WikiLeaks and Snowden may be making Canadians less safe

It’s time for some honest discussion about intelligence leaks, Phil Gurski says

Is there any end in sight to the salacious details released by WikiLeaks or the contentious claims made by former National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden?

Scarcely a week goes by without some new allegation or exposé by these self-styled heroes of the common citizen, charged with blowing the cover off secrecy, protecting our collective privacy and demonstrating to the world how evil intelligence agencies are. The recent WikiLeaks promise to share CIA hacking tools with technology companies is but the latest example.

Many praise these pioneers, whose actions are not without risk: extradition, arrest, trial and incarceration. Because what they are doing is gutsy, it is not hard to view them as Davids in a world of intelligence Goliaths.

There is, however, justified concern over what has been disclosed. We are less safe as a result.

It may be heroic for WikiLeaks to graciously inform Apple and Samsung of the weaknesses exploited by the CIA, for that protects average Joes and their privacy. But everyone seems to forget that some pretty nasty characters, from organized crime figures to terrorists, also use that technology. Closed loopholes and back doors may raise our security, generally speaking, but the bad guys also benefit and our security intelligence and law enforcement agencies are less capable of tracking them.

Although the leaks concern American spy agencies — the NSA and the CIA — there are lessons for Canada.

First, the latest information about CIA hacking is believed to have been leaked by a contract employee at the CIA. Snowden was also a contractee and the U.S. intelligence community is rife with them. We in Canada rely less crucially on these types of employees and our intelligence services should think twice before hiring more. Yes, full-time staff can also break the rules but they are also inherently more trustworthy and perhaps better vetted. It is more expensive to have permanent staff, but is it not better to be secure than penny-wise and pound-foolish?

Second, public trust in the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and the RCMP appears to be eroding. Stories of “illegal” data storage by CSIS, the CSE’s collection of Canadian telephone numbers and the RCMP’s entrapment of two people in the 2013 B.C. legislature plot have led some Canadians to assume that our protectors have gone rogue and are breaking the law.

This trust has to be re-established, in part by having the heads of these agencies be a little more open with Canadians about what they do and why. There will always be issues off the table — methods, sources and ongoing operations — but there is much to gain by entering into a mature dialogue with our citizens.

Third, we need a wider conversation on privacy. The CIA and its ilk should be the least of our worries. Technology giants such as Google know a lot more about you than the CIA ever will and that knowledge is collected solely for economic exploitation. Are we Canadians OK with that? Or is privacy over-rated? Let’s talk.

Spy agencies exist for a reason. Some have indeed been used to keep tabs on their citizens and to abuse those citizens. While we in the West are not perfect, it is nevertheless true that security agencies are here to keep us safe. They do this with a degree of professionalism and dedication not often recognized. It is time to acknowledge this and not focus solely on the alleged bad.

Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are painted as courageous whistleblowers, and maybe they are, to some extent. Yet there is little in life that is uniquely positive, even for smashers of secrets. It is time for a much more nuanced discussion.