Canadian Security Intelligence Service Research Articles

Making up ‘Terror Identities’: security intelligence, Canada's Integrated Threat Assessment Centre and social movement suppression

Drawing on analysis of government records obtained using Access to Information Act (ATIA) requests, we examine policing and surveillance projects developed in preparation for three mega-events that recently took place in Canada – the 2010 Winter Olympics, the G8/G20 meetings and a scheduled (but cancelled) North American Leaders Summit. Based on an investigation of ‘Threat Assessment’ reports produced between 2005 and 2010 by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), we discuss transformations within Canada's anti-terror intelligence networks including the establishment of Integrated Security Units (ISUs) and the Integrated Threat Assessment Centre (ITAC) which resemble intelligence ‘fusion centers’ in the United States. These organisations became the knowledge-producing hubs for the classification and categorisation of national security threats. Examining shifts in ISU and ITAC Threat Assessments, we demonstrate how knowledge construction practices in security intelligence networks produce new categories of threat. Specifically, we focus on the newly constructed notion of ‘multi issue extremism’ (MIEs). Exploring the deployment of MIEs as a category of national security threat, we show how intelligence agencies have blurred the categories of terrorism, extremism and activism into an aggregate threat matrix.

Library and Information Studies and Open-source Intelligence

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. Doyon, Louise M., “One Year Through: Taking Stock of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)'s Program of Outreach to Experts,” International Studies Association Convention, New Orleans, February 2010. (New Orleans, LA: Canadian Security Intelligence Service, 2010). http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/pblctns/cdmctrch/takngstck-eng.asp (accessed October 7, 2010). 2. Best, Richard A., and Alfred Cumming, Open Source Intelligence (OSINT): Issues for Congress. Report Rl34270 (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 2009). 3. Doyon, Louise M. ibid. p.1. 4. Doyon, Louise M. ibid. p.3. 5. Treverton, Gregory F., and C. Bryan Gabbard, Assessing the Tradecraft of Intelligence Analysis (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2008). 6. “GCHQ Careers: Library and Information Scientist; Your Colleague Martin.” s.l.: [GCHQ]; 2002. Accessed June 14, 2002. 7. “Information Specialists (Librarians)—GCHQ”. [Cheltenham], GCHQ. 2009. http://www.gchq-careers.co.uk/Jobs/Information-specialists/ (accessed October 7, 2010). 8. The University of Toronto has experimented with a postgraduate certificate program in OSINT, incorporating an existing Competitive Intelligence course with newly devised workshops on analysis. Nearby McMaster University includes counter-terrorism in its police studies program, and similar courses are abundant elsewhere. 9. Dr. Reid's article on applying Bloom's Revised Taxonomy to the skill sets of librarians and analysts appears in: Reid, Edna, “Information Professionals as Intelligence Analysts: Making the Transition,” In Change: Managing It, Surviving It, Thriving On It. Best Practices for Government Libraries. Lexis-Nexis Government Solutions, 2009. http://www.governmentinfopro.com/federal_info_pro/2010/01/information-professionals-as-intelligence-analysts-making-the-transition.html (accessed March 14, 2011). 10. cf. Anderson, Lorin W., David R. Krathwohl, and Benjamin Samuel Bloom, A Taxonomy for Learning, Teaching, and Assessing: A Revision of Bloom's Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, complete ed. (New York: Longman, 2001).

The Administration of Justice? Certificate Proceedings, Charkaoui II, and the Value of Disclosure

In the wake of 9/11, Canada was among a number of Western states that instituted a wide range of legal frameworks designed to more efficiently prevent and suppress transnational terrorism. One of the defining features of its national security policy has since been the integration of a selection of intelligence agencies into a global counterterrorism network. Operationally distinct agencies, such as the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), the Communications Security Establishment, and the Canada Border Services Agency have been centrally coordinated towards the end of facilitating intelligence exchange within and across our borders. With few opportunities for public scrutiny or parliamentary and judicial review, the flow of information has gone on largely unregulated and, in a selection of notable cases, has contributed to serious human rights abuses both at home and abroad.

