The secret history of the CSE

EARLY YEARS: Listening in Canada’s wartime enemies

The origins of the Communications Security Establishment date to 1941 when a civilian organization under the National Research Council, called the Examination Unit, decrypted, translated and analyzed intercepted foreign electronic communications collected largely from the Canadian Signal Corps station at Rockcliffe airport. Among its targets were German military intelligence rings active in South America, diplomatic and naval cipher from Vichy France, and Japanese communications.

COLD WAR: A peacetime role for the unit

With the end of the Second World War, revelations of former Soviet cipher clerk Igor Gouzenko that Soviet espionage rings were active in Canada helped persuade the government there was a peacetime role for cryptographic and foreign signals intelligence, or SIGINT. The Communications Branch, National Research Council — CBNRC — was created. Partnerships with sister agencies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand soon followed.

Meanwhile, there was a growing interest in communications security — COMSEC — and protecting sensitive information transmitted by various government agencies. Throughout the decades of the Cold War, CBNRC and its partners provided signals intelligence on the Soviet Union. Much was shared with SIGINT allies and partners, especially the U.S. In return, Canada received vast amounts of high-grade intelligence on a wide variety of diplomatic, trade, political and military subjects.

1970s AND BEYOND: Into the telecom revolution

In 1974, Canada’s SIGINT and COMSEC organization became part of the Department of National Defence and was renamed the Communications Security Establishment.

With the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, budget cuts impaired CSE’s ability to keep up throughout the 1990s.

At the same time, a revolution was taking place in the field of telecommunications. The velocity and volume of communications increased greatly and use of the Internet became widespread.

In response to the 9/11 attacks, the Anti-terrorism Act gave the CSE aggressive new authority and established the watchdog Office of the CSE Commissioner. Its mandate now includes: acquiring and using information from the global information infrastructure for the purpose of providing foreign intelligence, and to provide advice, guidance and services to help ensure the protection of government and other important electronic information and of information infrastructures.