Connect the dots.

That’s the clichéd adage often associated with espionage. Spies are supposed to connect the dots to try to avert tragedy. But lately, we’ve witnessed the extraordinary; the steel-like curtain that concealed many of the most sensitive clandestine tools spies use to try to connect the digital dots has been jarred open.

The revelations come courtesy of Edward Snowden, a 29-year-old former CIA technical assistant who has publicly acknowledged that he helped two newspapers expose what he describes as a vast, technological “architecture of oppression.” This is hyperbole. Nevertheless, Snowden’s decision to leak classified material appears to be have been carefully considered.

Snowden insists that he wanted to alert the world, and, in particular, his fellow Americans, to the fact that Big Brother — a.k.a., the U.S. cyberspace spy service, the National Security Agency (NSA) — is not only watching, but listening, storing, analyzing and tracking in real time, every move countless people across the globe make in the electronic ether.

Towards this end, Snowden has disclosed that the NSA has, for years:

Logged information about almost every telephone call within, and to and from the United States every day. The information being tracked — known as “metadata” — includes the duration and location of the calls, the numbers and location of both parties and other identifying information.

Tapped directly into the servers of a slew of U.S.-based Internet giants, including Google, Facebook and Apple, to collect and store information regarding search histories, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats via Skype.

The pervasive scope and intrusive nature of the surveillance state is breathtaking. It would be a big mistake for you to believe that what Snowden has divulged is solely an American phenomenon without connection to, or consequences for, Canada and Canadians.

First, the obvious consequences. You now know that if you make a call to, or receive a call from the United States, that a foreign spy service will, in all likelihood, gather information about you and that call. And, as Ron Deibert, a U of T expert on cyber espionage has rightly pointed out, the bulk of Canadians’ digital activity is routed through American-based “exchange points.” As a result, you also now know that the NSA has likely monitored every move you’ve made online today and into the foreseeable future.

Here are the less obvious connections. You may not know that Canada has, since 1946, been a member of the “Five Eyes” alliance. It’s a worldwide eavesdropping network that collects and shares so-called “signals intelligence” — cellular, Internet, email traffic and other “personal data trails” like online searches and purchases — transmitted via satellites, underground and undersea cables. The alliance includes the NSA and other cryptologic spy services from the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and, of course, the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC).

In an attempt to reassure Canadians, CSEC’s PR types proffer this mantra: the spy agency is barred, by law, from intercepting the electronic communications of Canadians in Canada. But they are loath to admit publicly that CSEC can do precisely that if it’s asked to by Canada’s military, police, border agents or this nation’s other spooks, CSIS. The technical term for this is “support for lawful access.”

A recent news report revealed that the RCMP, the Department of National Defence, CSIS and the Canada Border Services Agency have requested CSEC’s surveillance assistance. What is not known, however, is who and how many people these requests cover, as well as their duration and scope.

Mystery still shrouds CSEC’s involvement in “metadata” mining of phone calls and digital traffic in and outside Canada. Intrepid work by researcher Bill Robinson, Canada’s authority on the CSEC, reveals that the intelligence agency has, for some time, been developing the very capability that has civil libertarians and privacy advocates howling at the NSA.

On his blog, Lux Ex Umbra, Robinson has published little-noticed, publicly available records that confirm that since 2006, CSEC, in concert with a Canadian network of academia, industry and public sector partners, has explored metadata collection in ways that are strikingly similar to the NSA’s snooping.

With its outside partners, CSEC has examined the technical means to collect and analyze metadata from telephone and email networks, involving thousands to millions of “transactions.” Robinson also notes that CSEC issued a classic nondenial denial when asked by the Star last week whether it had a metadata collection program in place. (The Globe and Mail reported Monday that Ottawa had, in fact, secretly re-authorized CSEC to conduct metadata mining in 2011.)

If concerned Canadians turn to the oversight agency for CSEC for answers to these pressing questions, they will be disappointed. The CSEC commissioner’s office has just 11 full-time staff and a budget of $2 million to keep tabs on a spy service with a $422-million annual budget and close to 2,000 employees who will soon be housed in a new $1-billion headquarters complex in Ottawa. Clearly, the scale is tipped. Despite being flush with money and staff, the CSEC no longer discloses its annual plans and priorities.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Not surprisingly, the CSEC remains wedded to a secret modus operandi that, increasingly, is no longer so secret.

Andrew Mitrovica is the author of Covert Entry: Spies, Lies and Crimes Inside Canada’s Secret Service.

Read more about: