Election meddling by foreign powers already underway, says Canadian spy agency

April 9, 2019 by 3 Comments

CSE CanadaThe manipulation of social media by foreign governments aiming to sow division in Canada ahead of the country’s federal election in October is growing, according to the country’s signals intelligence agency. In a report published Monday, the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), Canada’s national communications interception agency, warns that election meddling by foreign powers is already taking place. The report, titled “2019 Update: Cyber Threats to Canada’s Democratic Process”, says that voters, as well as specific political figures, have been targeted by foreign powers since 2015 in the North American country.

The foreign intelligence agencies behind the efforts to manipulate Canada’s electoral process have systematically attempted to “polarize Canadians or undermine Canada’s foreign policy goals”, says the report. These efforts will continue and intensify in the run-up to October, claims the report, and concludes by warning that Canadians should expect to “encounter some form of foreign cyber interference ahead of, and during, the 2019 federal election”. However, foreign cyber interference on the scale that was experienced in the months leading up to the 2016 presidential election in the United States is improbable, according to the CSE.

Meanwhile, in an unrelated development, the former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canada’s primary national intelligence service, said in an interview last week that Ottawa would have to be patient in dealing with Russia and —especially— China. Speaking at a public forum hosted by the Canadian International Council in Vancouver, Richard Fadden noted that neither China nor Russia wish to go to war with the West. What they want instead is to “fragment the West” and thus increase their own influence on the international scene, said Fadden, who directed the CSIS from 2009 to 2013. It would be fair for Canada to “poke back”, he said, but would have to be “careful how [to] do it”, he added. “We need to be realistic. We’re dealing with an emergent superpower and […] we’re going to have to be patient”, Fadden concluded.

► Author: Joseph Fitsanakis | Date: 09 April 2019 | Research credit: C.D. | Permalink

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Canada intelligence agency warns officials of espionage, honey traps

July 15, 2013 by 4 Comments

Richard FaddenBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
Canada’s foremost intelligence agency has authored a publication warning government officials they are as much targets of espionage today as they were during the Cold War. The warning is contained in a 2012 publication titled Far From Home: A Travel Security Guide for Government Officials, penned by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). It is aimed at Canadian diplomats and other federal employees who may, according to CSIS, become the targets of international espionage activities while traveling abroad. A copy of the guide was accessed by the Canadian Press agency under Canada’s Access to Information Act. In a brief forward to the guide, the then Director of CSIS, Richard Fadden, warns readers that international espionage is believed to be “at a level equal to that seen during the Cold War” (intelNews readers will remember Fadden has made similar claims in public before). He adds that Canada remains a “valued target” on the international intelligence scene, due to its sophisticated technology, energy and financial services sectors. Fadden, who left CSIS in May to become Canada’s Deputy Minister of National Defense, goes on to state that Canada is spied on by foreign intelligence agencies because of its “prized political connections” with the United States and its membership in “important international bodies”. In the guidebook, Canadian federal employees are advised to consider the information they carry with them while abroad as “a prized target” and to take conscious steps to protect it. Advice includes being cautious of information shared with taxi drivers, waiters or bar tenders, keeping personal electronic devices under watch at all times, and avoiding the use of hotel safes to store confidential material, as “intrusions are frequently accomplished with the co-operation of […] hotel staff”. The instructional book, stamped “For Official Use Only”, makes specific mention of “honey traps” —espionage lingo for intelligence collection through sexual seduction. It notes that honey traps often involve clandestine recordings of intimate encounters, which are later used to blackmail or publicly embarrass the target of the espionage operation. Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #796

September 24, 2012 by Leave a comment

Richard FaddenBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Iranian spy scandal sparks outrage in Turkey. After a nearly yearlong investigation into an alleged Iranian spy ring in Turkey, seven people were charged in early September with “providing information related to state security and establishing an [illegal] organization”. The charges against five Turkish citizens and two Iranian nationals followed a raid on the suspects’ residences and workplaces on August 29, in which videos and pictures of border security, documents, correspondence with Iranian intelligence and weapons were found, according to the investigation materials. Tehran denied any connections to those arrested, while officials in Ankara revealed more alleged evidence showing that Iran is providing support to the PKK.
►►British SIGINT agency ‘helps US drone attacks’. Britain’s former Director of Public Prosecutions, Lord Macdonald, has said there is “pretty compelling” evidence that the British government’s signals intelligence agency, GCHQ, is passing information to the United States to help it locate targets for controversial drone attacks in Pakistan. Earlier this year David Anderson, the British state’s independent reviewer of terrorism-related legislation, warned that the British government faced “a raft of civil cases” over possible complicity in the CIA drone attacks.
►►Canada’s top spy dismisses call for human rights scrutiny. In a newly declassified memo, CSIS director Richard Fadden appears to dismiss the Canadian Human Rights Commission’s recommendation that national security agencies do more to ensure they are not taking part in racial profiling or other objectionable practices. “I am confident in the service’s existing human rights policies and procedures, as well as our accountability and review structures”, Fadden says in the January 2012 memo, which is addressed to Canada’s Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. The memo —initially classified secret— was discovered by Mike Larsen, a criminology instructor in British Columbia, who obtained it under the Access to Information Act.