The Viability of a Canadian Foreign Intelligence Service

Debate over whether Canada should have a service has surfaced periodically in public policy debates over the past 40 years.1 Most recently, prior to the 2006 general election, the Conservative party promised to create a Canadian service, but has since taken no action to fulfil this promise and seems unlikely to do so. Nevertheless, the issue remains pertinent as officials claim that Canadian security and agencies have become increasingly active overseas since 11 September 2001. Communications Security Establishment gathers signals from sources broadcasting outside of Canada, the Canadian forces have created a human agency that active in Afghanistan, and both the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) claim to have expanded their operations beyond our borders. Proposals for a service envisage an agency devoted to collecting human overseas. This new agency would have a broader mandate than that currently granted to CSIS, which limits its human operations to intelligence respecting activities that may on reasonable grounds be suspected of constituting threats to the security of Canada.2 A service would thus be able to collect human overseas on economic, political, and other issues deemed to be in some way advantageous to Canadian interests, even when no security threat involved.Whether this and other activity beyond Canada's borders desirable, and whether it ought to be consolidated within a single agency, are important questions. purposes of secret essentially fall into two categories: strategic and tactical. first involves helping generate better public policy; the second involves supporting the execution of existing policy. This article will conclude that while secret sometimes fulfils its purpose in the latter category, there little or no evidence that it does so in the former. This conclusion renders many of the arguments in favour of a service redundant. article will also address issues of oversight. creation of a service would generate a requirement for some form of effective oversight of the new agency, but it not at all clear how this could be done within the Canadian political system. That does not mean that it impossible, but if no solution found, no such service should be established.THE PURPOSES OF INTELLIGENCEIntelligence, says Michael Herman, former chairman of the British joint committee, is produced to influence government action.3 Stuart Farson echoes this sentiment. The ultimate purpose of intelligence, he writes, is to provide information that helps decision-makers make better policy choices.4The idea that can produce better policy based on the assumption that governments are rational actors that make decisions on the basis of the evidence before them. While one might wish that this was the case, studies suggest that reality different.5 As Herman notes, foreign policy not a simple transition of objectives into decisions in the light of information. He continues, [t]here are no clear wiring diagrams for the connections between items and specific action.... If used, users consciously select from what presented to them.6Unfortunately for the community, this means that there little evidence to suggest that good produces improved policy decisions. British historian Phillip Knightley thus wrote in the New Statesman magazine that [a] conference on history held in Germany in 1994 was attended by a panel of spymasters from east and west. I challenged them to name a single important historical event in which had played a decisive role. …

Intelligence at the Learneds: The RCMP, the Learneds, and the Canadian Historical Association

Much of the history of Royal Canadian Mounted Police's (RCMP) security intelligence role has ignored domestic counter-subversion work in favour of more glamorous counter-espionage operations. “Intelligence at the Learneds: The RCMP, the Learneds, and the Canadian Historical Association” examines one small part of that neglected counter-subversion past. For nearly twenty-five years, from 1960 to 1983, members of the RCMP secretly covered and reported upon various meetings of the Learned Societies. Initially attracted by the presence of communists, by the 1970s the RCMP had changed its focus to members of the so-called New Left. Hounded by criticism in the aftermath of the McDonald Commission's final report in 1981, Mounties returned to monitoring communists. Mounted Police coverage ended in 1984, when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) replaced the Security Service. The paper concludes with a suggestion that CSIS may not be as free from its RCMP ancestor as some would suggest.

Spying 101: the RCMP's secret activities at Canadian universities, 1917-1997

If you attended a Canadian university in the past eighty years, it's possible that, unbeknownst to you, Canadian security agents were surveying you, your fellow students, and your professors for 'subversive' tendencies and behaviour. Since the end of the First World War, members of the RCMP have infiltrated the campuses of Canada's universities and colleges to spy, meet informants, gather information, and on occasion, to attend classes. Why they were there is the subject of a new book by Steve Hewitt. Spying 101 provides new insight on the previously secret operations of one of Canada's most powerful institutions and best-known national symbols, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. For more than eighty years, the RCMP and its younger counterpart, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), have been conducting covert investigations within the hallowed halls of Canadian universities in an attempt to discover 'subversive' activity among faculty, employees, and students, and, periodically, to hunt for spies and terrorists. Information has been collected on thousands of Canadians, including prominent individuals such as Pierre Berton, Peter Gzowski, Lotta Hitschmanova, and RenT LTvesque. Spying 101 offers a fresh examination of the relationship in the intelligence field between the RCMP and federal departments, such as National Defence and External Affairs, and its political masters, including Pierre Trudeau. Hewitt also explores the complicity of the RCMP in the handling of the anti-APEC protests at the University of British Columbia in 1997 and offers an overview of the current work by Canada's intelligence services at the nation's universities. Relying on thousands of pages of previously secret RCMP and government documents, and on recollections of participants including former members of the RCMP Security Service, Spying 101 offers a vivid portrait of a crucial, yet unstudied, chapter in the history of the world's most famous police force.

