Thousands of Canadians are speaking out to defend their privacy rights, after recent revelations that an ultra-secretive government agency is spying on our everyday online activities. This agency, the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), was revealed to be systematically collecting the private information of law-abiding citizens, including Canadians, from around the world.
Fresh developments show that Canadians are absolutely right to be concerned. Just last week, CSECâs own official watchdog revealed that the spy agency may have illegally targeted Canadians within the past 12 months.
Americans are also speaking out after it was revealed that the National Security Agency (NSA), through a secret program called PRISM, can, according to the Guardian, âcollect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chatsâ from online users. The NSA is able to gather vast amounts of online information from users because of the extensive access they have been given to large Internet companies like Apple, Facebook, and Google.
Nor are concerns about the NSAâs activities limited to Internet users in the U.S. As the Huffington Postâs Daniel Tencer points out, online users in Canada need to be worried too, because of âthe integrated, international nature of online communicationâ – about 90% of Canadian Internet traffic is now routed through the U.S.
When it comes to Canadaâs own spy agency, CSEC is supposedly tasked with âmonitoring foreign communications related to Canadaâs national securityâ, writes the Huffington Postâs Daniel Tencer. In fact, as Ronald Deibert, director of the University of Torontoâs Citizen Lab, points out, CSEC was created âin âconjunction and coordination with the National Security Agencyâ.
Supposedly, CSEC is only permitted to monitor communications in foreign countries – however, according to CSEC expert Bill Robinson, this rule no longer applies when CSEC conducts work in support of other agencies such as the RCMP or CSIS. Furthermore, by being able to gather the personal information of online users, this government agency can, as Deibert points out, âpinpoint not only who you are, but with whom you meet, with what frequency and duration, and at which locationsâ.
The secrecy that surrounds CSEC means that it is not yet possible to truly know just how much online spying is being done within this country. Even the governmentâs own Privacy Commissionerâs Office has ominously stated that they have âvery little specific information at this point, but we want to find out moreâ.
The lack of transparency about CSEC is very troubling. Tencer points out that CSEC takes secrecy to such an extreme that even its yearly âreport on the agencyâs priorities is…classifiedâ. Canadians deserve to know whether and how often CSEC is infringing our online privacy, especially as its resources are growing fast, with a doubling of employees and budgets.
What makes this situation so troubling is the fact that, despite all these revelations about how Canadiansâ Charter-protected privacy rights are being undermined, the federal government is still trying to keep Canadians in the dark about how their private online information is being handled.
We need to use this moment – when privacy issues are in the spotlight – to get answers. Call on the government to stop this secretive spying scheme, and to tell Canadians exactly whatâs going on. We deserve to know. Canadians can send the government a clear message to keep our private lives private by signing the petition at: http://SecretSpying.ca