all things spooky.
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The Manning Spy Watchdog Centre for Building Northern Gateway

The Vancouver Observer is reporting that last month former Reform/Alliance/Con MP Chuck Strahl added Enbridge "Northern Gateway Pipeline lobbyist" to the list of other part-time jobs he has accrued since leaving Harper's cabinet two years ago:

• Chair of  SIRC, the Security Intelligence Review Committee watchdog which oversees CSIS, for five years starting in June 2012
• Chair of the Manning Centre for Building Conservatives since April 2013
• two year election campaigner for Christy Clark, according to her, until the obvious conflict of interest went public a month before her re-election in May

It's a good article and I'm not going to rehash it here so go read.

A few additional notes :

In October 2011, the Vancouver Sun reported that Strahl had already bagged Enbridge as a client at his new private consultancy and quoted him as a self-described pipeline supporter.

G&M: CSIS, RCMP monitored activist groups before Northern Gateway hearings

"The National Energy Board worked with the RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service to monitor the risk posed by environmental groups and First Nations in advance of public hearings into Enbridge Inc.’s Northern Gateway project."

So. Enbridge lobbyist and SIRC Chair Chuck Strahl monitors CSIS which in turn monitors the Canadians who don't want the Enbridge pipeline he is lobbying for.

Tim Groves at the Dominion, Oct 2012, before he moved to The Guardian : 

"The Canadian government has been orchestrating briefings that provide energy companies with classified intelligence from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the RCMP and other agencies, raising concerns that federal officials are spying on environmentalists and First Nations in order to provide information to the businesses they criticize.

The secret-level briefings have taken place twice a year since 2005."

In Nov 2010, the RCMP and CSIS assisted the department of Natural Resources in organizing a daylong event at CSIS headquarters in Ottawa. From a director of energy infrastructure security at Natural Resources :

"These forums provide excellent opportunities for energy sector stakeholders to develop ongoing trusting relations which facilitate the exchange of pertinent information 'off the record'."

Which hat would Strahl be wearing when he comes to review joint CSIS/energy sector stakeholder events like that? His Christy Enbridge lobbyist hat or his SIRC spy watchdog hat?

And what is SIRC's stance on closer ties being fostered between private sector tarsands giants like Enbridge and the spying agency it oversees? 

Strahl's predecessor at SIRC, disgraced fraudster Arthur Porter,  advocated for closer ties in 2011 :

"Today the Service [CSIS] is also reaching out to non-traditional partners, such as the private sector."

"In SIRC’s opinion, an effective strategy would involve identifying those sectors with the greatest potential to be of investigative value to the Service ... the Service strives to engage and support the private sector’s security needs in other ways. Efforts are also underway to increase the number of security clearances for individuals in the private sector."

Clearly, Porter saw the advantage in mining the private sector for intel in exchange for assurances regarding their security, as did former CSIS chief Jim Judd, head of the agency Porter was supposed to be monitoring, as quoted in the Review of CSIS's Private Sector Relationships (SIRC Study 2010-2012)


The ridiculous thing about Strahl registering as an Enbridge lobbyist with the BC gov in order to "arrange a meeting between Minister Rich Coleman and representatives from Northern Gateway Pipelines" is - does anyone really think Coleman and Enbridge need help finding each other?
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h/t : Strahl's 2012 by-election campaign ad at top via Jennifer Woodroff.
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Inside the Senate Committee on National Security

On Monday the Senate Committee on National Security and Defence heard from the watchdogs of both CSIS and CSEC - Chuck Strahl, Chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), and CSEC Commissioner Jean-Pierre Plouffe.

Here Plouffe is explaining to Senator Romeo Dallaire why Justice Mosley slapped down CSIS for outsourcing their spying to their Five Eyes partners (US, UK, NZ, and Australia) via CSEC. Plouffe :

"CSIS has a jurisdiction which is limited to Canada, whereas CSE's jurisdiction reaches abroad. So CSIS, in accomplishing its activities, believes it has need of assistance from allies abroad and in order to obtain this, CSIS has to go through CSE because CSE deals directly with allies. In Justice Mosley's decision, CSIS asked for assistance from CSE because both individuals in question were abroad. And what happened is unfortunately CSIS did not disclose to Justice Mosley that they sought assistance from Five Eyes. So it is legal for CSE to call on the Five Eyes, however in this case there was a warrant from the court that specified it be within Canada not abroad. Mosley said CSIS was lacking in candor and good faith." 

