The Canada/China Contortion Conundrum

"We are in a uniquely complicated spot."

"We are being borne along a current with very few options. So the idea that we can craft a way forward easily is wrong."

"They don't see it in Chinese thinking as an oppressive thing, they just see themselves in more benign terms as the leading civilization in the world, and that they ought to have an important say in the affairs of the world and even a dominant position."

"But it's not a Nazi-like military conquest of the world."

Gordon Houlden, director, China Institute, University of Alberta 

"It's been said that China doesn't have allies, it has markets."

"I attribute the Cold War spirit and the Cold War stresses, in largest part to China's actions, as well as the tone of their 'wolf warrior diplomacy', which isn't very diplomatic."

Margaret McCuiag-Johnston senior fellow, University of Ottawa, former member, Canada-China Joint Committee on Science and Technology

"It will require much more thought, it will require much more management of foreign policy."

"That will be difficult for everybody. It'll be particularly difficult for Canada because we haven't put much thought into our foreign policy for a long time, and we're going to pay a price in terms of the learning curve that we have to go up."

"That's the first step [Beijing releasing detained Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor] when I talked about China's assault on our sovereignty and our autonomy."

"It's sapping the will, it causes countries to feel that it's just impossible, it's too much work. And that was never Canada's approach in the past, but I worry that we've succumbed to that to a certain extent."

David Mulroney former Canadian ambassador to China 2009-2012

The U.S. Senate passed a bill aimed at competing with China on economic and other fronts. It wants clarity on U.S. strategy for working with allies. (Jason Lee/Reuters illustration)

 

U.S. legislation titled the Innovation and Competition Act, a 1,445-page bill is set to lay the groundwork for broad strategy on the part of America to enfeeble Beijing's plan to raise the country globally as a colossus of commerce, a guide to the world's perplexed over China's increasingly aggressive stance as the ultimate world-leading power. The Act identifies strategic industries where the recommendation is for the U.S. to ramp public support for quantum computing, advanced semiconductors and pharmaceuticals to continue to reflect America's preeminent global role.

It also proposes more substantial protections for America's share of critical minerals, expansion of research spending with an aim to strengthen cyber defence capabilities as primary objectives, among others. That same act places Canada in a role in sections of legislation; plans deeply consequential that will rework and reshape Canadian foreign policy for some time to come. This, as American officials spur forward on a protracted conflict with China for global supremacy; an issue observers refer to as the new Cold War.

That Cold War is in active engagement between the two giants on a number of fronts including cyber warfare, military expansionism, technological research, culture, infrastructure, and intellectual property. All areas incidentally, which in one way or another Beijing has stealthily intruded upon in the process enriching itself with the results of its cyber-scrutiny otherwise known as stealth-theft. There is little question that Canada's traditional neighbourly ties with the United States will inform its inclusion in the U.S.-led agenda dividing China and the U.S. where trade and national security are issues of huge importance./China impedes both at will; one as punishment the other as threat.

The links between Canada and the U.S. are historically strong and steadfast, culturally and politically. with the U.S. Canada's largest trading partner. An agreement between the two neighbours was signed to establish new supply chains for critical minerals and rare earths as defence against China's zeal in gaining rights and overwhelming ownership to both. Canada has been lax in deciding whether, like all other members of the Five Eyes intelligence group, it will shut Huawei out of its 5G upgrade.

On the surface the U.S. legislation is clear enough with its plans to uphold a "shared vision of democracy", maintaining the "rules based international order established after WWII", which China flouts with impunity. The loosening of export regimes between the two neighbours, protecting "critical defence-related technology", establishing open and transparent planning on infrastructure, co-operating on Arctic defence and energy connectivity, combating "industrial espionage" and deepening intelligence sharing "particularly in 5G telecommunications technology", all favour more secure ties.

And all specifically point at China's infamously notorious penchant for surveillance, espionage and hunger to acquire by foul means the intelligence and secrets of other countries. "We are in the midst of a fundamental debate about the future and direction of our world", stated U.S.President Biden in a public statement earlier in the year in response to a more bellicose, authoritarian China guided by President Xi Jinping who seized the temptation to step in where the influence of the United States has waned as it withdrew from various stations of U.S.-guided support across the world.

