We don't need foreign spy service: watchdog

[shockedcanadian]

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/story_print.html?id=4234061&sponsor=

The head of the SIRC (what many people believe is simply a department of CSIS structured to appear as if they are an oversight committee) states that CSIS should not work overseas. I find it ironic that he states that CSIS would be breaking laws by spying overseas...what does he think CSIS is doing in Canada? I suppose that is alright, Canadian citizens are fodder for CSIS and the RCMP while foreign governments (who are REALLY intent on destroying Canada) are free to do as they please.

The bottom line is that CSIS will not work overseas because they are incompetent and enjoy the ability to work easy plush work domestically. Keep that budget debt growing while foreign government keep stealing our technology, sounds like a great plan. Maybe they can round up a few more teenagers and earn their keep...





Canada does not need a foreign intelligence service like the CIA, says the head of the watchdog agency that oversees CSIS.

Dr. Arthur T. Porter says current intelligence-gathering by a handful of federal departments and agencies satisfies the government's appetite for made-in-Canada foreign intelligence.

"You have to recognize that you are probably breaking somebody's law by just the definition of what you're doing," by spying, Porter said in his first interview since becoming chairman of the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) last summer.

"It's also incredibly expensive to set that sort of apparatus up. I'm just not sure that we're ready to go in that direction at this time."

The United States, Britain and other key allies remain our primary suppliers of secret and sensitive information on global affairs. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) is authorized to operate overseas, but strictly to counter "threats to the security of Canada."

Offensive spying on foreigners by CSIS must be done within Canada, leaving us as one of the few nations without overseas field agents dedicated to covert information-gathering on the capabilities, intentions and activities of states and other foreign entities. Since the 9/11 terror attacks, debate about a foreign spy service has been a heated topic.

Under Porter's watch, SIRC recently raised the question with government. It also recently warned that without proper ministerial direction, CSIS could potentially fall into legally questionable activities. That includes unauthorized international spying to satisfy growing government demands for foreign intelligence, and "disrupting" suspected terrorists rather than involving police and taking alleged offenders before open courts with due process.

The assessments surprised some of SIRC's critics, who have accused it of being soft on CSIS.

Porter sees other hazards and potentially unsavory trade-offs ahead for CSIS and by extension SIRC.

"How do we deal with countries that don't have as robust rules against how they obtain information as we do? And how do we work in a world which is increasingly judicialized? And we have to think about how we collect intelligence," that could end up as evidence in court and endanger CSIS sources and jeopardize tradecraft.

Counter-terrorism operations have been an eye-opener for him.

"Before I joined SIRC, I too had this sort of semi-complacent attitude that, 'We're Canadian, it's not going to happen here, we're immune in some fashion.' What I have seen in SIRC ... there are a lot of people who have not the world's best intentions, and there are a lot of issues that are sort of simmering under the surface and that it isn't as safe a world as we'd like to see and, even as Canadians, we're not immune."

The 54-year-old seems a peculiar figure to lead the five-member group that monitors CSIS performance and reports to Parliament.

The native of Sierra Leone is a renowned radiation oncologist specializing in the use of medical isotopes and treatment of prostate cancer. He has a medical degree and master's degree in natural sciences from Cambridge. He holds a master's in business administration from the University of Tennessee and certificates in medical management from Harvard and the University of Toronto.

He came to Canada in the mid-1980s as a resident in radiation oncology at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and went on to senior health posts in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. Along the way, he and his wife raised four daughters.

He has been a consultant to the World Health Organization, sat on a U.S. presidential commission, and worked to establish medical research and treatment programs in Turkey, India, Yemen and throughout Europe.

From 1999 to 2003, he was president and CEO of the Detroit Medical Centre.

Since, he has been executive-director of Montreal's Mc-Gill University Health Centre. The Quebec government also has appointed him president of the Reseau Universitaire Integre de Sante health-care network.

He says he is not "a political guy," though, "I suppose being a doctor is political."

In 2008, he was approached to join SIRC, part of a selection process shrouded in secrecy. He was later sworn in at Rideau Hall as a Privy Councillor and, on the same day with approval of the Opposition parties, Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed the Honourable Dr. Porter. He became chairman for a five-year term last June, replacing former Manitoba premier Gary Filmon.

SIRC's chief function is to review CSIS's performance of its duties and functions. With the sole exception of cabinet confidences, it has the absolute authority to examine all information concerning CSIS activities, no matter how highly classified -- a privilege not granted to most Parliamentarians. It also investigates complaints about CSIS brought by individuals or groups.

The four other committee members are a neurosurgeon who was once a Quebec politician, the head of Toronto's United Way, a former New Brunswick politician turned businessman and a one-time federal cabinet minister who now works as a consultant.

"This has always struck me as an odd notion," says Wesley Wark, a visiting research professor at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of International and Public Affairs who specializes in security intelligence matters.

"It perhaps allows for open minds, but also potentially for empty ones, or for SIRC to be prone to subscribe to CSIS interpretations of their actions.

The SIRC committee meets about nine times a year. An important element is prioritizing and reviewing the oversight efforts of a full-time staff of 20 researchers and other professionals working on a $2.4-million annual budget inside the agency's fortified downtown Bank Street offices. CSIS, by comparison, employs about 3,000.

When asked how CSIS views SIRC, Porter chuckles.

"I think that CSIS looks at us as being helpful. We might be irritating at some times, we might be looking at things more critically at other times, but on balance -- and I've had this conversation with the director (Richard Fadden) -- they look at us as being helpful, that we actually do reviews that can then help them."
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Dr. Arthur T. Porter is chair of the Security Intelligence Review Committee that oversees the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS ). He's concerned that without proper direction CSIS could fall into legally questionable activity.
Photograph by: Chris Mikula, Ottawa Citizen, Ottawa Citizen