Plouffe added this has "complicated" CSEC's relationship with the NSA and other partners.
The impression you get from listening to Plouffe is that the Five Eyes partners share just about anything and everything, with the Canadian contact being CSEC.

CSIS watchdog Chuck Strahl addressed this as problem for the privacy of Canadians, saying "we must put legal caveats on CSIS/CSE-generated intel" shared with Five Eyes partners and third parties :

 "CSIS is concerned with erosion of control of intelligence given to CSEC and by extension to the Five Eyes community." 

"CSIS has developed information privacy protocols with only one Five Eyes partner."

While Strahl doesn't reveal which Five Eyes partner it is we do have a privacy protocol with, a 2009 Memo of Understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart does mention one between NSA and Canada. This was the Snowden-leaked doc which revealed an NSA agreement purporting to share raw unfiltered intelligence data with Israel, who is not a Five Eyes member, with the proviso that Israel weed out intel about Americans and other Five Eyes citizens .

Or as Strahl put it : "A Five Eyes partner may act independently on CSIS-originated info."

He said his office was limited to the oversight of CSIS and so his investigators were unable to follow threads that led into CSEC. Likewise Plouffe said his office could not stray into investigating CSIS. 

This was not, Strahl said, what O'Connor and Iacobucci had in mind when they each recommended a joint oversight, adding there is "no provision in current legislation, which is 30 years old, for parliamentary oversight", the only Five Eyes partner not to have any.

On Abdelrazik, Strahl said CSIS created an "exaggerated threat assessment" and "inappropriately disclosed classified information". 

The senators seemed far more concerned with what new measures had been put in place to prevent a "Snowden nightmare" in Canada than in the content his leaks revealed. They didn't ask a single question of Plouffe or Strahl about spying on the G20 in Canada and Brazil or allowing the NSA to build backdoors into internet encryption under our watch.

Not one.

For his part, Strahl said "Snowden has caused us to question how we work and that's good."

Asked what possessed him to come out of retirement last year to head up SIRC, Strahl laughed and said it was classified. 

I'll bet. SIRC has had an interim chair since the former SIRC chair and fraudster appointed by Harper, Dr. Arthur Porter, resigned in disgrace in 2011.

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Dec 20 Update : Plouffe's explanation above - on Justice Mosley chastising CSEC/CSIS for outsourcing their spying on Canadians to Five Eyes partners - goes public :

CSIS asked foreign agencies to spy on Canadians, kept court in dark, judge says

Canada's spy agencies chastised for duping courts

Canada’s spy agencies have deliberately misled judges to expand their eavesdropping powers unlawfully

Update : Senate Committee transcript up.
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CSEC spies on Canadians : watchdog report

While whistleblower Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald have published reports about the USA's NSA and UK's GCHQ joint electronic surveillance of Brits and Americans, we've been pretty much in the dark in Canada about our own government's surveillance of us.

An annual report tabled two days ago from the independent watchdog commissioner for Canada's electronic eavesdropping agency Communications Security Establishment Canada elicited the following timid headlines repeated throughout yesterday's press coverage.

Post Media : Canadians may be victims of illicit spying 

NaPo : Canada’s spy agency may have illegally targeted Canadians: watchdog 

CBC : Security watchdog says agency may be spying on Canadians  

Star : Eavesdropping agency may have spied on Canadians, watchdog says

Whoa. "May be spying on Canadians"? "may"?   Which report did they read?

Several of the articles quote this reaction from a spokesy for DefMin Rob Nicholson :

 "The privacy of Canadians is of utmost importance. CSEC is prohibited by law from directing its activities at Canadians anywhere in the world or at any person in Canada."

Sure. Part (a) of CSEC's mandate** prohibits spying on "any person in Canada" or Canadians anywhere in the world.
Part (b) is a little looser, permitting CSEC to use information acquired by the Government of Canada system owners to protect their computer systems from mischief.

