Intelligence

Security agencies mushrooming

TheStar.com - Security agencies mushrooming

Hot topic in Ottawa; no current list of spy groups on books

`Obviously more than anyone is aware of,' Arar lawyer says

MICHELLE SHEPHARD
STAFF REPORTER

The acronyms are dizzying.

CSIS, CSE and the RCMP are the big players. But PSEPC is now in the game and don't forget the DND, CBSA or FINTRAC and CATSA.

Together, these federal agencies make up part of Canada's web of security operations. Their roles have been enhanced with little scrutiny over the last three years as various government agencies have beefed up security operations, leading some to now question just who is in the spy game?

"Obviously there are more than anyone is aware of," says Toronto lawyer Lorne Waldman, who represents Maher Arar at the federal inquiry probing the circumstances of his case.

"It has been surprising to discover the extent in which agencies can be involved."

Arar, 33, a Syrian-born Canadian, was detained in the United States in September 2002, deported to Syria and kept for nearly a year before being released.

Waldman said he was alarmed when it was revealed at the inquiry that it wasn't just the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Canadian Security Intelligence Service who were somehow involved in his client's case, but that information was handled by a low-profile division within the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT), called ISI.

Department spokesperson Rodney Moore said ISI is the foreign intelligence division and provides information to the minister, but could not be more specific as to the division's power or responsibilities.

It is also unclear how, or if, the division's responsibilities have changed since 2001.

There is no current list of federal agencies involved in security operations, but the Privy Council Office is in the process of updating their March 2001 list, which was written before the advent of such agencies as Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada and the Canadian Border Security Agency.

In a report to the Arar commission last month, Shirley Heafey, the head of the RCMP's complaints commission, raised the issue of too many agencies and too little oversight.

She stressed the need for a new federal watchdog, powerful enough to make not only the Mounties, but all spy agencies, answerable to the public.

"The existing patchwork approach to civilian review of national security activities poses significant risks for rights and freedoms, since these are the principles that may be compromised when national security activities are permitted to go unchecked," she wrote.

It's a hot topic in Ottawa these days and will be the focus of an international conference next month that's co-organized by CSIS's watchdog agency, the Security Intelligence Review Committee and the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies.

But there's still much debate and little action, says Wesley Wark, an intelligence specialist at the University of Toronto's Munk Centre for International Studies.

"We are far from the situation in which we can say that the expanded realm of security and intelligence has met and accepted its counterpart — true democratic accountability."

Wark says that within the security and intelligence community there's a running debate over the best model of organization of intelligence agency — those who argue for centralization and those in the de-centralizer camp.

The American model, following the 9/11 commission report that noted tragic gaps in intelligence sharing, is now centralized.

Canada remains still largely de-centralized Wark argues.

"The Canadian model historically tends towards de-centralization, with weak co-ordination at the centre.

"The model remains intact despite the 9/11 earthquake," says Wark.

"My feeling is that co-ordination and central control remain a problem, and so long as they remain a problem a basically decentralized system, with many security and intelligence fiefdoms, poses the risks of slipshod performance and potential abuse."

April 2, 2005 at 08:55 AM in Espionage - general | Permalink | Top of page | Blog Home