Канадское криптологическое агентство: История и настоящее

Canadian cryptologic agency

The Communications Security Establishment (CSE; , CST), formerly (from 2008 2014) called the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), is the Government of Canada's national cryptologic agency. It is responsible for foreign signals intelligence (SIGINT) and communications security (COMSEC), protecting federal government electronic information and communication networks, and is the technical authority for cyber security and information assurance. Formally administered under the Department of National Defence (DND), the CSE is now a separate agency under the National Defence portfolio. The CSE is accountable to the Minister of National Defence through its deputy head, the Chief of CSE. The National Defence Minister is in turn accountable to the Cabinet and Parliament. The current Chief of the CSE is Caroline Xavier, who assumed the office on 31 August 2022. In 2015, the agency built a new headquarters and campus encompassing The facility totals a little over and is adjacent to CSIS.

CSE originates from Canada's joint military and civilian code breaking and intelligence efforts during the Second World War.

The Examination Unit (XU) was established during the Second World War, in June 1941, as a branch of the National Research Council. It was the first civilian office in Canada solely dedicated to decryption of communications signals; until then, SIGINT was entirely within the purview of the Canadian military, and mostly limited to intercepts. In March 1942, XU moved next door to Laurier House in Sandy Hill, Ottawa; this location was chosen because they felt it would draw no suspicion to the enemies. By 1945, the disparate SIGINT collection units of the Canadian Navy, Army, and Air Force, were consolidated into the Joint Discrimination Unit (JDU), which was headquartered in Ottawa in the same building as the XU. By the end of the War, the military JDU and the civilian XU were able to coordinate SIGINT collection, analysis, and dissemination so efficiently that it led officials to consider the establishment of peacetime SIGINT operations. On 13 April 1946, a secret Order in Council allowed for postwar continuation of wartime cryptologic efforts and thus the Communications Branch of the National Research Council of Canada (CBNRC) was founded. This agency would be the predecessor to today's Communications Security Establishment (CSE). This unit successfully decrypted, translated, and analyzed these foreign signals, and turned that raw information into useful intelligence reports during the course of the war. CBNRC finally began domestic COMSEC efforts on 1 January 1947. In February 1950, R. S. McLaren was appointed the first CBNRC Senior Liaison Officer (CBSLO) to Washington, D. C. In March 1962: CBNRC installed its first IBM supercomputer, costing CA$372k. In December 1964, CBNRC began collaboration on "Canadian ALVIS" (CID 610), the first and only Canadian cipher machine to be mass produced; based on the British ALVIS (BID 610). This was the first time that the organization had ever been mentioned in public.

In 1975, the CBNRC was transferred to the Department of National Defence (DND) by an Order in Council, and became the Communications Security Establishment. This led to the publication of the Canadian Trusted Computer Product Evaluation Criteria. CSE adopted the applied title Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC; , CSTC). Since mid 2014, the organization has used its legal name (Communications Security Establishment) and initials (CSE) on its website and in public statements. In November 2011, CSE was made an independent agency, though still operating under the National Defence portfolio and constrained by the National Defence Act. As part of the omnibus bill, oversight of CSE activities was assumed by the newly created National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA).

CSE uses generic identifiers imposed by the Federal Identity Program. However, CSE is one of several federal departments and agencies (primarily those having law enforcement, security or regulatory functions) that have been granted a badge by the Canadian Heraldic Authority. The badge was granted in 1994, while CSE's pennant was first raised in 1996 to mark the organization's 50th anniversary. From the 1990s to the mid 2000s, CSE's Information Technology Security program used a logo to identify its products and publications. The triangle represented threats, while the arc symbolized protection.

Unique within Canada's security and intelligence community, the Communications Security Establishment employs code makers and code breakers (cryptanalysis) to provide the Government of Canada with information technology security (IT Security) and foreign signals intelligence services. CSE also provides technical and operational assistance to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and federal law enforcement and security agencies, including the Canada Border Services Agency and the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority.

