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#Harper’s War(s): #C51 and the 5-Eyes Spy vs Spy Paradigm, Cui bono? #cdnpoli #pnpcbc #ctvpp #cbcnn

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For this installment of the #Harper’s War(s) series, we would like to propose a couple of points to ponder about the broader implications of Bill C-51 as it relates to our “Allies” and especially the citizens of the other 5-Eyes intelligence alliance members, Australia, New Zealand, U.K and U.S., not to mention the jurisdictions of the NSA and the broad array of other international alphabet intelligence agencies within the expanded 9-Eyes and 14-Eyes intelligence community. Considering how creeped out the majority of Canadians are by being johnny-spied and infringed upon by the predatory Harper Regime, our “allies” should feel creeped out even more.

Dominion of Harper's All Seeing Eye
Dominion of Harper’s All Seeing Eye

There must be something more sinister, colonist and imperialist “invisible hand” behind this mad rush to declare more opaque enemies and terrorists located on various blurry battlefields concentrated around trade corridors, energy sources while opening new markets and investment opportunities with military force. Since the pre-World War Next, or at least pre-Cold War 2.0, conditions are being sown, fertilized and fermented on multiple fronts, does Harper seek to be the supreme intelligence overlord and ultimately the overseer of ECHELON 2.0?

Since many of Canada’s Allies have various information and intelligence gathering operations, most of them have some level of real time oversight, not after the fact reviews and unchallenged secret tribunals. The fact that Harper’s Bill C-51 provides no additional oversight to watch over the watchers that share data with other watchers abroad. We can only presume that other “agencies” with arterial motives will attempt to infiltrate our own intelligence apparatuses through vulnerable Ministry/Department backdoors in order to circumvent their own restrictive domestic data and intelligence sharing regulations on mass surveillance and data collection of citizens.

In many ways it seems as if the Harper Regime has decided to be the grand all-seeing-eye, spymaster and records keeper within the right-wing utopian Global Governance Era. In these glorious propaganda filled globalization days where “governments” have embraced tax-cutting and war-mongering at the same time, while downplaying the decline of the domestic economy and outsourcing in order to nickle and dime away solutions in order to create more costly problems, we’ll pose a few questions worth pondering, if anything else…

  1. Who will be watching the Government?
  2. What prevention measures are in place to assure that our intelligence apparatuses are not infiltrated and hijacked by another, group, cabal, cartel, agency or government?
  3. What measures are in place to assure undue search and unwarranted seizure of Canadians data by foreign agencies?
  4. What happens when there is a conflict of interest or competing interests?
  5. What happens when one partner agencies “terrorist” is another partner agencies “freedom fighter”?
  6. What happens “if” another partner agency is found to be committing illegal activities within Canada that go against Canadian interests or violates the civil liberties and freedoms of Canadians?
  7. What prevents multiple agencies from getting bogged down and wasting valuable resources and time engaged in overlapping operations, dis-information campaigns, psyops, spooks, stooges, honeypots, grooming, etc.?
  8. What are the surveillance and preventative counter-measures that address blackmail and/or corruption, rouge advisors, agent provocateurs and/or compromised public officials?
  9. When will robust cyber-security measures be implemented within Canada’s own National IT infrastructure to assure no exploits, vulnerabilities, data leakage or unauthorized access are available between the various Ministry’s portals?How will our personal and private data be protected from potential misuse and/or abuse by external intelligence agencies abroad?
  10. How much will all of this secured infrastructure initially cost and how much will the annual maintenance costs be?
  11. How will the national infrastructure that Canadians need to transact their daily affairs be fortified and secured from the blowback from this unprecedented expansion of secretive intelligence powers?
  12. How will other intelligence agencies data be protected?
  13. Will 5-9-14-Eyes and NATO members or our Allies be contributing to the costs of this shared infrastructure or will they just reap the rewards?
  14. Who assures that all international laws are enforced?
  15. Is the ultimate intent to create a “clearinghouse” for illegal covert supra-national co-intel operations?

