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“Generally, information sharing with (other government departments) is carried out on a case-by-case and/or ad-hoc basis, which is antiquated and inefficient.”

However, he added that laws and arrangements “often allow for the sharing of information for national security purposes,” and that further strides could be made with “appropriate direction and framework in place.”

Venner cited a number of recently successful pilot projects and outlined “future opportunities” for sharing — all of them deleted from the memo.

CSIS clearly saw “room for workarounds” in the existing law “with a little bit more co-ordination within government,” Forcese said in an interview.

The spy agency’s memo seems “to belie the whole justification for the controversial information-sharing regime” in the government’s subsequent anti-terrorism bill, he said.

The office of Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney had no immediate comment on the documents.

Redactions make it difficult to fully understand the records, said Keith Stewart, an energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada.

But it appears that the Harper government gave CSIS even more than it was asking for when the omnibus security bill greatly expanded the range of information that could be shared, he said.

“This reinforces the arguments of those who say that this bill is really a form of crass electioneering that sacrifices our rights and freedoms without making us any safer.”

The government still hasn’t made a case for dismantling barriers to information-sharing, said Carmen Cheung, senior counsel at the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

“Where is the necessity for these laws? Why do we need them?”