CBC: CSEC watchdog has no bark or bite

Intelligence experts have a few things to say when it comes to overseeing the activities of ultra-secretive spy agency CSEC's activities -- and poor record-keeping is the least of it.// Canadians deserve accountability when it comes to the reckless collection and storing of their private, sensitive information. Learn how OpenMedia.ca and the BCCLA are taking a stand for Canadians at https://OpenMedia.ca/CSEC Article by Greg Weston for CBC: The revelation that a little-known Canadian intelligence operation has been electronically spying on trading partners and other nations around the world, at the request of the U.S. National Security Agency, has critics wondering who's keeping an eye on our spies.

The answer is a watchdog, mostly muzzled and defanged, whose reports to Parliament are first censored by the intelligence agency he is watching, then cleared by the minister politically responsible for any problems in the first place.

By the time the reports reach the public, they are rarely newsworthy.

The Harper government recently appointed a new oversight commissioner for Canada's electronic spy agency, the Communications Security Establishment Canada. But he will be only part-time until next April.

Even then, Senator Hugh Segal, the chief of staff to former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney and someone with a long involvement in security intelligence issues, says any notion of effective public oversight of Canada's electronic spying agency is "more like a prayer" than fact.

The debate over who's keeping tabs on our spies has heightened in recent days following a CBC News report detailing a top secret document retrieved by American whistleblower Edward Snowden.

The document shows that the agency known as CSEC set up covert spying posts around the world at the request of the giant NSA.

Read more at CBC