[asia-apec 1136] Canada and the Global Spy Network

[Jaggi Singh]

[When governments, police and spy agencies talk about "economic
intelligence", I think it's more than fair to assume they are also talking
about leftist political activists. That is, people who dissent from the
economic fundamentalism of governing elites and decide to act on those
views. This article may not be all that surprising, but it's still scary.  
-- J]


Canada a key snooper in huge spy network

Report says alliance is able to intercept nearly any message

Jim Bronskill
The Ottawa Citizen 
Saturday, May 22, 1999


[PHOTO: Canadian Forces Station Leitrim, south of Ottawa, intercepts
diplomatic communications and monitors satellites.]


Canada belongs to a global spy network capable of snooping on virtually
every type of communication, from long-distance phone calls to Internet
e-mail, says a newly published study.

The detailed report, prepared for the European Parliament, warns that the
electronic intelligence agencies of the world's major English-speaking
countries increasingly use the information they collect to gain an upper
hand on economic rivals.

It concludes the surveillance web controlled by the UKUSA alliance --
Canada, the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand -- has
evolved into a highly advanced network that automatically sifts through
the vast bulk of the messages that traverse the globe daily.

"Comprehensive systems exist to access, intercept and process every
important form of communications, with few exceptions," says the report,
by Edinburgh-based researcher Duncan Campbell, a longtime observer of the
intelligence world.

Canada is represented in the alliance by the Communications Security
Establishment, an ultra-secret wing of the Defence Department with
headquarters in an Ottawa office building.

The report, Interception Capabilities 2000, was approved as a working
document by the Science and Technology Options Assessment Panel of the
European Parliament at a meeting in Strasbourg, France, earlier this
month.

Mr. Campbell's study raises thorny questions about the scope of global spy
operations and their potential to violate privacy. It is the latest in a
string of books and articles in recent years to shine a light on the inner
workings of the shadowy UKUSA alliance.
 
Citing numerous sources, Mr. Campbell reveals new information about the
ECHELON computer system that helps Canada's CSE and its alliance partners
process the mountains of data collected by monitoring satellites,
microwave radio relays, undersea cables and the Internet.

The heightened scrutiny is a welcome development, said Wayne Madsen, a
senior fellow with the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information
Center.

"I think everyone should be asking questions about their intelligence
agencies," he said. "Why do they exist, and what are they doing? The more
people that ask questions the better."

The UKUSA partnership emerged out of co-operation between members during
the Second World War, when signals intelligence, or SIGINT in spy
parlance, proved instrumental in helping the Allies triumph.

For decades the alliance's primary purpose was to monitor the military and
diplomatic communications of the Soviet Union and its East Bloc allies.
But the Cold War's end has seen a shift towards collection of information
about terrorism, organized crime and, on a more controversial note, an
increasing flow of data on economic dealings and scientific developments.

"There is wide-ranging evidence indicating that major governments are
routinely utilizing communications intelligence to provide commercial
advantage to companies and trade," says Mr. Campbell's report.  The
findings come as no surprise to Fred Stock, who says he was forced out of
CSE in 1993 after objecting to the agency's new emphasis on economic
intelligence and civilian targets.

Mr. Stock, who worked in CSE's Communications Centre in Ottawa, recalls
incoming message traffic on dealings with Mexico, France, Germany, Japan
and South Korea. The intercepted information covered negotiations on the
North American Free Trade Agreement, Chinese grain purchases, French arms
sales and Canada's boundary dispute with France over the islands of
St-Pierre-Miquelon off Newfoundland's south coast. "To me, we shouldn't
have been doing that."
 
Mr. Stock also maintains the agency routinely received intelligence about
environmental protest actions mounted by Greenpeace vessels on the high
seas.

Other former CSE employees have told similar stories of economic and
political spying. As a matter of policy, the agency refuses to discuss
allegations about operations.

However, the federal government acknowledges that CSE, supported by
Canadian Forces personnel, collects and analyzes foreign communications.
"Signals intelligence provides unique and timely information on the
intentions, capabilities and activities of foreign states, organizations
or persons," says the defence department.

"This intelligence is used by policy makers to resolve issues relating to
the defence of Canada, or the conduct of its foreign affairs and trade."

CSE regularly provides information and analysis to national defence
headquarters, foreign affairs and international trade and the Canadian
Security Intelligence Service, the country's domestic spy agency, among
other federal organizations.

The government says CSE employs about 890, and has an annual budget of
$110 million. Some consider the figures low, particularly since the agency
draws on the personnel and regional intercept facilities of the Canadian
Forces.

CSE works closely with the National Security Agency, its much larger U.S.
cousin. NSA, the lead American SIGINT organization, has a staff of 21,000
and a $3.6-billion budget, making it the undisputed senior partner of the
alliance.