CSE relies on its closest foreign intelligence allies, the US, UK, Australia and New Zealand to share the collection burden and the resulting intelligence yield. Canada is a substantial beneficiary and participant of the collaborative effort within the partnership to collect and report on foreign communications. These machines are now retired. Little information is available on the types of computers used by the CSE since then. However, Cray in the US has produced a number of improved supercomputers since then. These include the Cray SX 6, early 2000s, the Cray X1, 2003 (development funded in part by the NSA), Cray XD1, 2004, Cray XT3, Cray XT4, 2006, Cray XMt, 2006 and Cray CX1, 2008. It is possible that some of these models have been used by the CSE and are in use today.

The Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (CCCS or Cyber Centre; ) is the Government of Canada authority responsible for monitoring threats, protecting national critical infrastructure against cyber incidents, and coordinating the national response to any incidents related to cyber security. As a unit under the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), the agency is Canada's computer emergency response team (CSIRT) and the Canadian government's computer Incident response team (CIRT).

CSE occupies several buildings in Ottawa, including the Edward Drake Building and the neighbouring Sir Leonard Tilley Building. CSE moved to the Tilley Building in June 1961. facility, encompassing , has been built in the eastern part of Ottawa, immediately west of the headquarters building for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. Construction began in early 2011 and was completed in 2015.

In addition to those mentioned below, CSE is bound by all other Canadian laws, including the Criminal Code, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Privacy Act, Security of Information Act, and the Avoiding Complicity in Mistreatment by Foreign Entities Act.

In June 2019, the Communications Security Establishment Act (CSE Act) was passed, as part of the National Security Act 2017. The Act, which came into force two months after passing, notes that there are five aspects of CSE's mandate:

Under the 1948 UKUSA agreement, CSE's intelligence is shared with the U. S. National Security Agency (NSA), the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the Australian Signals Directorate (ASD), and New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB).

CBNRC and the information it gathered and shared was kept secret for 34 years until 9 January 1974, when the CBC Television documentary show, The Fifth Estate, aired an episode focused on the organization, with research by James Dubro. In 1996, it was suggested that CSE had monitored all communications between National Defence Headquarters and Somalia, and were withholding information from the Somalia Inquiry into the killing of two unarmed Somalis by Canadian soldiers. In 2006, CTV Montreal's program On Your Side conducted a three part documentary on CSE naming it "Canada's most secretive spy agency" and that "this ultra secret agency has now become very powerful," conducting surveillance by monitoring phone calls, e mails, chat groups, radio, microwave, and satellite. In 2007, former Ontario lieutenant governor, James Bartleman, testified at the Air India Inquiry on May 3 that he saw a CSE communications intercept warning of the June 22, 1985 bombing of Air India Flight 182 before it occurred. Two former CSE employees have since testified that no CSE report was ever produced. In 2013, a coalition of civil liberties associations launched a campaign directed against the government's perceived lack of transparency on issues related to the agency, demanding more information on its purported domestic surveillance activities. Further criticism has arisen surrounding the construction costs of the agency's new headquarters in Ottawa. The project is slated to cost over CA$1.1 billion, making it the most expensive government building in Canadian history. In 2014, a leaked, top secret presentation entitled “IP Profiling Analytics & Mission Impacts” summarized experiments tracking the cellphones of travellers passing through Toronto Pearson International Airport. Critics argued that the experiment was invasive and indiscriminate, while CSE countered that it was consistent with all relevant laws and mandates. In 2016, the CSE Commissioner found that one of the agency's metadata activities did not comply with the law. Specifically, CSE had failed to properly minimize certain Canadian identity information before sending it to foreign governments, contravening parts of the National Defence Act and the Privacy Act.

In The Good Wife episode "Landing," both the NSA and the CSE are shown monitoring personal phone calls and hacking private cell phones' recording devices in order to listen in on personal conversations. One plaintiff describes the CSE as "the Canadian version of the NSA."