Confidentially

Communications Security Establishment Canada eavesdrops.  That's their business.  And they do it well.  At their heart is a high-tech group of supercomputers, listening posts and code breakers.  Quietly unobtrusively, their presence unknown to most, (including Members of Parliament), they developed out of the Cold War to become this country's electronic eavesdropping and cyberwarfare establishment. 

Discreetly.

The U.S., the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada comprise what is casually referred to as the "five eyes" intelligence-sharing community.  Since World War II, Canada's foreign signals intelligence interception and code-breaking has been second to none, finely honed and secretive.  But ask, and they will tell you.  They are now a stand-alone agency of huge national importance. 

Shush.

And preparing to move into a huge new complex now being built and centrally located in Ottawa.  The complex will house the three most powerful supercomputers in the country, the campus outfitted with an array of high-tech eavesdropping equipment. 

That's all one needs to know.  The rest is quietly confidential.  Meant for the eyes and ears of those who can keep secrets.  There is nothing very secret about the Internet.

Alongside the SCEC complex will be the Tutte Institute for Mathematics and Computing, working with the elite mathematicians within CSEC developing new code-cracking formulae and algorithms.  It is rumoured that the campus will contain "more PhD mathematicians and computer scientists than most universities." 

But keep it low-key, do.

Its mandate is the gathering of foreign intelligence.  It may listen in to signals sent between a Canadian and someone outside the country.  If a someone interacts electronically with a foreign terrorist organization as a Canadian operative, any information garnered is conveyed directly to the RCMP and to CSIS, both of whom operate within the country.

The agency is strictly prohibited by mandate from intercepting transmissions between Canadians within Canada.  But there are those, like some Members of Parliament representing the NDP who believe there should be strict oversight of the CSEC, to ensure it never slips over its mandate. 

"The public is susceptible to this type of snooping on their communications without even knowing about it", insists Jack Harris.

Which may be a great reassurance to some among us.

When there was a major systems breach as hackers cracked computer security systems at the Department of Finance and Treasury Board and their computer systems shut down, awaiting security loopholes to be closed, CSEC acknowledged they were aware of who was responsible.  The intelligence leaked that China was involved.

Leading CSEC's own hackers to make it a point to deliberately get past government security firewalls, for the purpose of identifying and strengthening weak points, to foil any future outside hackers.