Travel ban worried Canadian agency
Officials were concerned Trump order would allow U.S. to spy on Canada
OTTAWA— Donald Trump’s 2017 attempt to ban travel from Muslim-majority countries sent Canada’s electronic spies scrambling to understand its impact on their operations — and the long-standing alliance with their U.S. counterpart.
The Communications Security Establishment was sufficiently concerned that they asked for assurances from their U.S. partners, the National Security Agency, that the wording of Trump’s executive order would not allow the Americans to spy on Canada.
At issue was the section of the attempted travel ban, revealed by Trump in January 2017, that suggested U.S. privacy laws should only apply to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
On the day the ban was announced, one CSE manager wrote that their staff asked if that undermined the longstanding agreement between Canada and the U.S. to not “undertake activities” — spy — on each other.
“Essentially the question was ‘does this mean that the U.S. will not abide by the agreement that we do not undertake activities against our partners?” the manager, whose name has been censored from the documents, wrote.
The answer was a resounding no. But it’s notable that the agency even had to ask. Canada and the U.S. are part of the Five Eyes alliance, a tightly-knit intelligence alliance that dates back to the Second World War.
“It is important to note that this executive order focused on the implementation of immigration laws within the U.S.,” CSE spokesperson Evan Koronewski in an email to the Star.
“CSE did not expect it to impact the National Security Agency’s commitment to the Five Eyes relationship … and sought confirmation from the NSA. (The) NSA reiterated its commitment to the longstanding Five Eyes principles to protect the privacy of each other’s nationals as a cornerstone of the … relationship.”
Leah West, a former Department of Justice national security lawyer, said she wasn’t surprised that CSE reached out for clarification from the Americans. She said when confronted with foreign laws, she would typically want to reach out to counterparts in the other country for their expertise before advising a client.
“For them to see this and want to know from their partner what this means legally for (CSE), I don’t think it’s totally unusual,” West told the Star in an interview.
“Because of the way the executive order was just kinda thrown out there, it has this stuff about the Privacy Act, there was a lot of questions at the time about what this meant for the new U.S.-European Union (privacy shield) agreement. For CSE to say, OK what does this mean for Canadians data, I don’t think is completely unreasonable.”
The travel ban was one of the more divisive early policies introduced by the Trump administration. The final version of the policy, upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court earlier this year, restricts entry to America for seven countries: Iran, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Somalia, North Korea and Venezuela.
Former CSE Chief Greta Bossenmaier, who is now national security adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asked the agency to assess the flurry of early executive orders from the Trump administration for impacts on CSE’s operations. According to the documents, stamped “Canadian Eyes Only” and released under access to information law, Bossenmaier’s office was particularly concerned about the travel ban.
CSE confirmed to the Star on Wednesday that the travel ban and no impact on the agency’s operations.