But Part (c) ... Part (c) specifically directs CSEC on when it may spy on Canadians on behalf of CSIS.

Communications Security Establishment Commissioner, 
Annual Report 2012 - 2013

CSEC assistance to CSIS under part (c) of CSEC’s mandate (Page 21)

In 2009 ... the Honourable Justice Richard Mosley*** ... issued the first warrant permitting CSIS to intercept the communications of Canadians located outside Canada using the interception capabilities of CSEC ... from within Canada.This assistance includes CSEC supporting CSIS with the interception of Canadians’ communications if CSIS has a judicially authorized warrant. 

CSIS is authorized to collect threat-related information about Canadian persons and others and, as discussed above, is not subject to territorial limitation.

...  the collection of the information by CSIS with CSE[C] assistance, as proposed, falls within the legislative scheme approved by Parliament and does not offend the Charter.
CSEC’s assistance to CSIS under the warrants may include use of Canadian identity information and the interception of the communications of Canadians.

So what's with these timid headlines, national press? Are you suggesting that while CSEC was permitted to spy on Canadians for CSIS, they didn't actually do any?

No, obviously not. Page 24 :

During the period under review, CSEC responded appropriately to two related privacy incidents it identified involving the unintentional release of Canadian identity information of some of the subjects of the warrants. 

 ... another incident involv[ed] the interception of communications for CSIS for a small number of days after a particular warrant had expired [due to] unintentional human error 

 Page 27 : the amount and treatment of private communications and Canadian identity information acquired by the activities as well as a sample of those private communications and Canadian identity information used by CSEC

Private Communication: “any oral communication, or any telecommunication, that is made by an originator who is in Canada or is intended by the originator to be received by a person who is in Canada"

Page 33 : In 2012, CSEC started using a new on-line secure system to process requests for and disclosures of Canadian identity information. CSEC provided my employees with a demonstration of the system, which is currently used with CSEC’s principal clients. CSEC intends to extend its use to other partners starting in the coming fiscal year. 

Headlines later on in the day gave us the CSEC response : 

Ottawa Citizen : CSEC Says It Is Not Breaking The Rules About Spying On Canadians  

PostMedia : In wake of spying allegations, Communications Security Establishment Canada insists it didn’t break law

No, CSEC isn't breaking the rules but only because those rules allow it to spy on Canadians while working under the guidelines of CSIS. 
But they don't say that, do they? Instead we get weasel crap like this :

“The commissioner’s statement about a lack of records is a reference to a single review of a small number of records gathered in the early 2000s, in relation to activities directed at a remote foreign location,” the agency said in an emailed response.

Yes, part of the commissioner's complaint is directed at incomplete records in "early years". Doesn't exactly address CSEC spying on Canadians since though, does it?

So how did all you reporters at different media outlets all separately decide to downplay the watchdog commissioner's report on electronic surveillance of Canadians to "may be" spying?

Yes, I realize he wrote a nice positive preamble about how he sees himself as working with CSEC on a "complementarity" not an adversarial basis, "more as CSEC’s conscience than as a sword of Damocles" and how he's been quite pleased with the results.   Further he writes that "where I have no mandate to follow-up, I may refer questions to SIRC that concern CSIS".

We recently learned that since 2009, CSEC - as a Five Eyes intelligence partner with the US, UK, New Zealand, and Australia alongside CSIS, RCMP, and CBSA - has been authorized to exchange intelligence with other nations even if there is “substantial risk” that sending info to or requesting info from a foreign agency would result in torture ... just as long as a deputy minister or agency head gives it the ok. 

What happened to Maher Arar - once so shocking to all of us - has a legal basis here now.

So you reporters in the Canadian media can't be letting us down like this.  
Read the friggin report - it's only 46 pages long.


More from POGGE : On watchdogs with no bite.

