from: http://www.thestar.com/thestar/back_issues/ED20000902/opinion/20000902NAR01_NR -SPIES2.html Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.thestar.com/thestar/back_issues/ED20000902/opinion/20000902NA R01_NR-SPIES2.html">The Toronto Star - OP-ED Story: The imperfect …</A> ----- September 2, 2000 The imperfect spies RAFFI ANDERIAN/TORONTO STAR The current scandal over a rigged computer program is just the latest evidence that Canada's intelligence agencies are vulnerable and sometimes laughable By Allan Thompson and Valerie Lawton Toronto Star Ottawa Bureau OTTAWA - SOME OF the bizarre allegations at the centre of the spy scandal being probed by the RCMP would be more at home in the pages of a John Le Carre novel or the shadowy netherworld of conspiracy theorists and spooks: * The RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) unwittingly using rigged software designed by two of our closest allies. * Foreign spies hacking into top-secret Canadian computer files using a hidden trap door. * Israel's Mossad agents peddling computer programs in Canada through mysterious front companies. But while the allegations might sound like they come from some paranoid mind, intelligence experts say they have at least an air of plausibility. If true, the stories would make a mockery of Canada's ability to protect its secrets. They would also be a massive blow to the country's beleaguered spy service, which has already suffered a string of embarrassing leaks and Keystone-Kop mishaps in the last year or so. Many analysts contend that the current spy scandal reflects the long-standing weakness of Canada's security and intelligence apparatus. ``Yes, there's vulnerability there,'' says York University professor Reg Whittaker, an expert on national-security issues. ``Canadian intelligence is particularly susceptible to potential manipulation by its allies in as much as we are dependent to a substantial degree on intelligence exchanges.'' Whittaker says Canada has long been dependent on other countries - most notably the United States - to provide foreign-intelligence information. That's because Canada does not have a foreign-intelligence agency of its own. ``We end up quite dependent, mainly on the Americans, but on others like the Brits and, in a regional sense, the Israelis,'' Whittaker says. ``We're essentially borrowers of foreign intelligence and, above all, from United States agencies,'' says Peter Russell, who was head of research for a royal commission that led to the creation of CSIS. And Whittaker says that dependence may extend beyond the information we obtain, to the tools Canadian intelligence officers use to do the job. ``The newer twist that's added is as intelligence goes increasingly high-tech, are we developing a new level of dependency here since we're unlikely to have the resources to develop very sophisticated software?'' The current spy scandal revolves around allegations that foreign agents shattered Canada's national security by penetrating secret case-management databases at the RCMP and CSIS. Sources claim Promis software used by the Mounties and CSIS to co-ordinate secret investigations was rigged with a ``trap door'' that allowed American and Israeli agents to eavesdrop. The Promis software was at the centre of a major U.S. scandal a decade ago, when Bill and Nancy Hamilton, owners of Washington-based Inslaw Inc., alleged the U.S. government had stolen their software and peddled pirated versions to intelligence agencies around the world. Later, a former Israeli spy also alleged the software had been fitted with the electronic trap door to allow American and Israeli agents to spy on those who used the software. In his book, Gideon's Spies, Welsh author Gordon Thomas recounts the tale of how Rafi Eitan, former deputy director of operations at Mossad, claimed both Israel and the United States had sold modified Promis software to Canada and other countries through front companies. CSIS adamantly denies ever possessing the software. The RCMP won't comment, except to confirm the existence of the investigation and to say that, so far, no evidence of a breach of national security has been found. One source claimed last weekend that the trap door had been discovered and rectified in 1994, but others contest that, saying it operated later and might even still be active. The most withering commentary on the current scandal is the joke that foreign spies didn't need to bother rigging software to find out Canada's intelligence secrets - they could just as easily have picked up some top-secret files sitting in a parked car, or computer disks left behind in a phone booth. In the past year, CSIS has been plagued by clumsy mishaps, information leaks and poor morale. In April, an agent was suspended after granting a media interview during which he described the agency as a ``rat hole.'' Also this spring, CSIS suffered an embarrassing security breach when the identities of newly appointed intelligence officers were leaked to The Globe and Mail. Agents' identities are supposed to be secret. Last October, thieves stole confidential CSIS documents left in a car by an agent who'd parked outside the Air Canada Centre to go to a Leafs game. Three alleged drug addicts broke into the car and took what CSIS described as an ``annual operational report,'' which contained detailed information about national security. A month after the document snafu, news broke that in 1996, a Toronto man found a CSIS computer disk loaded with