In the September issue of the CCPA Monitor, I reported on the U.S. National Security Agency's (NSA) spying on hundreds of millions of its citizens, as revealed by whistle-blower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Now it appears that the Canadian government, too, is engaged in surreptitiously spying on its citizens, in collaboration with the NSA.
Canada has also been caught spying on Brazil. The United States and Canada are clearly close partners in the creation of an insidious global surveillance system that blatantly violates domestic and international human rights with impunity.
In October, Snowden exposed the extent of the Canadian government's spying activities. The Canadian counterpart to the NSA is the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). The two agencies have had close relations for more than six decades and share intelligence on each other's citizens. Both spy on their own citizens as well as on each others' nationals, and pass this information on to each other, thereby circumventing any legal restrictions on domestic surveillance.
Such close co-operation is part of the "Five Eyes" program of the U.S., Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand, which have shared responsibilities for a massive global surveillance system that includes commercial espionage. (more...)
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