Doomsday Religious Movements by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service

Doomsday Religious Movements by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service

The Creation of Criminal Russia

INTRODUCTION In the past few years, the issues of crime, organized crime and corruption have come to the forefront of post-Soviet affairs. If one reads newspapers or listens to Russian television, it seems that the country is waging a war with crime and corruption, a war that it is rapidly losing. In the West, movies such as Goldeneye and The Saint lend weight to the news media's assertion that Russia has become a most dangerous state. Furthermore, Russian area specialists widely agree that crime is one of the most pressing problems of the former Soviet Union, frequently citing crime along with unemployment as one of the primary sources of social discontent. Some legal experts, concerned with the apparent pervasiveness of the Russian warn that its activities may even threaten relations between Russia and the West.' There is a small range of theories regarding the source, type of activity arx possible outcomes of the rise of criminality in Russia which, for the most part, seem to be expressed largely in mainstream media sources. As will be elaborated later, there have been few academic studies of this phenomenon, therefore, this paper will use this small set of theories, and popular discourse, as a departure point. The following newspaper excerpts are indicative of the popular discourse as it is expressed in the media, both in Russia and in the West, and will serve to outline and illustrate its primary tenets for the purposes of this paper. The primary premise of this discourse is that crime, corruption and organized crime have developed into a problem that has reached epidemic proportions and affects every citizen in some way. According to a poll conducted in September 1997, Russian society believes its government has lost its leadership to powers. In the opinion of a majority of Russian citizens (52%), it is criminal structures and the mafia that actually exercise state power in Russia. The President and the entire system of state power are gradually losing their positions and influence in the country...2 A report prepared by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service argues that the increasing appearance of glorifying songs in the media, such as Krestnyi otets (Godfather's demonstrates that a culture of crime has seeped into the mainstream of Russian society. Such songs, as well as movies and books, have popularized and even created a somewhat sympathetic and perhaps even proud, attitude towards the issue. Clearly the revolutionaries of the revolution are now attempting to claim political power, especially at local and regional levels. In their bid for political power they also want to influence ideology, culture and moral values of modern Russia.3 The current crisis is often seen as an extension of the crime and corruption that existed as well under the Soviet regime. Once the reins of the Soviet government were loosed, crime and corruption were free to flourish. The Russian can hardly be compared for size and clout to others tormenting America... however, the Russians stand out among their peers because they are talented enough and frightening enough to have achieved in two or three years what the others achieved in twenty or a hundred. Nevertheless, they could not have done it before 1990. Their astonishing spurt came only when the old world order collapsed, and frontiers everywhere began to fall, and the deep but ordered corruption of the old nomenclatura in Russia gave way to the terrible cancerous growth consuming the country now.4 According to the discussion, law and order are scarce. The law codes have not caught up with the apparent upsurge in crime. Even where there are applicable laws, enforcement is negligible. ... market relations and a democratic regime [have] swept away the dams of repression that has held back the potential for crime... the state, as it conducted economic reforms and legalized entrepreneurship and free trade, was unprepared for a revolution, and society experienced and continues to experience crime-induced shock. …

September 1931: A Re-Interpretation of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police's Handling of the 1931 Estevan Strike and Riot

TheaccesstoinformationACThas been a major boon to historians doing research on various aspects of Canada's past, in particular those investigating the security actions of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (rcmp). Documents, released under Access by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), allow for a more detailed and subtle portrayal of the activities of both workers and the police. One example of the possibilities offered by this material are the previously restricted RCMP records on the 1931 Estevan strike and riot and what they have to say about the Mounted Police.1 The importance of the records is two-fold: the

