14 DAY TRIAL // Over the past few months, there have been a lot of reports based on the leaked NSA files. Most of them were centered on the United States’ NSA, while some painted the British GCHQ as the main actor. A few mentioned Canada’s spying practices, while another couple focused on Australia, leaving New Zealand, the last member of the Five Eyes out for now.
For some weeks now, there has been some teasing coming from Glenn Greenwald and the team he works with about some upcoming Canadian files.
Earlier today, the journalist made a point to link to a news article from Radio Canada International that quotes the chief of the Communications Security Establishment of Canada, John Forster, saying that the agency cannot target the country’s citizens or visitors.
“Remember over the next few weeks that Canada’s spy chief claimed CSEC “cannot target Canadians… or anyone in Canada,” Greenwald tweeted.
“I can’t comment in details on the intelligence operations of capabilities of ourselves or our allies. What I can tell you is that CSEC, under its legislation, cannot target Canadians anywhere in the world or anyone in Canada, including visitors to Canada,” Forster said in full.
Considering he’s one of the few people who have access to the Snowden stash, it’s safe to assume that future reports will show that Forster was lying.
Earlier this week alone, it was revealed that the Canadian intelligence services aided the United States in spying on G8 and G20 summits that took place in the country in 2010. While the CSEC might not have been extremely active, the Canadian government gave the Americans a free hand to collect all the data they needed.
Snowden got access to files belonging to other intelligence agencies than the NSA due to a pact that was created between the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, also known as the Five Eyes. The nations exchanged information they had about various investigations, while promising not to spy on each other.