Ontario Conservative Senator Vern White told The Hill Times that he wants greater assurances that CSIS and CSEC are taking steps to prevent intelligence personnel from leaking information that compromises national security after the massive leak of classified information by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in the U.S. earlier this year.
“If you look at Snowden, many people are concerned about what he said, but from an agency or national security perspective, we also have to be concerned about what he had, how he extracted it, and the fact that nobody picked up on it,” said Sen. White, who retired from the RCMP as an assistant commissioner in 2007 and served tenures as chief of police in Durham, Ont., and Ottawa before he was appointed to the Senate in 2012. “What are they doing to assure themselves and us that we don’t have a Snowden sitting in any of our agencies?”
Sen. White raised the issue during testimony from CSEC commissioner Jean-Pierre Plouffe, who appeared before the Senate National Security and Defence Committee on Dec. 9 with William Galbraith, executive director of the commissioner’s office.
The commissioner’s office is responsible for reviewing the activities of the Communications Security Establishment Canada to ensure compliance with the law.
Mr. Plouffe, who took over the role of commissioner in October, made an effort in his opening statement to counter public concerns over the erosion of privacy rights that have followed from the Snowden leaks.
The leaks have led to daily revelations about the surveillance activities of the United States and its ‘Five Eyes’ partners—Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. It’s also revealed cases of Canada’s intelligence agencies spying on foreign governments, and collaborating with the NSA and other foreign agencies to share signals intelligence and spy at international summits.
“The information provided by Mr. Snowden made the news often very sensational in the media. Unfortunately, this information is often taken out of context, which as a result becomes misinformation,” Mr. Plouffe told the committee. “One of the key objectives of my office is to help to clarify this information and correct it if necessary, so that it’s no longer propagated as a myth. I must admit that this is a complex area given a number of ambiguities in the legislation and the constantly changing technology and the growth of the CSE.”
Following Mr. Plouffe’s statement, Sen. White asked what steps were being taken by the agency to prevent similar leaks of information by personnel at CSEC.
Mr. Plouffe responded that CSEC itself, not the commissioner’s office, is responsible for preventing leaked information by personnel.
“But certainly it would be considered for audit purposes or for oversight to ensure they’re meeting some level of expectations, or no?” Sen. White asked.
“The internal security is something that rests with the chief of CSE [John Forster],” executive director Galbraith said.
Sen. White told The Hill Times that he wants the committee to hear from CSEC chief Forster and Defence Minister Rob Nicholson (Niagara Falls, Ont.) in the new year.
“Nobody told me that we have a plan. It was, ‘It’s not our job.’ I appreciate that, but it’s not helpful to me to gain a level of assurance, so I’ve asked that we bring the right people in who can answer those questions,” Sen. White said.
Sen. White said that he wants assurances that agencies like CSEC have integrity testing in place to ensure personnel don’t leak information to the public.
“It’s the unhappy employee who decides like Snowden did that he can do something with this information to bring embarrassment on the country and the nation, but also jeopardize the security of the nation,” he said.
While Mr. Plouffe and Mr. Galbraith used their appearance to reassure the committee that there was proper oversight of CSEC, SIRC chair and former federal Cabinet minister Chuck Strahl told the committee that it is becoming increasingly difficult for his office to review CSIS’s collaboration with other intelligence agencies in Canada and its Five Eyes partner agencies.
SIRC’s latest report to Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney (Lévis-Bellechasse, Que.) warns of “an erosion of control” over the information that CSIS shares with CSEC and other agencies.
Mr. Strahl suggested that the committee look at broadening the mandate of SIRC to review CSIS’ collaborations with other agencies or establish another oversight body to gain a better perspective on Canada’s growing security and intelligence apparatus.
“Other agencies, by necessity nowadays, are working closely with CSIS, and, increasingly, we’re going to need some way of chasing those threads. Otherwise, we’ll have to tell Parliamentarians that, as far as we can tell, everything looks great in CSIS country, but I don’t know what happened over that fence; you’re on your own,” Mr. Strahl told the committee. “[I]t is a very real thing, and, while it’s not a crisis, it will increasingly become obvious. It will be, I predict, in every annual report from here on until it’s fixed.”