**CSEC’s mandate [Page 9 from Commissioner Robert Décary's report ]

When the Anti-terrorism Act came into effect on December 24, 2001, it added Part V.1 to the National Defence Act, and set out CSEC’s three-part mandate:  

• part (a) authorizes CSEC to acquire and use foreign signals intelligence in accordance with the Government of Canada’s intelligence priorities;  

• part (b) authorizes CSEC to help protect electronic information and information infrastructures of importance to the Government of Canada; and 

• part (c) authorizes CSEC to provide technical and operational assistance to federal law enforcement and security agencies, including helping them obtain and understand communications collected under those agencies’ own lawful authorities.

***The Honourable Justice Richard Mosley was a primary architect in the drafting of the 2001 Anti-Terror Act and more recently the judge in the six-riding election fraud case.
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Sunday update : Michael Geist :

"Canadian domestic communications that travel from one Canadian location to another may still transit through the U.S. and thus be captured by U.S. surveillance. Despite these risks, Bell requires other Canadian Internet providers to exchange Internet traffic outside the country at U.S. exchange points, ensuring that the data is potentially subject to U.S. surveillance."

Torture : Twas brillig, saith the slithy Toews

"Twas brillig," saith the slithy Toews

"To waterboard outside our nabe."

All mimsy went the newsy slaves

To hear the mome rath outgabe :

"Tis Ethical Torture now, my son! -

The wires that shock for me and you.

I'm the mustache of John Bolton

And John Yoo is my new guru."

 Public Safety Minister Vic Toews explained his not particularly new torture directive for CSIS in the House :

 "Mr. Speaker, information obtained by torture is always discounted.  However the problem is whether one can safely ignore the information if Canadian lives and property are at stake."

~Dad, what does the minister mean by "torture is always discounted."

~Well, my son, probably around 15%. But once you advertise you're open for business in torture intel, the whole damned market explodes and then no one gets a decent discount.

CP via Pogge  : 

"The latest directive says in "exceptional circumstances" where there is a threat to human life or public safety, urgency may require CSIS to "share the most complete information available at the time with relevant authorities, including information based on intelligence provided by foreign agencies that may have been derived from the use of torture or mistreatment."

Here's the UN Convention Against Torture, to which we have been a signatory since 1984, on those "exceptional circumstances" :

“No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.”

One of the best wrap-ups on the actual harm torture-derived info has done to western intelligence and their agencies, quite apart from the evil or legalities, comes from David Rose at Vanity Fair : Tortured Reasoning. 

It ends with an interview with Robert Mueller, Director of the FBI since one week before 9/11 :

I ask Mueller: So far as he is aware, have any attacks on America been disrupted thanks to intelligence obtained through what the administration still calls “enhanced techniques”? 

“I’m really reluctant to answer that,” Mueller says. He pauses, looks at an aide, and then says quietly, declining to elaborate: “I don’t believe that has been the case.”

Update : Dr. Dawg : Debating torture
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Everybody loves a SIRCus

In response to media reports that CSIS had been complicit in the detention of Canadian citizen Abousfian Abdelrazik in Sudan, outgoing CSIS director Jim Judd requested that CSIS watchdog and review panel, the Security Intelligence Review Committee, "investigate and report on the performance of the Service’s [CSIS's] duties and functions with respect to the case of Abousofian Abdelrazik at the earliest opportunity". That was in March 2009.

Three months later Federal Court Justice Russel Zinn ruled that CSIS was indeed "complicit in the detention" of Abdelrazik in Sudan. Then in September of this year, newly released CSIS documents revealed the spy agency's attempts to delay Abdelrazik's return to Canada long enough for the CIA to spirit him off to Guantanamo, even as Foreign Affairs diplomats were arranging for his return, making this the biggest known Canadian  intelligence agency scandal since Maher Arar.

So how's that full investigation by SIRC requested by Judd coming along then? 

Dead in the water apparently.

Steve promoted Dr. Arthur Porter, the SIRC committee member charged with leading the Abdelrazik investigation, to chair of the committee in June last year, and then accepted his resignation this month following a NaPo story regarding Dr Porter's offshore cash payment to a former Israeli arms trafficker - now acting as a lobbyist for the Russian Federation - to sell infrastructure deals to Sierra Leone where Porter has mining interests and holds the title of "His Excellency, Ambassador Plenipotentiary, Republic of Sierra Leone".

