Courtesy BlogTo

Lost in the revelations that are coming out about Canada allowing a foreign spy agency access to world leaders (and who else?) is the knowledge that we’re finally getting more information about what actually happened during the G20.

A fuller picture is emerging that adds embarrassing details to the already long list of offences committed by Canadian authorities. Now we know that not only did we host a summit that has historically brought protests, violence, and punitive security measures; we permitted the United States to spy on the leaders we were hosting.

Essentially, during this time did we cease to be a sovereign country?

Let’s look at what happened. The state did not protect its citizens from authoritative violence. Basic legal freedoms were denied to several citizens. Many of the human rights that we purportedly export through democracy to third world and developing nations were trampled. Both our government and at least one other government were collecting intelligence (almost certainly illegally). Our national anthem was not affected.

Craig Forcese, an expert in national security at University of Ottawa’s faculty of law told the CBC, “If CSEC tasked NSA to conduct spying activities on Canadians within Canada that CSEC itself was not authorized to take, then I am comfortable saying that would be an unlawful undertaking by CSEC,”

The Harper government’s only comment so far is this robotic statement (please-read-in-robot-voice)

“We do not comment on operational matters related to national security. Our security organizations have independent oversight mechanisms to ensure that they fulfill their mandate in accordance with the law,”

All of this is troubling, but if there is a silver lining it’s that as documents continue to be released we’re finding out more about our government, and their secrets, than we ever have. It’s particularly important when these revelations shed light on one of Canada’s lowest moments, the 2010 G20 Summit.

The Five Eyes! The Communications Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC)! The Olympia spying program! The Advanced Network Tradecraft! These seem like names lifted from espionage paperbacks, the kind with shiny embossed covers bearing some hyper-masculine pen name like Dick Richter. But, sadly, they aren’t the stuff of fiction. Slides were leaked last week that implicate the Canadian cryptologic agency CSEC in spying on Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy (MME). The news caused many to wonder why the Canadian government, who’ve made a mint in the oil and gas sector, would want to gather information about Brazil, a large producer of oil and gas. Then, “Oh, I get it,” said those wondering.

“Olympia,” the group of programs used to gather the information, allowed CSEC to view data passing through the MME servers, and, over time, locate targets of interest. The agency then shared the information with The Five Eyes—an alliance of intelligence operations between Canada, the U.K., the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. Needless to say, Brazil was not impressed.

John Forman, the former director of Brazil’s National Petroleum Agency, was confused about what the CSEC, originally formed as an anti-terrorist security measure, wanted with the Ministry of Mines and Energy. “Do you think they would find a terrorist at the bottom of an oil well?” he says. “It’s simply not serious. They may have started for a good reason, which is terrorism, but then they thought, ‘Well, this is easy. Why don’t we survey everything and maybe we’ll find something that might be of interest to us.'”

Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s president, took to Twitter to chastise Canada, saying (in Portuguese) “The Foreign Ministry will demand explanations from Canada,” and calling the spying “unacceptable between countries that are supposed to be partners”.

Ostensibly, this type of economic espionage happens all the time, and is simply the sour pit in the middle of geopolitics. It’s getting caught that’s the naughty part. But in this age of advanced data-retrieval techniques, when nightly the NSA makes the news for some new injustice, it’s a depressing reminder that Canada too has the technology—both to spy, and to be clandestine about it. In this 21^st Century Canada, where our prime minister muzzles scientists, imposes a five-question limit on the media and prorogues parliament to avoid opposition questions about the expense scandal, information is looking more and more like a one way street—the government can know about us, but we can’t know about them. Which is why we should be worried about any breach of privacy, even if it’s committed as far away as Brazil.

It’s time for our government to take their little spy tool, turn it around, and point it at themselves for a change. How’s that for a paperback idea.