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Canada, Ideology, Intel, Sovereignty, Uncategorized

Spy agency’s new Ottawa compound to include hiking trails, basketball courts

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Spy agency’s new Ottawa compound to include hiking trails, basketball courts

By | Canada Politics – Tue, 9 Oct, 2012

There’s an old saying that goes: ‘if you want the truth, follow the money.’

Well, if you want to know where the Harper government’s priorities lie, follow the taxpayer money trail.

The Ottawa Citizen is reporting new information about Canada’s electronic spy agency’s $880 million 775,000 square foot facility currently being built in the Ottawa suburb of Gloucester.

Internal documents obtained by the newspaper show that the new Communications Security Establishment Canada compound — set to open in 2014 — will include basketball and volleyball courts, a bank, a 400-seat conference centre, a library and onsite hiking trails, all in an attempt to attract the “best and brightest” workforce.

But don’t worry: the originally planned hockey rink and hobby garden have apparently been taken off the drawing board.

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The Citizen also notes that the government has labelled the building “Camelot” while union officials have dubbed it the “Taj Mahal.”

Whatever it’s called, it’s lavish and expensive and it’s being built at a time when other government departments are being expected to cut costs.

CSEC, which uses technology to hear what people are saying abroad, now has a budget of about $350 million a year and has doubled in size since 2001. Moreover, while other government departments faced cuts of up to 10 per cent in Budget 2012, CSEC escaped with only a 2 per cent slice.

It’s a similar story at Canada’s more high profile spy agency.

According to Rabble.ca, Canadian Security Intelligence Service funding has increased by 160 per cent, from less than $200 million in 2001 to $511 million in 2010. And, in 2012, the Harper government only cut 1.5 per cent of CSIS’s half-billion dollar annual budget.

The Camelot/Taj Mahal along with the sustained spending are a clear indicators that the Harper government is serious about boosting their spy capabilities.

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At a time when security and intelligence issues loom large with regards to arctic sovereignty, corporate espionage and continued terrorist threats, maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

source: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/blogs/canada-politics/spy-agency-ottawa-compound-hiking-trails-basketball-courts-163736653.html

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Canada, China, Corruption, Crime, Economic, Energy, Foreign Policy, Ideology, Trade, Uncategorized

Hackers infiltrate Calgary-based technology firm

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By Greg Weston, CBC News
Posted: Sep 28, 2012 9:47 PM ET
Last Updated: Sep 28, 2012 9:41 PM ET

A leading international expert on computer hacking says cyber-attacks are increasingly targeting the heart of Canada’s infrastructure, including oil pipelines and major public utilities.

CBC News has confirmed a recent cyber-attack successfully breached a Calgary-based supplier of control systems for electrical power grids, municipal water systems, public transit operations, and most of Canada’s major oil and gas pipelines.

Sources say the incident was serious enough to spark action from Canada’s spy service, the RCMP, military intelligence, and the federal government’s special cyber response agency.

Cyber-security expert Daniel Toboc tells CBC News that computer hacking aimed at the control systems of major utilities is becoming both common and potentially among the most serious of all cyber-attacks.

“On a scale of one to 10, I’d give that an eight or nine. God forbid, we ever get a 10.”

continue reading: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2012/09/28/cyber-attacks-canada-infrastructure.html

Please feel free to add feedback, additional info, alternative contact details, related links, articles, anonymous submission, etc. as a comment below, via web-form, through social media or mail us directly and confidentially at: dumpharper [at] live [dot] ca

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Canada, China, Ideology, Intel, Sovereignty, Uncategorized

CSIS warns of foreign takeover risks in annual report

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CSIS warns of foreign takeover risks in annual report

Report comes as shareholders approve Chinese $15B Nexen oil takeover bid

The Canadian Press
Posted: Sep 20, 2012 9:27 PM ET
Last Updated: Sep 21, 2012 12:17 AM ET

Canadas spy agency warned Thursday that purchases, like that of the Nexen takeover by the China National Offshore Oil Co., could pose a threat to national security.
Canada’s spy agency warned Thursday that purchases, like that of the Nexen takeover by the China National Offshore Oil Co., could pose a threat to national security. (Canadian Press)

The same day shareholders of the Calgary-based energy company Nexen agreed to a takeover bid by a state firm from China, Canada’s spy agency is warning such purchases can pose a threat to national security.