Journey to a Small Country: Only in Canada You Say? Pity

ographies creak at the seams. Conferences, hearings, task forces sing a virtual song without end. Usually the music is subsequently published, further adding to the confusion. If Europe has its butter mountain and its wine lake, then Canada, thanks to abundant subsidy and an indefatigable professoriate, has a veritable open pit mine of diplomacy. Indeed, if the significance of Canadian foreign relations were measured by the quantity of Canadian woodpulp sacrificed to the cause, or by the contribution of the literature to the national landfill, then Canada would be, without question, a Principal Power. But inside the pit there lurks a Secret. It isn't a deliberate Secret, of the kind that regularly enlivens the press coverage of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, but merely a confidence not widely shared, for there are so few to share it among. The number of historians publishing regularly in the field of Canadian foreign policy is, by recent scientific estimate (that is to say, as good as the polls surrounding the 1994 Quebec election) , about the same as the digits on the feet of a three-toed sloth. Fewer historians: less history. Or, at any rate, less historiography. This phenomenon generates a paradox: for the tiny number of foreign relations historians belies the interest shown in the

The RCMP, the Special Branch, and the Early Days of the Communist Party of Canada: A Documentary Article

A RECENT ARCHIVAL VISIT to the Public Record Office (PRO) in London during the summer of 1991, when combined with a number of Access to Information requests to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), provides considerable insight into the early co-operation between the fledgling Royal Canadian Mounted Police security and intelligence apparatus of the early 1920s and its more experienced partners in England. At the same time, these documents provide additional detail to our knowledge of the birth of the Communist Party of Canada (CPC). Document 1, found in the PRO, consists of the first five Monthly Bulletins of the CPC, which provide a capsule summary of the party's first six months.1 As these internal Bulletins, ironically labelled read and destroy, make only too clear, the party's initial months were fraught with considerable difficulties. Document 2, also from the PRO, amplifies on those early months by providing the Central Executive Committee's report on the party's trials and tribulations in its first nine months' existence. (Information added in square brackets in this document are notes supplied by British Intelligence to explain internal Canadian party references. As astute readers will note, they are not always correct in their identification of party stalwarts.) Needless to say, British and Canadian intelligence were greatly interested in the $3,168 transferred from the Comintern's Pan American Bureau to the CPC.

Review of the Canadian security intelligence service: A suitable model for the United Kingdom?

Review of the Canadian security intelligence service: A suitable model for the United Kingdom?

Mass and Elite Attitudes About Wiretapping in Canada: Implications for Democratic Theory and Politics

Mass and Elite Attitudes About Wiretapping in Canada: Implications for Democratic Theory and Politics

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service under stress

Abstract: In 1984 the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) replaced the Security Service of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. This article assesses whether or not the new service is likely to be more effective than its predecessor and yet engender fewer fears that it might itself undermine what it seeks to defend. After briefly discussing the problems and events that led to the creation of the new service the article analyses the structural and legal changes that have taken place. The new instruments by which the CSIS is held accountable, such as the ofice of the Inspector General and the Security Intelligence Review Committee, are then examined followed by an analysis of the changes in the political ethos both within and without the CSIS. The article concludes by arguing that the new agency is likely to be both a more effective intelligence agency and a more responsible and responsive one.Sommaire: En 1984, le Service canadien de renseignements d'intelligence (SCRI) a remplacé le Service de sécurité de la Gendarmerie royale du Canada. Dans cet article, on examine la probabilité que le nouveau service soit plus eficace que son précurseur tout en réduisant les inquiétudes de ceux qui craignent qu'il ne détruise précisément ce qu'il est censé défendre. Après un bref exposé des problèmes et des événements qui ont amené l'établissement du nouveau senice, l'article analyse l'évolution structurelle et juridique qui a eu lieu. De nouveaux instruments qui assurent l'imputabilité du SCRI, comme le bureau de l'Inspecteur général et le Comité de surveillance des activités de renseignements de sécurité font alors l'objet d'examen; suit une analyse de l'évolution de la pensée politique à l'interieur comme à l'extérieur du SCRI. En conclusion, on y affirme que le nouvel organisme sera probablement une agence de renseignements plus efficace ainsi que plus responsable et plus susceptible de contrôle.

National Security: Information, Accountability, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service

National Security: Information, Accountability, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service