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Canadian intelligence: An insider's perspectiveAlistair Hensler aa Former Assistant Director of CSISPublished online: 14 Mar 2011.

To cite this article: Alistair Hensler (1999) Canadian intelligence: An insider's perspective, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal,6:3, 127-132, DOI: 10.1080/11926422.1999.9673190

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COMMENTARYCANADIAN INTELLIGENCE:AN INSIDER’S PERSPECTIVE

ALISTAIR HENSLER*

I welcome Mr. Farson’s (1999) article and hope that it will encourage others to publicly discussintelligence issues. The norm has been for a small cadre of public servants to address intelligence-relatedmatters behind closed doors instead of seeking broader opinions from the public or even from their owncolleagues in government. The result has often been short-sighted and inappropriate decisions, Granted,specific operational matters obviously cannot be discussed publicly; however, Mr. Farson hasdemonstrated by his article that policy issues related to intelligence, including areas of potential targeting,can be addressed without compromising operations. My comments are intended to provide an insider’sperspective to some of Mr. Farsons observations and arguments.

The principal theme of Mr. Farson’s article—greater emphasis on analysis—has been frequentlydiscussed in past years within the Canadian intelligence community. Unfortunately, those discussionshave not resulted in serious, practical solutions, due in a large part to the problems associated with thecurrent configuration of the foreign intelligence community. The community consists of diverse groupswith different responsibilities for foreign intelligence: the collectors are the Communications SecurityEstablishment (CSE) and Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) (through section 16 of theCSIS Act); analysts are located in the Privy Council Office (PCO); and, liaision and some collectionresponsibilities rest primarily in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT)which is also the principal consumer of foreign intelligence. This system has not worked well for variousreasons, including: an almost total reliance on consensus decision-making which often weakeneddecisions or resulted in no decisions; the absence of a collective accountability; unclearly definedresponsibilities which created interdepartmental disputes; the isolation of the different components; and(sadly) conflicting personalities. Sometimes one or several of these reasons resulted in pertinentintelligence, particularly if very sensitive sources were involved, being withheld from analysts. Unlessthese various groups are physically brought under the direction and accountability of one responsibilitycenter, there is little or no prospect for improvement. I believe that the CSIS experience justifies thatassessment.

When CSIS was created, the analytical resources inherited from the RCMP Security Service werenegligible. The Service was essentially a collection agency in which analysis was confined to

* Alistair Hensler is the former Assistant Director of CSIS.

@ Canadian Foreign Policy, ISSN 1192-6422, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Spring 1999), 127-132

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operations, i.e., planning and assessing operational activities. There was very little strategic analysis.Efforts after the 1968 royal commission to make the Service “more civilian in nature” and to improvethe analytical capability largely failed. There was constant conflict between the collectors (operationalbranches) and the analysts, the former often denying the latter access to pertinent intelligence. Thissituation carried over into CSIS. The collectors and analysts were located in separate directorates.Analysts had to rely on personal relationships forged with the collectors to gain access to intelligence oron a few operational managers who realized that analysis represented the future of CSIS. A significantimprovement occurred only after a reorganization which co-located the collectors and analysts in thesame directorate under one senior manager. The analysts did not “rule’ (as Mr. Farson would prefer)but they were able to see relevant intelligence, to have input into the establishment of priorities, and tohave their views considered equally with the collectors. That has not been the case with foreignintelligence. While technological change has most definitely had a significant impact on the flow of information andgovernments’ ability to manage that flow, both of which will affect the analysis function of intelligence, itis also impacting on intelligence collection. Cryptography, once the almost exclusive domain ofgovernments, is now more broadly available to, for example, international businesses, criminals andterrorists. Codes have become more sophisticated, and therefore, more difficult to decipher. Digitalencryption will make eavesdropping impossible. The Commissioner of the RCMP has stated in the past:“Cryptography poses the real potential to eliminate law enforcement agencies’ investigativeeffectiveness.” The same statement applies to security and foreign intelligence agencies. Canada reliesheavily on CSE for foreign intelligence to meet both its own requirements and its obligations to allies.Given the new technologies, it is not difficult to envision a diminuation of the utility of CSE’s product.The government should, therefore, be seeking alternate methods of intelligence collection, including thebroader use of human sources abroad. The process of justifying resources and establishing priorities by security and foreign intelligenceagencies is not a post-cold war phenomenon, as Mr. Farson’s paper seems to suggest. The RCMPSecurity Service and later CSIS underwent very rigorous annual reviews which included theestablishment of priorities and these had to be approved by government. While the process may havebeen made easier during the cold war when targets were more discernible, agencies still had to justifyresources and take into account societal changes. For example, in the 1980s when subversion wasobviously a diminishing threat, resources in that area had to be reduced. All western agencies had similarexperiences. I do not believe that “the intelligence horizon now includes the possibility of looking foropportunities”, as Mr. Farson suggests. In the immediate post-cold war period governments demandedand received peace dividends, some of which were both substantial and arbitrary, and security andforeign intelligence agencies were also required to review and justify all targets. The process was moredifficult for some than others. For example, the Australian and British agencies closed some officesabroad and reduced the number of personnel at others, as well as cutting staff at headquarters. TheBritish counter intelligence effort was drastically reduced. Fortunately, CSIS had already begun thereduction of resources in that area (which included the Soviet Bloc) so that the impact was lessened.Further, some foreign intelligence agencies had also begun to refocus on non-traditional targets, such asinternational money laundering, drug trafficking and immigrant

