Canada’s electronic eavesdropping agency has tracked Internet and phone data to search for leads in terrorism cases for years, intelligence experts and insiders say.

That shouldn’t come as a surprise to Canadians.

In 2005, the newly appointed head of the Communications Security Establishment Canada said his agency must learn to “own the Internet” to combat terrorism.

In 2006, the federal watchdog agency responsible for the CSEC said a review of the “use of metadata” was underway — although the findings of such a review have never been made public.

And despite a report to the contrary that has fuelled parliamentary debate, the collection of this metadata by the CSEC has continued uninterrupted since the program was first authorized in 2005, a high-ranking government source said.

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CSEC did voluntarily suspend “some activities” related to metadata collection, a spokesperson for the federal watchdog agency confirmed to the Star on Tuesday, but after new policies were put in place in 2008, those activities resumed.

The agency, headed by what’s known as the CSEC Commissioner, had raised concerns that these activities could infringe on the rights of Canadians, but was reportedly satisfied those issues were addressed.

“The commissioner never questioned the legality of CSEC’s metadata activities,” said spokesperson Ryan Foreman in an emailed statement.

University of Ottawa professor Wesley Wark, who has extensively studied CSEC, said he was troubled by a report that the program had been suspended and then secretly reinstated by Defence Minister Peter MacKay in 2011.

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The few public records available seem to indicate the program “had never been stopped,” he said.

Metadata refers to information about data itself — such as email paths, IP addresses or the length of a telephone call — but does not include the actual content of the communication.

It is unclear which aspects of the program were flagged. The commissioner’s office would not comment.

Confused? You’re not alone.

Since news broke last week that the U.S. National Security Agency — CSEC’s American counterpart — is collecting data from widely used phone and Internet services, a fierce debate has broken out over privacy versus security.

But due to the secrecy surrounding electronic spy agencies and the sheer complexity of such data collection, the debate has at times been muddled and issues conflated.

Wark is among those who are calling for greater transparency so that Canadians can have an informed discussion.

One of the thorny issues is whether there are different standards for collecting foreign and domestic intelligence. CSEC is restricted in most cases from collecting intelligence on Canadians without judicial authorization. This has traditionally been how Western signals intelligence agencies have operated — which is in part why the revelations about NSA programs have raised questions about Americans’ privacy.

“I think that’s a big issue that we really need to have a public debate about and probably need much clearer laws and accountability regimes around,” says Wark. “If we discover there are no boundaries, then we’d better confront the reality rather than play around it.”

MacKay stated emphatically Monday that CSEC does not “target” Canadians — but as Wark and others have noted, that does not mean Canadians do not get entwined in foreign investigations.

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“CSEC always says how they’re prohibited from directing (data collection) at Canadians and then they leave it at that, instead of going into the footnotes,” said Bill Robinson, a Canadian blogger who has tracked CSEC for years

“The fact (CSEC is) aimed at foreign intelligence doesn’t mean Canadians don’t get hauled into the mix inadvertently, or sometimes on purpose if they’re targeting some foreign suspected terrorist who’s contacting Canada,” he notes.

“Well, they’re targeting that terrorist, but they sure as hell want to know who they’re talking to in Canada.”