Canada’s spy agency faces tough questioning over snooping

OTTAWA — Canada’s super-secret cyberspy agency will be on the hot seat Monday, expected to face tough questioning from the Senate’s defence committee after revelations it allegedly spied and digitally tracked Canadians through free Wi-Fi zones in major airports.

It is not only the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) chief John Forster that will face tough questions. CSIS director Michel Coulombe and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s national security adviser, Stephen Rigby, will appear during the three-hour meeting as the committee attempts to flex its oversight muscle about Canada’s national security apparatus.

“It is opportune that the heads of our national security institutions come before the … committee at this time of uncertainty,” Sen. Roméo Dallaire, the committee’s deputy chairman, said in a statement. “The increasing cyber threat and public safety debates require some oversight review and advice to government.”

Senators have been vocal about having better parliamentary oversight of national security issues, including calls to create a national security committee made up of MPs and senators who could receive classified briefings to ensure adherence to national and international laws. Such committees exist in the U.S. and U.K.

The Harper government has so far rejected such an idea, saying the oversight system in place is working.

“Our committee will continue to promote parliamentary accountability and explore ways of increasing transparency and understanding on issues of national security and defence,” committee chairman Sen. Daniel Lang said in a statement.

On Friday, the government faced questions in the House of Commons about a CBC report, denying the CSEC violated the privacy of Canadians, or the laws governing its actions. The CBC report alleged CSEC tracked devices that had connected to free Wi-Fi networks at major airports.

The report was based on a leaked CSEC document, labelled “top secret,” given to the network by U.S. whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The techniques in the document could be used to find kidnappers, for instance, by collecting and sorting through data from the IP addresses of the devices using public Wi-Fi zones to “hopefully leave only the one needle from the haystack.”

“Canadians want to know … if they walk into the airport, do they have to turn off their cellular phones and their laptops just in case they get spied on by the Canadian government?” NDP House leader Nathan Cullen told reporters in Ottawa.

In a statement on its website, CSEC said it is “legally authorized to collect and analyze metadata,” such as details about the time, duration, location and phone numbers involved in a call, but not the details of the conversation. It also said the document was a “technical presentation” from specialists “exploring mathematical models” to “locate foreign terrorist threats.”

“The unauthorized disclosure of tradecraft puts our techniques at risk of being less effective,” the statement said.

“No Canadian or foreign travellers were tracked. No Canadian communications were, or are, targeted, collected or used. And all CSEC activities include measures to protect the privacy of Canadians.”