The extent and nature of the co-operation between the UKUSA partners
through the ECHELON system was first detailed in the 1996 book Secret
Power, by New Zealander Nicky Hager.

ECHELON has raised eyebrows among civil libertarians because it operates
on the principle of intercepting a broad range of communications, then
using high-tech tools to zero in on the phone calls, faxes or e-mails of
interest.

The system employs "Dictionary" computers in each host country that store
lists of targets, including names, telephone numbers, addresses and
subjects of interest to alliance members. According to Hager, whenever a
''Dictionary'' encounters an intercepted phone call, fax, e-mail or other
message containing a key word or number, it automatically transmits it to
the interested member agency.

An intelligence analyst in Ottawa, for instance, could log on to a
computer terminal and scan the latest batch of intercepts in a particular
category, such as Japanese diplomatic cables from Latin America,
identified by a four-digit code.

The intrusiveness of the ECHELON system scares former CSE employee Mike
Frost. He says the fact the vast majority of intercepted messages are
discarded provides little comfort. Mr. Frost compares the electronic
sifting of personal messages to a burglar who breaks into a home and
rifles through possessions without stealing anything.  "Would you still
not feel violated? Of course."

CSE spokesman Kevin Mills dismisses as ridiculous the notion the agency
intercepts virtually all communications. "That's what I call the vacuum
cleaner mythology."

However, Mr. Mills limits his assessment to CSE. "I don't have enough
insight as to what the other partners are doing, and how they're expending
their resources and funds, to really make an informed comment."

CSE, like other alliance members, is not supposed to target the
communications of Canadians. In addition, it is believed the alliance
members generally refrain from targeting each other's citizens.

But recent revelations about the alliance's scope, particularly the
ECHELON system, has caused an uproar in Europe, where many countries see
the partnership -- despite Britain's participation -- as an American-led
assault on the continent's economic sovereignty.

"If this system were to exist, it would be an intolerable attack against
individual liberties, competition and the security of the states,"
Commissioner Martin Bangeman told the European Parliament last September.

In his report, Mr. Campbell says ECHELON has been in use for more than 20
years, much longer than previously believed. It was greatly expanded
between 1975 and 1995.

Based on a simple count of antennae installed at ground stations, Mr.
Campbell figures the UKUSA partners operate at least 120 satellite-based
collection systems. For instance, Canadian Forces Station Leitrim, near
Ottawa, intercepts communications satellites on behalf of CSE.

Still, the alliance faces challenges. The shift in telecommunications to
high-capacity optical fibre networks will make tapping more difficult
since physical access to the cables is required. As a result, Mr. Campbell
predicts greater use of undercover agents to plant collection devices in
the future. (The U.S. has long used submarine crews to tap undersea
cables).

At the same time, more people are encrypting their communications so they
can't be easily deciphered if intercepted. Still, effective cryptography
is not yet in use on a large scale.

The falling cost of advanced computers has also enabled agencies to make
use of high-tech tools for processing and sorting data.

Mr. Campbell rejects the argument that the dramatic growth of the Internet
poses a significant obstacle for intelligence agencies. "Since the early
1990s, fast and sophisticated (communications intelligence) systems have
been developed to collect, filter and analyze the forms of fast digital
communications used by the Internet."

Since most of the world's Internet capacity lies within the U.S., much of
the traffic on the network passes through sites there, making it readily
accessible to NSA.

"Internet traffic can be accessed either from international communications
links entering the United States, or when it reaches major Internet
exchanges." NSA is restricted to looking at Internet messages that begin
or end in a foreign country.

Still, Mr. Madsen, who worked briefly for NSA in 1985, said the alliance
pools efforts to monitor the e-mail of political and social lobby groups
of interest.

Several former CSE employees, including Mr. Stock and Mr. Frost, claim the
agency has spied on Canadians. CSE allegedly helped mount an eavesdropping
operation during the 1990 Oka crisis and tried to determine whether
Margaret Trudeau, while wife of then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau, was
using illegal drugs.

The persistent charges prompted the Liberal government to appoint a
commissioner, former Quebec judge Claude Bisson, to determine whether CSE
was complying with Canadian law. Mr. Bisson, however, does not look into
events that predate his June 1996 appointment, nor can he respond directly
to members of the public who complain about the agency.

Mr. Frost, whose 1994 book Spyworld detailed his covert exploits for CSE,
said the agency requires greater independent scrutiny.  He also cautions
that the imperfect world of communications interception can produce
misleading results -- something that's often lost on politicians.

"When they see intelligence on their desk, they take it as gospel. It may
not be," said Mr. Frost. "That's a frightening thing."

[end]