The Communist Party of China is invested in aggressively redressing its "century of humiliation" when the Western world advanced far beyond the capabilities that China brought to bear from the mid-1800s to mid-1900, a situation humiliating to a once-powerful nation. It focuses on a goal of re-asserting its proper place in the world as a leading nation whose influence and power can be challenged by no others, even as it challenges with the assurance of entitlement the lone global super-power as a has-been entity.

Implacably, President Xi awaits each opportunity with the patience of an ancient cultural tradition of self-assurance renewed. His mantra of "socialism with Chinese characteristics" has served him and his country well in a few short decades that has literally pulled the country from its bootstraps up, in economic advantage leading to its ambitious Belt and Road initiative expanding travel, trade and telecommunications links with Europe and Asia.

While bidding for economic supremacy since it joined the World Trade Organization, China has undermined multilateral institutions and the international rule of law. At one time President Xi in conversation with then-President Obama assured there was no intention to militarize the disputed islands he had built in the South China Sea that he had illegally preempted as China's sovereign right. They were soon enough militarized, the purpose for which they had been established. 

 

Multilateral institutions have been slowly succumbing to Chinese power plans where international settlements and diplomatic and industrial guidelines are set. Chinese nationals occupy leadership positions in some 40 United Nations institutions for engineering, maritime law, health, finance, atomic energy and dozens of other areas. A situation that would make even a cynic cringe over future implications where Chinese positions at the International Telecommunications Union, UN Industrial Development Organization, Food and Agriculture Association renders massive leverage to China.

 

 

Indiscreet, Indiscriminate Infiltration

"The possibility that someone [in China] could take that data and use it, that is a concern. We have [Chinese] businesses here that operate directly subject to the corporate credit-score system."

"They become, whether wittingly or unwittingly, part of the Chinese security system."

"Closed circuit camera systems are standard in almost every business directly serving the public, and there are video surveillance signs posted throughout the restaurant."

Ivy Li, Canadian Friends of Hong Kong 

"There is no audio recording and no facial recognition function."

"The recorded video is stored on site only and does not get transmitted or backed up to anywhere outside Canada."

Haidilao Canada has no connection with China's social credit program."

Haidilao spokesman, Yang Xibei

"This is beyond having CCTV going in and going out of a restaurant."

"This is people maybe holding hands under the table, or whatever they're doing, and not wanting other people to find out."

Cheuk Kwan, spokesman, Toronto Association for Democracy in China

"Organizations need to consider whether video surveillance will achieve the intended purpose and whether the concerns are serious enough to warrant implementing this highly invasive technology."

British Columbia Information and Privacy Commissioner

Surveillance cameras — about one per table — can be seen on the ceiling of a Haidilao Hot Pot restaurant in Markham, Ont. Photo by Miss V/Google Maps

Haidilao International Holding Ltd., its headquarters in Beijing, owns 935 restaurants situated from Australia to the United States. These are restaurants where diners themselves use pots of bubbling broth to dip meat and vegetables into for an interesting and self-catered meal. The company has four outlets in the Toronto and Vancouver areas in Canada to serve a large population of Chinese both from Hong Kong and the mainland.

Photographs have been posted online that show rows of surveillance cameras focusing on the dining area of these restaurants. According to Haidilao International Holding, the video equipment is there solely to make certain that whoever is in the restaurant remains safe and secure. They discredit a recent report that suggests both staff and customers of the establishments are tracked on behalf of the Chinese Communist regime.

Haidilao staff welcoming patrons. Weibo

Beijing has enacted a social-political code of law that all Chinese, wherever they are, at home or abroad, whether citizens of other countries, have an obligation to act on behalf of CCP interests at all times, whether they're individuals or corporations. Beijing is well known to practise surveillance of all Chinese, within its borders and abroad. It employs pervasive surveillance through both humint (human intelligence) means and electronically.