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smuggling, which had reached such proportions that they were perceived as threats to national security.The British eventually redefined the term national security so that these types of activities would becaptured. In other words, changes were being implemented before the end of the cold war and thesechanges were sanctioned, and in some cases, directed by governments. After the peace dividend wasextracted, agencies did not have the luxury of surplus resources to “look for opportunities”. I doubtvery much that the situation has changed since that time.

Mr Farson’s “contemporary vision” of intelligence does not appear to differ substantially from theview of intelligence now held by most practitioners. In both versions practitioners want to know what isnot otherwise available in the public domain. I agree that more sophisticated analysis of openinformation may be required to make that determination; however, I do not believe that this alonenecessarily leads to the refinement of targeting human sources. There are other factors that must beconsidered such as the accessibility of targets to technical attack and the value and accuracy of othersources of intelligence, i.e., SIGINT, ELINT, etcetera.

I cannot ever recall a time when the intelligence practitioner was considered “keeper of the keys”.This implies exclusive control which in my view did not exist. The intelligence community has alwaysrecognized the necessity of relevancy and timeliness of its product. However, in the foreign intelligencearea the problems have been that the structure has not been conducive to producing timely and relevantproducts and the analysts have had to rely heavily on allied intelligence. As for consumers “usurping therole of keeper of the keys”, that will only occur after they are educated about intelligence and what itcan produce for them. Mr. Farson refers to the fact that Canada “has never had intelligence deeplyembedded in its political culture.” While I do not entirely agree with his rationale for this statement, I doagree with that conclusion. It has been my experience that ministers and most senior officials never reallyunderstood intelligence. The fault rested with the failure or reticence of the small cadre of officials whocontrolled intelligence to properly educate these people. When passing intelligence up the line, it hadoften been the practice to exclude intimate details of the collection methodology on the grounds ofsecurity, and to refer vaguely to “a reliable human source” or “a technical source”. As a result, thereceiving senior official or minister did not develop an appreciation of either the intricacies of intelligencecollection or the true value of the intelligence. I doubt that the situation has changed. The communityneeds to devote more effort to the education of consumers and to the promotion of the intelligenceproduct if it wants to imbed intelligence in the political culture.

I have never heard the Americans suggest that “loyalty in the post-cold war era can no longer beassured” as the result of the numerous, high profile spy cases that have been revealed. Most, if not all,of those cases of disloyalty in the 1990s, actually had their origins during the cold war. The cases onlysurfaced after the Soviet Bloc security apparatus began to crumble. However, I believe Mr. Farson’sstatement has merit but for another reason. From time to time concerns were expressed both in the USand Canada about employing immigrants to investigate and monitor the governments of their formerhomelands, specifically when the threats from those governments were non-traditional, (e.g., economicas opposed to subversive). In recent years, CSE had the experience of two former employees whowent public because, in part, they did not accept the justification for monitoring certain targets. Inanother instance a Canadian who was employed to monitor a long-time ally, which happened to be thecountry of his parents’ origin, approached representatives of that ally to inform them of Canada’s action.I am not aware of comparable cases

