Monday, October 30, 2006

In the news: CSE, whistle-blowers, legislation

A flurry of recent CSE-related news reports and a break in my current workload have prompted me to rise out of the torpor of the past couple of months and jolt some life back into this blog.

The Edmonton Sun has just run a series on CSE and signals intelligence:
The articles contain no new revelations as far as I can see (except for the claim that the owner of this blog is "an expert on Sigints") and they do contain a few questionable statements (such as the suggestion, perhaps unintended, that SIGINT activities began in 1947), but overall they're worth a read.

Also in the news:
The Senate Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee is recommending that legal protection be extended to whistle-blowing employees of CSIS and CSE. "In the post-9/11 world," the senators say, "particularly in light of the significant additional expenditures on defence and security, we want assurance that our counter-terrorism agencies are operating scrupulously within the law. We want members of CSIS and CSE to feel confident in coming forward to report any wrongdoing."

I'm not always a fan of Senate reports, but this seems like a sensible recommendation. And they also got CSE's name right. The Globe and Mail report calls the agency the Canadian Security Establishment and describes it as "an Ottawa-based organization that intercepts phone calls and computer messages as part of national security exercises". Mm.

Other items: