http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/snowden-document-shows-canada-set-up-spy-posts-for-nsa-1.2456886
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Exclusive
Snowden document shows Canada set up spy posts for NSA
CSEC conducted espionage activities for U.S. in 20 countries, according
to top-secret briefing note
By Greg Weston, Glenn Greenwald, Ryan Gallagher, CBC News
Posted: Dec 09, 2013 9:03 PM ET Last Updated: Dec 10, 2013 3:59 PM ET
A top secret document retrieved by American whistleblower Edward Snowden
reveals Canada has set up covert spying posts around the world and
conducted espionage against trading partners at the request of the U.S.
National Security Agency.
The leaked NSA document being reported exclusively by CBC News reveals
Canada is involved with the huge American intelligence agency in
clandestine surveillance activities in “approximately 20 high-priority
countries."
Much of the document contains hyper-sensitive operational details which
CBC News has chosen not to make public.
Sections of the document with the highest classification make it clear
in some instances why American spymasters are particularly keen about
enlisting their Canadian counterparts, the Communications Security
Establishment Canada.
"CSEC shares with the NSA their unique geographic access to areas
unavailable to the U.S," the document says.
The briefing paper describes a "close co-operative relationship" between
the NSA and its Canadian counterpart, the Communications Security
Establishment Canada, or CSEC — a relationship "both sides would like to
see expanded and strengthened.
"The intelligence exchange with CSEC covers worldwide national and
transnational targets."
The four-page missive is stamped “Top Secret” and dated April 3, 2013.
That makes it one of the freshest documents Snowden was able to walk
away with before he went public in June.
The briefing notes make it clear that Canada plays a very robust role in
intelligence-gathering around the world in a way that has won respect
from its American equivalents.
Wesley Wark, a Canadian security and intelligence expert at the
University of Ottawa, says the document makes it clear Canada can take
advantage of its relatively benign image internationally to covertly
amass a vast amount of information abroad.
"I think we still trade on a degree of an international brand as an
innocent partner in the international sphere," Wark said. "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."
The intimate Canada-U.S. electronic intelligence relationship dates back
more than 60 years. Most recently, another Snowden document reported by
CBC News showed the two agencies co-operated to allow the NSA to spy on
the G20 summit of international leaders in Toronto in 2010.
But what the latest secret document reveals for the first time is just
how expansive Canada's international espionage activities have become.
CSEC set up 'covert sites at the request of NSA'
The NSA document depicts CSEC as a sophisticated, capable and highly
respected intelligence partner involved in all manner of joint spying
missions, including setting up listening posts at the request of the
Americans.
"CSEC offers resources for advanced collection, processing and analysis,
and has opened covert sites at the request of NSA," the document states.
Thomas Drake, a former NSA executive turned whistleblower, says it's no
surprise Canada would accede to the U.S. agency's requests: "That's been
the case for years.
"Just think of certain foreign agreements or relationships that Canada
actually enjoys that the United States doesn't, and under the cover of
those relationships, guess what you can conduct? These kinds of secret
surveillance or collection efforts."
Drake says he worked with CSEC on various projects while he was at the
NSA, and the Canadians were "extraordinarily capable."
CSEC conducts much of its foreign cyber-spying operations from its
headquarters in Ottawa, using some of the most powerful computing
equipment in the country to intercept foreign phone calls and monitor
internet communications in nations around the globe.
Its American counterpart does the same, but is itself currently the
target of a widespread internal probe by the U.S. administration in the
wake of leaked documents from Snowden showing the NSA has been
collecting masses of information on millions of ordinary Americans.
Wark reviewed the leaked document at the invitation of CBC News, and
says he isn't surprised CSEC would be asked by the NSA to set up covert
foreign spying operations.
He says it is not uncommon for embassies and consulates to be used as
listening posts when a close proximity to targets is required.
But he also points out it all comes with significant risks to Canada —
namely, getting caught "can create huge diplomatic fallout."
High-level approval required
Aside from compromising the actual intelligence operation, Wark says, an
exposed spy mission can imperil Canada's other diplomatic operations —
"the political contacts, the trade contacts, the generation of goodwill
between the countries and any sense of co-operation."
Wark says if a country feels targeted by a Canadian embassy, it can put
everyone working there under a cloud of suspicion: “Are they really
diplomats or are they spies?”
As a result of those risks, Wark says, approval for CSEC to establish a
covert spying post at the request of the NSA would have to come from the
ministerial level of the Canadian government — or even from the prime
minister himself.
"It's far too politically and diplomatically sensitive, and the
consequences of being discovered are far too great, for it to be simply
an operational matter for an intelligence agency," he says.
"In the past, it certainly has been and it should be today, a matter of
very senior political sign-off."
Canada and the U.S. have long shared security intelligence with sister
agencies in the U.K., Australia and New Zealand – the so-called "Five
Eyes" partnership.
But the latest secret Snowden missive shows CSEC and the NSA becoming
physically intertwined.
"Co-operative efforts include the exchange of liaison officers and
integrees," the document reveals, a reference to CSEC operatives working
inside the NSA, and vice-versa.
It notes the NSA also supplies much of the computer hardware and
software CSEC uses for encryption, decoding and other state-of-the-art
essentials of electronic spying needed for "collection, processing and
analytic efforts."
In return, the NSA acknowledges that its Canadian counterpart provides
the partnership with its own "cryptographic products, cryptanalysis,
technology and software."
Finally, the U.S. agency says CSEC has increased its investment in
research and development projects "of mutual interest."
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
NSA whistleblower Drake says the problem is that both CSEC and the NSA
lack proper oversight, and without it, they have morphed into runaway
surveillance.
"There is a clear and compelling danger to democracy in Canada by virtue
of how far these secret surveillance operations have gone."
The office of Defence Minister Rob Nicholson, who is responsible for
CSEC, issued a written statement saying CSEC’s activities are subject to
review by an independent commissioner.
A spokesperson for the U.S. government said: "While we are not going to
comment publicly on every specific alleged activity, we have made clear
that the United States gathers foreign intelligence of the type gathered
by all nations."
--
Darryl McMahon
Project Manager,
Common Assessment and Referral for Enhanced Support Services (CARESS)
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