In its latest annual report, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service says the majority of foreign investment in Canada is carried out in an open and transparent manner.

However, certain state-owned enterprises and private firms “with close ties to their home governments have pursued opaque agendas or received clandestine intelligence support for their pursuits here.”

The CSIS report for 2010-11, tabled in Parliament on Thursday, says that when companies with links to foreign intelligence agencies or hostile governments try to acquire control over strategic sectors of the Canadian economy, it can represent a threat to security interests.

The spy service’s report came just as shareholders of oil-and-gas company Nexen Inc. solidly voted to support the high-profile takeover by the China National Offshore Oil Co., a deal that still requires federal approval.

Foreign interference

Two years ago, CSIS director Dick Fadden made headlines by openly speaking of provincial cabinet members and municipal politicians coming under foreign influence. Though Fadden was cagey about the alleged foreign interference, he broadly suggested that China posed concerns.

While it does not name specific countries or companies, the newly released CSIS report says foreign entities involved in takeovers might try to exploit newfound control in an effort to make illegal transfers of technology “or to engage in other espionage and other foreign interference activities.”

“CSIS expects that national security concerns related to foreign investment in Canada will continue to materialize, owing to the increasingly prominent role that (state-owned enterprises) are playing in the economic strategies of some foreign governments.”

The report says CSIS continued in 2010-11 to investigate foreign interference — the attempt by governments or their agents to clandestinely influence Canadian policies and opinions, or to spy on and intimidate diaspora groups in Canada.

“Foreign interference is particularly nefarious because it can have the effect of disrupting the multicultural harmony that is central to Canadian identity,” CSIS says.

The spy service report underscores other threats to Canada, including cyberattacks, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and the lingering possibility of terrorist attacks in the post-9-11 era.

It notes that in January 2011 online attackers targeted the networks of the Finance Department and Treasury Board.

‘While the technological hurdles to such efforts remain significant, the possibility that a terrorist group could acquire crude capabilities of this kind cannot be discounted.’ —CSIS report

“Unfortunately attacks like this are not a rare exception. The government of Canada is now witnessing serious attempts to penetrate its networks on a daily basis.”

The main target of cyberspies is the aerospace and high-technology industry, with the oil-and-gas business and universities involved in research and development also eliciting interest, CSIS says. “From the attackers’ perspective, it is significantly cheaper and often less difficult to steal research than to develop it.”

In addition to pilfering intellectual property, state-sponsored attackers are also seeking information that would give them an advantage, such as inside knowledge of coming negotiations and the personalities involved, the report says.

“Foreign intelligence agencies use the Internet to conduct espionage operations, as this is a relatively low-cost and low-risk way to obtain classified, proprietary or other sensitive information.”

The danger of nuclear proliferation remains acute, says the spy agency, singling out the activities of Iran and North Korea as particularly worrisome.

CSIS also points out that terrorist groups have pursued the means to use biological agents or improvised radiological explosives known as “dirty bombs.”

“While the technological hurdles to such efforts remain significant, the possibility that a terrorist group could acquire crude capabilities of this kind cannot be discounted.”

© The Canadian Press, 2012
The Canadian Press

source:

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Please feel free to add feedback, additional info, alternative contact details, related links, articles, anonymous submission, etc. as a comment below, via web-form, through social media or mail us directly and confidentially at: dumpharper [at] live [dot] ca

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