 

As Ivy Li of Canadian Friends of Hong Kong points out, Chinese law requires its companies to fully cooperate with Chinese security services if/when requested and all such firms are subject to the "social-credit" monitoring system that is prevalent in China. The Canadian Security Intelligence Services not too long ago gave warning of the social-credit system that "data can be collected on companies and individuals abroad, posing a challenge for countries not wishing to be part of a Chinese system of social control". 

Through the social-credit system, citizens are given credit on their "trustworthiness", granted privileges denied those with too many demerits to their credit; which is to say the differentiation between Chinese citizens who strictly obey Chinese decrees as opposed to those who prefer to bypass them. Through electronic means, including facial recognition, the state maintains records on all its immense population, the loyal citizens who are recognized as such and those deemed to be disloyal and suitably discredited.

In the restaurants in Canada private companies like Haidilao are subject to an advanced parallel social credit system designed for corporations where video and facial-recognition plays a dominant role. A Canadian journalist and a military-intelligence veteran have alleged that video from the cameras is routinely sent back to China, in cooperation with the social-credit program -- which Haidilao representatives strenuously deny. The article quotes a Vancouver location manager stating the two cameras per table "People track" and "punish" unreliable employees.

Freelance journalist Ina Mitchell and her co-author, Scott McGregor, a former military intelligence officer, stand by their story based on a formal recorded interview with the restaurant manager along with "other testimony". Photographs for the Markham, Ontario restaurant show what appear to be at least 25 cameras in the ceiling, representing one per table. China employs an estimated 200 to 600 million closed-circuit cameras, in eight of the ten most surveilled cities in the world.

The People's Daily tweeted in 2018 that the government's "Skynet" facial-recognition system could scan China's 1.4 billion people in a second. The manager of Haidilao's Vancouver restaurant interviewed by the Canadian writers, was quoted as stating that its cameras were part of social credit, used against staff who fail to follow corporate standards and to people-track.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Minister of Defense stand in salute to the PLA at a dinner in Vancouver, in 2019, following the arrest of Meng two months earlier. (Still from video) and Inside Vancouver’s Haidilao restaurant, where over 60 surveillance cameras are installed, two for each table and in staff areas.  Sunday Guardian

Law and Order Surveillance in China

"This is potentially a totally new way for the government to manage the economy and society. The goal is algorithmic governance."
"The whole point is that people don't know if they're being monitored, and that uncertainty makes people more obedient."
"[People follow rules simply because they don't know whether or not they are being watched.]"
Martin Chorzempa, fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economies

"If you are captured by the system and you don't see it, your neighbours or colleagues will, and they will gossip about it."
"That's too embarrassing for people to take."
Guan Yue, critic of government surveillance videos

Security cameras look out over Tiananmen Square before Tiananmen Gate. Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

In fact, news media everywhere in the world cover various types of local and national and international events, naming names when people are apprehended or suspected of involvement in illicit activities or crimes. Naming culprits does have the effect of shaming those who can be shamed when those who know them see them identified with anti-social and criminal acts. China, it would appear, is increasingly using artificial intelligence paired with closed circuit videos in a vigilance program that is meant eventually to cover the entire 1.4-billion population within its borders.

Several decades ago when Britain embarked on a national installation program of closed circuit video cameras in the public arena it was both praised and criticized as an initiative in support of law and order and/or intrusion into the public/private sphere. That type of public surveillance is common now throughout the world in the public areas of cities. Before that, Japan as an example, had police 'boxes' located at intersections throughout Tokyo where police were actively stationed; if someone moved into the neighbourhood the police would be advised and often made a quick casual 'visit' of introduction to the newcomer. Crime is low in Tokyo.

Wearing facial recognition glasses in Zhengzhou, a heroin smuggler was identified at a train station by a police officer. "In the past, it was all about instinct", commented Shan Jun, deputy chief of police in the prefecture. "If you missed something, you missed it", he said of the capture of the heroin smuggler at the railway station. In some of China's great metropolis's, cameras scan train stations for most-wanted criminals. Displays show faces of jaywalkers with people's names who haven't paid debts, on billboard-sized displays.

