Tag: CSE

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A Three Front Legal Campaign: CSEC, Metadata and Civil Liberties – National Security Law Blog –

A Three Front Legal Campaign: CSEC, Metadata and Civil Liberties:

There are now three lawsuits in Canadian courts related to the Communications Security Establishment Canada’s intercept of metadata.  These are:

  • BC Civil Liberties Association’s action for a declaration in BC Superior Courtalleging that CSEC’s intercept activities violate sections 8 and 2 of the Charter.
  • BCCLA’s class action in Federal Court, brought “in order for those persons whose private communications and/or metadata have been intercepted to have access to remedies under s.24 of the Charter once the issues of the unconstitutionality of the impugned provisions, Authorizations and Directives are resolved in the [BC Supreme Court] Declaratory Action”.
  • Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA)’s application for a declaration in Ontario Superior Courtthat sections 7 and 8 of the Charter are violated by those provisions in the FederalPersonal Information and Protection of Electronic Documents Act(PIPEDA) that permit government agencies (including, it is alleged, CSEC) to obtain personal information from Canadian telecommunications companies with prior judicial authorization.

These cases overlap.  The BCCLA class action is intended to be derivative of its BC Superior Court declaratory action.  The CCLA case seems likely to engage the question of a person’s reasonable expectation of privacy of metadata in the possession of third party telecommunications providers.  That question must inevitably also arise in the BCCLA declaratory action.

If you track surveillance and national security issues in North America you know that litigation of these issues has been ongoing and active in the United States. An oft-heard critique of Canada has been ‘where is the litigation?’ As Craig Forcese notes, there are a series of important actions ongoing in Canada that may significantly affect how our signal intelligence agency conducts its business on behalf of Canadians.

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CJFE Annual General Meeting 2014 and Public Debate: Should Surveillance Scare You?

On June 17, 2014 I’ll be debating John Adams, the former Chief of the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). It should be a lively back and forth!

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Op-Ed: The circular, peculiar state of CSEC oversight (Includes interview)

Op-Ed: The circular, peculiar state of CSEC oversight (Includes interview):

Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) is insulated from meaningful oversight. This article explains how the agency avoids scrutiny, and what you can do to encourage change.

One of the better articles in recent past on CSEC. Highly recommended.

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Canada Bought $50 Million Worth of ‘Secure’ Phone Systems from the NSA

Canada Bought $50 Million Worth of ‘Secure’ Phone Systems from the NSA:

Technically, the Canadian Prime Minister shouldn’t have to worry about being snooped on. Declassified information on the so-called Five Eyes partnership—an intelligence-sharing agreement between America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand—supposedly forbids the five friendly governments from snooping on each other. But we don’t know what caveats exist in that agreement, because it’s kept top secret. We do know, however, that the NSA was operating in Toronto during the G8 and G20—and that CSE knew about it. That sort of cooperation, Parsons says, is to be expected by the Five Eyes partners.

“There is of course a concern that in the Five Eyes agreement there is an proviso that members of the Five Eyes network can engage in surveillance on other partners if it’s in their sovereign interest,” Parsons said.

It’s certainly interesting (and newsworthy) that Canada is buying cryptographically-secure systems from the NSA, though not necessarily surprising: the NSA is recognized as a leader in this technical space and has economies of scale that could reduce the cost of the equipment. These isn’t, however, any indication whether CSEC examines or tests the devices for backdoors. Presuming that the math hasn’t been compromised, and the phones and faxes aren’t being compromised by our close ally, then there are presumably (relatively) few worries with the Canadian procurement strategy and lots of benefits.

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Heartbleed bug shows governments slow to react

Given how many web sites were vulnerable to the Heartbleed bug, Parsons says there is likely to be a great deal of reflection on how it could have been identified sooner. Some cryptographers have estimated it may have existed for years before it was discovered last week.

This past weekend, Bloomberg News published a story alleging the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) knew about the Heartbleed vulnerability for two years and that it may have been using it to access personal data.

The NSA denies the charge, but Parsons says it raises serious questions about the Five Eyes, the surveillance partnership between Canada, the U.S., Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand, which collaborates to detect threats such as Heartbleed.

“This is supposed to be the sort of thing that they’re supposed to find and ideally report,” says Parsons.

“I think over the coming months, we need to figure out if they knew and if they didn’t, why didn’t they, because this is what we pay them to do. And if they did know, then why weren’t they protecting us?”

Source: Heartbleed bug shows governments slow to react

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CSEC dodges questions on relationship with Big Three telecom companies

Canadian spy agency head John Forster fielded questions from MPs, and says organization’s focus is foreign intelligence collection, not domestic

Takeaway from the article? CSEC boss “can’t really disclose” what kinds of access it could have to data flowing through Bell, Rogers and Telus.

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Canada’s electronic spy agency uncovers wrongdoing, ethics breaches

OTTAWA – An investigation at Canada’s secretive eavesdropping agency has uncovered misuse of public assets and “serious breaches” of the spy outfit’s values and ethics code.

…

the agency took “various measures” with regard to the employees in question.

CSEC spokesman Ryan Foreman said that for privacy reasons he could not release any information about “specific employees involved in this disclosure of wrongdoing.”

Foreman also refused to discuss the number and type of employees implicated, whether anyone was disciplined or fired, what kind of public assets were involved or their value.

Nor would he say when the matter came to CSEC’s attention, or when were the corrective steps were taken.

“They basically tell you nothing,” said Liberal public safety critic Wayne Easter.

NDP defence critic Jack Harris said the response “shows an unwillingness to be up-front with the public.”

“It just seems to me to be a public-relations response which doesn’t do much to inspire trust and confidence, frankly,” Harris said in an interview

My money is that in terms of misuse, facilities were being used to store, access, or download copyright infringing materials. And, in terms of asset misuse, I have at least one very good idea what that might have encompassed…

Source: Canada’s electronic spy agency uncovers wrongdoing, ethics breaches

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CTV News Channel: ‘No invasion of privacy here’

Christopher Parsons, Citizen Lab Postdoctoral Fellow, reacts to the assessment that it is okay Wi-Fi data was collected at airports.

My appearance on CTV yesterday, talking about the CSEC Commissioner’s statement that it’s perfectly legal for the foreign signals intelligence agency to collect Canadians’ metadata.

CTV News Channel: ‘No invasion of privacy here’

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2014.2.11

Each Five Eyes partner collects information over a specific area of the globe in accordance with their national priorities, but their collection and analysis activities are orchestrated to the point that they essentially act as one. Precise assignments are not publicly known, but research indicates that Australia monitors South and East Asia emissions. New Zealand covers the South Pacific and Southeast Asia. The UK devotes attention to Europe and Western Russia, while the US monitors the Caribbean, China, Russia, the Middle East and Africa.

As it did during the Cold War, Canada’s arctic territory provides considerable sigint advantage. Canadian Forces Station Alert, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, was originally an arctic weather station, but began sigint duty by eavesdropping on northern regions of the Soviet Union in 1958. Alert remains active today, collecting information from the interior of Russia and China.20 Other Canadian sigint assets reach into Latin America and out into the North Atlantic and North Pacific Oceans.

James Cox, “Canada and the Five Eyes Intelligence Community(.pdf)”
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Alleged Wi-Fi tracking is out of Canadians’ control: privacy experts

New allegations that CSEC tracked the gadgets of travellers using Wi-Fi have some questioning their privacy – but experts say there’s little Canadians can do about it.

Last week I was interviewed by Global News about the revelations CSEC was collecting metadata emitted from wireless stations in Canada. This is the result.

Source: Alleged Wi-Fi tracking is out of Canadians’ control: privacy experts