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News you may have missed #756 (analysis edition)

July 2, 2012 by 2 Comments

Richard FaddenBy IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
►►Intel analysts taking over leading role in spy game. In a recent speech obtained by the Canadian press under Canada’s access-to-information laws, Richard Fadden, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said that the role of the undercover operative is starting to take a back seat to the job of the behind-the-scenes intelligence analyst. Speaking at a conference of the Canadian Association of Professional Intelligence Analysts in November 2011, Fadden said that, “suddenly the ability to make sense of information is as valued a skill as collecting it”.
►►US intel doesn’t see Syrian regime cracking. Despite major defections and an increasingly tough and brutal resistance, intelligence officials in the United States say that Syria’s government is unlikely to fall anytime soon. A report from Reuters quotes members of the intelligence community who say that Bashar al-Assad’s inner circle is showing no signs of cracking, and without a wide international consensus to intervene militarily —a consensus that does not exist— the ongoing conflict has no end in sight. Officials also describe the war as a “see-saw” battle with rebel forces gaining strength and improving tactics, only to see the military escalate the size and intensity of it own response, with neither side maintaining a decisive edge.
►►Arrests of Iranians in Kenya spark fears of plot. The recent arrest of two Iranians in Kenya on suspicion of plotting bomb attacks has heightened fears that Tehran is widening its covert war against Israel and the United States, as Washington expands its secret intelligence operations across Africa. Kenya security authorities, aided by US and British agents, arrested the two Iranians June 20 in Nairobi, the West African country’s capital. The men reportedly led authorities to a cache of 33 pounds of military-grade explosive, believed to be RDX.

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News you may have missed #553 (Canada edition)

July 30, 2011 by Leave a comment

Northrop Frye

Northrop Frye

►►Analysis: Are Chinese spies getting an easy ride in Canada? Carl Meyer, of Embassy magazine, asks why Canada’s counterintelligence agencies are unwilling or unable to bring Chinese spies to court in recent years. Readers of this blog may recall controversial comments made last year by the director of CSIS, Richard Fadden, who claimed that some Canadian politicians work for foreign powers.
►►Canadian agency ‘illegally spying on Canadians’. Canada’s ultra-secret Communications Security Establishment, which engages in electronic communications interception, is prohibited from spying on Canadian citizens. But a new Canadian government report appears to instruct it to engage in mining ‘metadata’ from digital communications of Canadians. Readers of this blog may remember that, in 2009, a court permitted for the first time the CSE and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to eavesdrop on Canadian nationals traveling overseas.
►►RCMP spied on Canadian academic Northrop Frye. Speaking on spying on Canadians… Read more of this post

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News you may have missed #487 (Canada edition)

March 27, 2011 by 1 Comment

  • Canadian MPs want spy services director to quit. A group of Canadian parliamentarians have asked for the resignation of the country’s Security Intelligence Service director Dick Fadden, who claimed last summer that several Canadian politicians were under the control of foreign governments.
  • Canada agencies still not sharing intelligence. Almost a decade after 9/11, the many arms of Canada’s national security network still do not share all their intelligence about terrorist threats with sister agencies, according to a new parliamentary report by the special Senate Committee on Anti-terrorism.
  • Chinese intelligence are after us, say immigrants to Canada. A spokesman for a Falun Gong group in Ottawa has accused the Chinese government of planting spies among the Chinese ex-pat community in the country. According to an unnamed former employee at China’s embassy in Sydney, Australia, who defected in 2005, there are more than 1,000 Chinese spies operating in Canada.

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News you may have missed #466

January 7, 2011 by Leave a comment

  • France blasts economic warfare by industrial spies. The French government says it is the victim of an economic war, after Renault, France’s partially state-owned carmaker, suspended three top executives over leaks of secret electric-car technology. The French intelligence services are probing a possible Chinese connection. It should be noted that, according to US estimates, France leads industrial spying in Europe.
  • Canada a target for foreign interference, says spy chief. A keenly anticipated report by Canadian Security Intelligence Service director Richard Fadden paints a picture of a broad threat of foreign interference from countries out to influence Canada’s policy and politicians, target dissidents and pilfer technology. It is the most detailed articulation of the spy service’s concerns about overtures from foreign agents, including two suspected cases involving provincial cabinet ministers.
  • Jordanian Hamas spy awarded PhD in jail. Jordanian Azzam Jaber, jailed in Jordan for spying for the Palestinian group Hamas on potential targets including the Israeli embassy, has obtained his doctorate from the University of Yarmuk.

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News you may have missed #397

July 21, 2010 by Leave a comment

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Canadian politicians work for foreign powers, says Canada spy chief

June 30, 2010 by Leave a comment

Richard Fadden

Richard Fadden

By IAN ALLEN | intelNews.org |
The Canadian state’s senior intelligence executive caused an uproar last weekend after he claimed that several Canadian politicians were under the control of foreign governments. In an interview for an investigative program on state-owned CBC television, Richard Fadden, Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Services (CSIS), said that his intelligence officers are aware of “some political figures who have developed quite an attachment to foreign countries”. He also claimed that CSIS investigators were aware of at least two cabinet ministers in two Canadian provinces, who were “agents of influence”, as well as other public officials that were secretly representing “foreign interests”.  Read more of this post

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