Opposition calls for halt to spy agency activities directed at Canadians

OTTAWA – Critics are calling on the Harper government to stop Canada’s spy agency from targeting Canadian citizens.

The watchdog overseeing Canada’s Communications Security Establishment says the agency may have illegally eavesdropped on Canadians over the past year.

The report comes amid startling revelations about the interception of Internet communications from Americans and British citizens by their respective governments.

In his final report to Parliament before he leaves the post, CSEC commissioner Robert Decary says it appears the spy agency directed some of its activities at Canadians.

However, Decary says he wasn’t able to say for sure because of poor record-keeping.

“A number of CSEC records relating to these activities were unclear or incomplete,” said the report, tabled Wednesday.

“After in-depth and lengthy review, I was unable to reach a definitive conclusion about compliance or non-compliance with the law.”

Definitive or not, the report contradicts statements made in June by Peter MacKay, the defence minister at the time, who denied the government was spying on Canadians, says NDP defence critic Jack Harris.

Illegal snooping on Canadian citizens “has to stop,” Harris said.

“Minister of National Defence Rob Nicholson needs to release all information related to this spying immediately,” he added, noting that the resumption of Parliament is being put off until at least October.

“The Harper government can’t continue its practice of hiding, prorogation or not.”

South of the border, the Obama administration has been embroiled in a controversy over the collection of thousands of Internet communications by Americans, under the guise of fighting terrorists.

On Wednesday, documents were released by U.S. intelligence officials after a court ordered the National Security Agency to stop the practice of gathering information from Americans who have no connection to terrorism.

The Obama administration acknowledges it intercepted, collected and stored email and other Internet traffic, but has maintained it was an unintended consequence of gathering information connected to terror suspects.

The release of NSA documents is part of the administration’s response to the leaks by analyst-turned-fugitive Edward Snowden, who revealed that the NSA’s spying programs went further and gathered millions more communications than allowed under law.

CSEC is forbidden from intentionally collecting or analyzing information from Canadian citizens, whether they are in Canada or abroad.

However, the National Defence Act allows the defence minister to give CSEC written ministerial authorization to unintentionally intercept private communications while collecting foreign-signals intelligence.

In the U.S., a newly released ruling by District Court Judge James D. Bates points to government submissions that he said made clear that the NSA had been gathering Internet data on American citizens years before it was authorized to do so by the Patriot Act in 2008.

Bates’ 85-page declassified court ruling, issued in October 2011, was released Wednesday.

In it, the judge rebuked U.S. government lawyers for repeatedly misrepresenting the operations of the NSA’s surveillance programs.

The NSA says it has since moved to revise its Internet surveillance methods, to separate out domestic data from its foreign targeted metadata, which includes private email addresses.

Decary said he will step down from the commissioner’s post for personal reasons, agreeing to stay on for another three months until a successor can be appointed.

But on his way out the door, the commissioner is critical of the Harper government, accusing it of taking too long to make changes to anti-terrorism provisions of the National Defence Act.

The Anti-terrorism Act was adopted following the 9-11 terrorist attacks in the United States, which created the commissioner’s position and gave CSEC its legislated mandate.

Numerous CSEC watchdogs have repeatedly called for clarification of the agency’s authority, but no changes have been forthcoming, said Decary.

“I started my mandate with the expectation that the legislative amendments to the National Defence Act proposed by my predecessors would soon be introduced in Parliament, but this has yet to happen,” he wrote in his report.

“I am deeply disappointed at the lack of action by the government, which is no longer in a minority situation, to address the ambiguities identified by my predecessors and myself.”