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in the US in the post-cold war period. (The recently publicized case of a Chinese-American scientistmight fall into this category.) As intelligence increasingly targets seemingly friendly governments, and insome case allies, for non-traditional reasons, the probability of these types of incidents occurring couldrise. As the post-cold war era is most definitely characterized by friends and allies targeting each other,it will be incumbent on the security and intelligence agencies to ensure that security vetting policies andprocedures are adapted to deal with this phenomenon. I believe that Mr. Farson has over-estimated Canada’s ability to maintain its intelligence exchangeagreements with the allies. He seems to have the expectation that the allies will perpetuate thearrangements whereby Canada accrues more benefits than it provides. I am not so optimistic for severalreasons. First, while a number of intelligence priorities, some of which are mentioned in the article, willremain of mutual interest to Canada and our allies, the reality is that each party to the exchangeagreements is increasingly developing diverse and more nation-specific priorities. Some of the priorities,particularly those with an economic focus, will involve spying on each other. The collected intelligencerelated to these priorities will not be shared among the allies. So, there will be less sharing than duringthe cold war era. Second, Canada’s primary value to the allies and the principal reason for itsmembership in the agreements was its geographical position vis-a-vis the overarching enemy, the formerUSSR. That advantage now carries much less weight; the product from the Russian target has beendevalued. Canada has very limited possibilities to produce foreign intelligence of equivalent or near-equivalent value. How can Canada justify asking the allies to assist us with more intelligence when wehave less to offer in return? Third, Canada has relied heavily on the CSE product to help maintain thebalance with the allies. CSE has done a credible job but, in my view it was not an equal partner amongthe allies’ technological intelligence collection. At least two of the parties had (and possibly still have)separate, bilateral arrangements which excluded CSE. The rising costs of interception, cryptographyand digital encryption problems will diminish CSE’s productivity. Fourth, the allies, who are trying to domore with smaller budgets, will be pressing Canada and others minor partners to contribute moreintelligence. The allies will not be looking for analysis of open source information; rather they will want(as they have always wanted) primarily raw intelligence. They will also expect Canada to, inter alia,commit resources to joint operations abroad, to permit more foreign intelligence operations against thirdparties on Canadian soil and to agree to their use of Canadian missions abroad in countries where theycannot otherwise operate securely. Canada has limited capacity to respond. If Canada wants tomaintain the quid pro quo and to satisfy its own increasing, unique requirements as articulated by Mr.Farson, it will need to develop a broader collection capacity for foreign intelligence. Mr. Farson’s theme, that analysis should drive collection, is one that has been debated numeroustimes in the intelligence community. In an ideal (intelligence) world, this would perhaps be a goal forwhich to strive. However, the Canadian scene is far from ideal. The current configuration of the foreignintelligence community is not conducive to accepting the preeminence of analysis. There must be aunified structure for that to begin to occur. When the analytical component, now in the PCO, was inDFAIT, it was at least located near a significant source of intelligence and a large body of customers.The transfer to the PCO tended to isolate it from both. Supplementing the analytical group with moreanalysts will do little to improve the situation and would, in all probability, only create more disillusionedanalysts. Fundamental

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changes to the community are necessary and I am not optimistic that such changes can be achievedunless they are imposed from above.

Mr. Farson stated in his paper that Canada has never “involved itself in covert operations except inwartime”. Depending on his interpretation of “covert operations”, that statement may be misleading. Ibelieve that Canada has participated in foreign intelligence operations abroad. The problem is, ofcourse, that it would have done so in the absence of an experienced, formal foreign intelligenceorganization which has heightened the risks. By so doing, however, it allows officials to maintain themyth that Canada does not need a foreign intelligence service. Canada has never had such a service, asMr. Farson quite rightly indicted. However, I believe the reasons are different than those articulated byMr. Farson (I dealt at length with that issue in my 1995 article in CFP). Essentially, the wrong decisionwas made for the wrong reasons in the immediate post-World War II period by a small cadre of seniorpublic servants who did not foresee the benefits of intelligence in peace-time and who, while regardingsome aspect of intelligence collection as too immoral for Canadians, were quite content to rely on alliedcollection regardless of the methodologies employed. As far as I could determine, issues such asCanada’s military or economic capacity or instability abroad were not part of the decision process.Rather morality and money were the overriding considerations and these have formed the basis ofarguments by opponents since that time.

The issue of parliamentary oversight— review—has also been discussed frequently in the past. Thedrafters of the CSIS Act certainly considered all aspects of that issue. I believe that they recognized thepotential for fractured, multi-party parliaments in Canada and the problems they could present tomaintaining secrecy. In the US, for example, the various legislative intelligence committees are often thesources of partisan, untraceable leaks. I do believe it is useful, however, for the leaders of thegovernment and the official opposition to meet periodically to discuss intelligence issues that might haveserious implications for the security of Canada. The problem with that, however, is something that Mr.Farson mentioned in his paper: the prime minister has distanced himself from security and intelligence bydisbanding the Cabinet Committee on Security and Intelligence. That was, indeed, a wrong step. Seniorofficials should be actively working to have the CCSI re-instated, but perhaps in a smaller version tofacilitate decision-making.

Mr. Farson identified a number of priorities, such as supporting economic policies and peacekeepingmissions, that should now be the focus of Canada’s foreign intelligence collection effort. As I wasreading these various references, I concluded that he was building an excellent case for the creation of aCanadian foreign intelligence service. His conclusions, however, stopped short of that recommendation.He did allow that if a future necessity existed, a foreign intelligence capacity should be administered “asa division of one of the existing organizations”. I have argued in the past that the changing internationalsituation in the early 1990s and Canada’s future intelligence requirements into the next centurywarranted the creation of a foreign intelligence service and that the logical location for that capacity wasin DFAIT. So, I agree with Mr. Farson on that point; I disagree only on the issue of timing. I believethat the time is now, not in the future.

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References

Farson, Stuart (1999). “Is Canadian Intelligence Being Re-Invented?” Canadian Foreign Policy 6:2(Winter): 49-83.

Hensler, Alistair. “Creating a Canadian Foreign Intelligence Service” Canadian Foreign Policy 3:3(Winter): 15-35.

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