the names of confidential informants, spying targets and covert operations, on a shelf in a phone booth on Yonge St. The disk had apparently been misplaced by a CSIS intelligence officer who was moving from one office to another. The RCMP has also been embarrassed by a security breach of its own. In 1995, a Mountie lost a briefcase filled with sensitive material in British Columbia. CSIS was born of scandal - created on the recommendation of the royal commission that probed allegations of wrongdoing by the RCMP's security service. The inquiry, known as the McDonald commission, heard details including the burning of a barn in Quebec, hundreds of break-ins without warrants, and the monitoring of election candidates. In the end, it recommended the creation of a new civilian agency that would operate separately from the Mounties. CSIS came into existence in 1984. In the ensuing 16 years, Canada's reputation for intelligence gathering has been spotty, says John Thompson, an intelligence expert at the Mackenzie Institute. ``We're seen as having good people. Collectively we're seen as being quite shoddy in a lot of respects. ``Individually, we've got a lot of really, very good people. A good reputation. And that we will co-operate, usually fairly easily, with another country. ``On the other hand, Canada generally is seen as being wide open, porous and nave. This relates to all sorts of problems. We have RCMP officers who might be hard on the trail of, say, organized crime. And then the investigation is held up because they're out of money.'' And Thompson says CSIS and the RCMP don't have much clout internationally, because they can't operate outside of Canada's borders without the co-operation of another agency. The McDonald commission had urged a public debate on whether Canada should create its own foreign-intelligence agency. But that has not happened. Russell says there's no question some of the problems identified two decades ago still exist. ``We are vulnerable to our intelligence allies because we're very dependent on them for collecting foreign intelligence on common threats.'' Russell, and other national-security analysts, say the allegations Canada was spied on by two of its closest allies shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. ``We can't be off-limits to our allies. There's no way you can run a big foreign-intelligence agency for a big country like the United States or a little one with huge international worries, like Israel, and say that one place you won't pursue or have a source is Canada.'' ``The whole intelligence game is a dirty game. We don't play it, but we use our allies' products.'' ``I give total credibility to the allegations, 100 per cent,'' says Mike Frost, a former employee of the secretive Canadian Security Establishment (CSE), and the author of Spy World. Allies frequently spy on each other, and for each other, he says. In his book, Frost suggests the United States had eavesdropping devices on the roof of its embassy in Ottawa and that Canada also spied on its allies from posts abroad. ``This Promis thing is just one of the ways of finding out what people are doing,'' he says. Whittaker says Israel is more likely to have engaged in such activity than the U.S. ``It's certainly not beyond the capability of the Israelis because they're in it for themselves. ``We already know that Jonathan Pollard was spying for Israel against their good ally the United States. I certainly wouldn't put it past them if they had the opportunity.'' (Canada and Israel were at loggerheads in late 1997 when Mossad agents who made a botched attempt to assassinate a Hamas leader in Jordan used forged Canadian passports.) ``I find it a little less plausible that the Americans would be doing that against Canada, given that there would be little that would be withheld from them anyway,'' Whittaker says. But, in a post-Cold War era when economic espionage is coming to the fore, even close political allies who co-operate in some fields still spy on each other as economic rivals, he says. David Harris, former chief of strategic planning at CSIS and now president of his own research firm in Ottawa, acknowledges that anything is possible in the world of security and intelligence. ``In today's world, with the reliance on cybertech security and intelligence, organizations everywhere are haunted by the spectre of trap doors and penetration of their computer systems.'' Harris says he doesn't know if CSIS had ever used the Promis software. And while he stresses that he does not presume the allegations are true, he says there is plenty in Canada's secret files that a foreign intelligence agency would be interested in. ``A sophisticated intelligence service would want to see what they might be able to get in terms of intelligence reports - indications of who might be working for whom and where.'' David Rudd, executive-director of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies, says the RCMP investigation into a possible breach of national security is a serious concern, not least because of possible damage to Canada's international standing. ``Canada's reputation is an important matter because governments want to show they can safely hold on to sensitive information, since we are in the intelligence-sharing business.'' Ipperwash: The death that won't stay buried Legal Notice Copyright* 1996-2000 Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, All My Relations. 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