"I wish to state for the record that I have fulfilled with diligence my mandate," 

wrote Dr. Porter in his letter of resignation to Steve.


... which got me to wondering just what was so gosh-darned important in SIRC's mandate last year that it bumped the Abdelrazik investigation requested by CSIS right off the list.

From the Security Intelligence Review Committee 2010-2011 Annual Report
Checks and Balances : Viewing Security Intelligence Through the Lens of Accountability

The Lens of Accountability interested itself in five SIRC-initiated reviews and three public complaints.
The Reviews :

~ a pitch for "retooloing" SIRC to allow for "independent review" of Canada's other intelligence agencies as well as CSIS

~ "SIRC also followed through on its commitment to pay close attention to CSIS’s expanding foreign investigative activities. Although overseas operations unfold in unique circumstances and present different challenges, CSIS should strive to ensure that the management of its operations abroad mirrors, to the extent practicable, the standards of administration and account­ability that are maintained domestically."

~ "Today the Service is also reaching out to non-traditional partners, such as the private sector."

"In SIRC’s opinion, an effective strategy would involve identifying those sectors with the greatest potential to be of investigative value to the Service. ... the Service strives to engage and support the private sector’s security needs in other ways. Efforts are also underway to increase the number of security clearances for individuals in the private sector."

~ "an appreciation of the way in which the internet supports CSIS’s activities"
although it notes :

" At issue was the volume of information pertaining to young people being retained by CSIS as part of its operational reporting."

~ A positive review of CSIS’s cooperation "with a “Five Eyes” partner" - which could be either the US, UK, Australia, or NZ.

Note to SIRC : If you have to use evasive terminology like "a Five Eyes partner" in your "positive review" rather than actually name the country you are feeling positive about, it's not really much of a public account, is it?

~ "a positive impression of RCMP–CSIS cooperation"

"The relationship between CSIS and the RCMP, in particular, has moved to the forefront following the passage of the Anti-terrorism Act (2001). As a result of this legislation, CSIS and the RCMP have had to work more closely together"

~ "Canada is experiencing levels of espionage compa­rable to the height of the Cold War."

~ Afghan detainees.

" In particular, SIRC’s review found no indication that in the period during which CSIS conducted detainee interviews, CSIS officers posted to Afghanistan had any first-hand knowledge of the alleged abuse, mistreatment or torture of detainees by Afghan authorities."

however :

"SIRC noted that CSIS did not comprehen­sively document its role in the interviews of Afghan detainees by keeping records that would confirm the numbers and details of all of the detainee interviews"

SIRC also handles citizen complaints against CSIS. This year three were investigated and written up, which included the following complaints :
CSIS failing to identify itself as CSIS, harrassment of family members, suggesting to interviewee that a lawyer was not necessary, delay in providing security assessment for a site access, and allegedly providing an "unjust, unfounded, and unethical" assessment to Citizenship and Immigration Canada regarding  a complainant's application for permanent  resident status.

Aside from providing some gentle advice, like that in its reports to Citizenship and Immigration Canada "the Service not include certain information unless it has been corroborated", SIRC did not find anything unduly alarming in its public report of the three out of 48 new and carried-over complaints.


I'm sure the four out of five health industry experts that comprise SIRC's review panel on CSIS did the best they could with their unwieldy $3-million Lens of Accountability. Unfortunately that lens is looking the other way in the case Abousfian Abdelrazik, the largest CSIS intelligence scandal since Maher Arar.
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Update : SIRC reviewed CSIS re Abdelrazik for their 2012-2013 report, covering the period from March 2003 to December 2004. 
It found "no indication that CSIS had requested Sudanese authorities to arrest or detain Abousfian Abdelrazik" , but that "CSIS inappropriately and, in contravention of CSIS policy, disclosed personal and classified information." Further, "in mid-2004 in preparation for Mr. Abdelrazik’s possible release, SIRC found that CSIS assessments to its government partners contained exaggerated and inaccurately conveyed information" and that "CSIS excessively reported, and hence retained in its operational databases, a significant amount of information not related to the threat, originating from individuals who were not targets."
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