SIRC was established in 1984 under the CSIS Act to ensure the spy agency does not infringe on citizens’ rights, but the enabling legislation does not include provisions for Parliamentary oversight of the intelligence agency.
Mr. Strahl detailed a number of issues that would arise if Parliament were to establish its own intelligence review body.
“Some of the other things that would have to be wrestled with would be things like the composition of any Parliamentary committee. I’m, of course, more familiar with the House side, but the composition of House committees tends to revolve quite often,” said Mr. Strahl. “How would you get security clearance? How could you substitute somebody in? What would you do with classified information?”
All members of SIRC are members of the Queen’s Privy Council, giving them clearance to review classified information related to national security.
Mr. Strahl was already a Privy Councillor when he retired from politics in 2011 following tenures as minister of Agriculture, Indian Affairs, and Transportation and Infrastructure in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) Cabinet.
He was appointed chair of the Security and Intelligence Review Committee in 2012 following the departure of his controversial predecessor Arthur Porter.
Mr. Strahl highlighted a number of issues that would need to be addressed if Parliament were to have a role in overseeing activities by national intelligence agencies.
“Once you’re privy to top secret information, it cannot be shared. It cannot be used politically. People on that committee have to make a judgment call,” he told the committee. “It’s not a small thing, and it would be very tricky to get the right balance. In the end, my conclusion, from what I’ve seen over the last couple of years, is that it would be working kind of in lockstep with a committee like SIRC to make sure we don’t replicate one another’s work.’”
Asked if he thought there needed to be Parliamentary oversight of agencies like CSIS and CSEC, Quebec Liberal Senator and committee member Roméo Dallaire was unequivocally in favour.
“There is not even an iota of doubt in my military mind that the legislative branch needs to have access to classified material, including the budgets of those organizations in order to be able to represent the people of this country in regards to a fundamental element of our security,” Sen. Dallaire told The Hill Times. “We’re getting a lot of policy points and articulated priorities, but we’re not getting anything that is telling us whether we’re effective, interoperable, and ultimately, when deficiencies are identified, how they’re being rectified apart from an unclassified report that probably doesn’t tell us the true nature of the beast.”
Sen. Dallaire, a retired Lieutenant General, said that his primary concern is the effectiveness of Canada’s intelligence agencies in working together to identify and address threats to national security.
“I am far more worried about threats that are just not being picked up because these guys are not necessarily being held accountable to really work together,” he said.
Some members of the committee did raise concerns over whether or not agencies like CSIS and CSEC were collecting information on Canadians and sharing it with agencies in other countries.
Yukon Conservative Senator Daniel Lang, chair of the committee, asked the CSEC commissioner to clarify the agency’s position on the collection of metadata generated from citizens’ private communications.
“Metadata is not defined as private communication,” executive director Galbraith responded. “It is for helping them identify entities of foreign intelligence interest, according to Government of Canada intelligence priorities, but any information that CSE collects that identifies Canadians must be dealt with in a way that protects it and is destroyed after a certain period of time.”
Ontario Conservative Senator Hugh Segal questioned whether the CSEC commissioner’s office had the resources to ensure that the agency’s activities respected Canadians’ constitutional rights.
CSEC had a $440-million budget in 2012-2013 and employs at least 2000. In contrast, the CSEC commissioner’s office had a $2.5-million budget last year and a staff of 10.
Last week, the CBC reported that the commissioner’s annual reports are reviewed by CSEC and the Defence minister prior to being made public.
“Most Canadians feel there must be a very firm and cocked eye on [CSIS and CSEC’s] activities,” Sen. Segal said. “Do you think the mismatch between the resources allows you to actually do that, despite your own and your staff’s extensive hard work and effort, in any way commensurate with the actual challenge itself?
Mr. Plouffe responded that his office had enough resources to fulfil its current mandate.
“I think that we have enough staff to accomplish our mission. If we were to expand our mandate or terms of reference, that would be a whole other kettle of fish,” he said.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com/
Author: Chris Plecash
No comments:
Post a Comment