Breaking - Spy agency CSE is monitoring our private online activities on a massive scale and sharing sensitive data with other governments

Canadian spy agency has been caught monitoring over 100 popular file-storage websites, spying on millions of downloads a day, with Canadian Internet addresses among the targets

Christopher continued: “Given that Canadian IP addresses are among the targets, this amounts to spying on the private information of innocent Canadians, at any time, without a warrant. This alarming development underlines the need for robust action to rein in CSE’s reckless and out of control spying activities. When will the government finally take responsibility and come clean to taxpayers about what’s being done in their name?”

The Interceptsays the program is clear evidence that the “Canadian government has launched its own globe spanning Internet mass surveillance system.” Canada’s government has long denied that CSE spies on Canadians. In June 2013, over a year after the spying program exposed this morning went into effect, Peter MacKay reassured the House of Commons that CSE is “prohibited” from spying on Canadians. That same day he told the Toronto Star that “We don’t target Canadians, okay?”. At the time, MacKay was the minister responsible for authorizing CSE activities, which then included LEVITATION.

Today’s news is the latest in a long string of revelations about how CSE spying has grown secretive, expensive, and out-of-control. These include how CSE spied on innocent Canadian air travellers, facilitated a massive U.S. spy operation on Canadian soil, monitored important Canadian trading partners at the behest of the U.S. NSA, and even spied on the private communications of Brazil’s energy ministry.

More about CSE spying can be found in this PSA video and infographic OpenMedia put together with the help of privacy experts.

Canadians are speaking out by joining the Protect our Privacy Coalition, which now includes over 65 organizations and 40,000 Canadians from across the political spectrum. Canadians can join the coalition at OurPrivacy.ca

About OpenMedia.ca

OpenMedia.ca is an award-winning community-based organization that safeguards the possibilities of the open Internet. We work toward informed and participatory digital policy by engaging hundreds of thousands of people in protecting our online rights

Through campaigns such as StopTheMeter.ca and StopSpying.ca, OpenMedia.ca has engaged over half-a-million Canadians, and has influenced public policy and federal law.

About OpenMedia.ca’s privacy campaign

OpenMedia.ca led the successful StopSpying.ca campaign that forced the government to back down on its plans to introduce a costly, invasive, and warrantless online spying law (Bill C-30). Nearly 150,000 Canadians took part in the campaign. To learn more, see this infographic.

Last October, OpenMedia.ca joined with over 60 major organizations and over a dozen academic experts to form the Protect Our Privacy Coalition, which is the largest pro-privacy coalition in Canadian history. The Coalition is calling for effective legal measures to protect the privacy of every resident of Canada against intrusion by government entities.

OpenMedia.ca and the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) are working together to put a stop to illegal government surveillance against law-abiding Canadians. OpenMedia.ca has launched a national campaign encouraging Canadians to support a BCCLA legal action which aims to stop illegal spying by challenging the constitutionality of the government’s warrantless collection of data on Canadians’ everyday Internet use.

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Contact

David Christopher

Communications Manager, OpenMedia.ca

1-778-232-1858

[email protected]

More Information

• OpenMedia is crowdsourcing policy recommendation to boost privacy safeguards at https://OpenMedia.org/PrivacyPlan

• Supreme Court of Canada R v. Spencer ruling

• OpenMedia’s radio ad for Peter MacKay’s Central Nova riding

• Hard-hitting video highlights how Bill C-13 would give immunity to telecom providers who hand over your information without a warrant. Source

• Bill C-13 would let authorities obtain private information without a warrant. Source: Michael Geist

• Supposed “cyberbullying” legislation will erode the privacy of Canadians. Source: OpenMedia.ca

• Canada's Lawful Access Bill Appears to Have Contained a Provision to Enable PRISM-Style Surveillance Source: Michael Geist

• Lawful Access back on the agenda this Fall? - Michael Geist.

• Data breach protocols deficient in 9 federal departments, watchdog finds. - [Source: CBC News]

• Internet Law expert Michael Geist on why Canadians should be concerned about government spying.

• In this article, The Globe and Mail describes the revelations about Canadian government spying as “disturbing and unacceptable”

• This document, obtained by The Globe through Access to Information, shows how Minister MacKay authorized a top secret program to data-mine global ‘metadata’ in 2011.