Cyberspy agency faces Senate grilling
OTTAWA — Canada’s supersecret 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 John Forster, the Communications Security Establishment Canada chief, who 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. Romeo 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 such 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 rejected the 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.
The government faced questions Friday in the House of Commons about a CBC report, and denied the CSEC violated the privacy of Canadians, or 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 sorting through data from the IP addresses of devices using public Wi-Fi zones to “hopefully leave only the one needle from the haystack.”
In a statement on its website, CSEC said the document was a “technical presentation” from specialists “exploring mathematical models” to “locate foreign terrorist threats.” It said “no Canadian or foreign travellers were tracked.”