Police were enabled to grab two dozen criminal suspects in the midst of an annual beer festival in Quingdao, thanks to surveillance cameras, and in Wuhu, a fugitive murder suspect was captured on camera and identified as he bought a meal from a street vendor. Millions of cameras and billions of lines of code are enabling China to build its high-tech future of authority and apprehension of the criminal element in society.

Security cameras hang on a lamp at Tiananmen Square, Beijing.   Feng Li/Getty Images

China has installed an estimated 200 million surveillance cameras, representing four times the number that the United States has installed for its own similar purposes of good order and security. Of course, China has more than four times the population of the United States to monitor. China already tracks Internet use and communications, hotel stays, train and plane trips and in some areas, travel by car. The surveillance system is vast and fairly reliable but not yet has it achieved complete efficiency, yet the awareness of its capability has succeeded in convincing the population they are under scrutiny, having the effect of ensuring people react accordingly.

Invasive mass-surveillance software in the west has been installed for the purpose of tracking activities of the Uighur Muslim minority, even mapping out their relations with friends and family. The restive minority is seen as a threat to China's interests. Intersections in cities that were once nightmares to manoeuvre around have seen a marked decrease in outlawed jaywalking and as a result fewer accidents. The result of cameras linked to facial recognition technology alongside a large outdoor screen where photos of lawbreakers get displayed along with name and government ID.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has undertaken a broad-based crackdown on corruption, a the same time launching a major upgrade of China's surveillance state. Coincidentally China is now the world's largest security and surveillance technology market. Analysts estimate that another 100 million cameras will be installed by 2020. In scale and investment China's technology boom challenges that of California's Silicon Valley.

The national database of individuals flagged for surveillance includes suspected terrorists, criminals, drug traffickers, and political activists, along with others. The database is inclusive of between 20 to 30 million individuals, too many for today's facial recognition technology to be able to control for, just yet. But that little detail is left a state secret; as far as the public is concerned, the long visual arm of the government is intact and competently traces everything that might conceivably go awry -- and citizens react accordingly.

A crowded railway station in Guangzhou, southern China.

Reuters

No Escape Escapade

"He was completely shocked when we took him away."
"He couldn't fathom that police could so quickly capture him in a crowd of 60,000 [people]."
Police Officer Li Jin

"At the back end, these efforts merge with a vast database of information on every citizen, a 'Police Cloud' that aims to scoop up such data as criminal and medical records, travel bookings, online purchase and even social media comments -- and link it to everyone's identity card and face."
Simon Denyer, The Washington Post

Jacky Cheung is one of Hong Kong's most famous singers   Getty Images

Anonymity? What is that? Lose yourself in a crowd? Might have worked once. This is a new era. Not Big Brother but Big Government. Oh, that IS Big Brother, isn't it? A government that oversees the largest population on the planet, one billion, four hundred-million people. And growing, inexorably growing. This is also a government fixated on establishing firm control on everything and everyone. A government that has eyes and ears everywhere. Melting into a crowd will no longer offer shelter from detection.

For this is also a government that has mastered the technology by which it exercises those eyes and ears radiating out in all directions. In the final analysis, there is no escape. Your presence will be detected, and if you fail to conform to political, government-directed societal expectations there is a penalty. You will pay, and you will pay for any and all indiscretions. Citizens have a duty to their state and must fulfill it.

And here you thought the state had a duty to its citizens! Well, in a sense it does in that its self-perceived duty is to ensure that everyone obeys each and every edict the state promulgates. Above all, to make your presence known to the state. For it will know, with or without your cooperation. And this, in a sense is what 31-year-old Mr. Ao, attending a concert at the Nanchang International Sports Center to mingle with an estimated 60,000 other concert-goers, discovered.

"If I had known (I would be caught), I wouldn't have gone", he commented ruefully, but of course it was too late; hindsight is failure. He had no inkling that when he and some friends bought concert tickets and travelled about 60 miles to view the show featuring the popular legend of Cantopop, Jacky Cheung, that his freedom was soon to be curtailed. He was wanted for "economic crimes", and that was unfortunate; at the very least, his misfortune.

Police officers display AI-powered smart glasses in Luoyang, China, on April 3, 2018.  (Reuters)

Seated among the tens of thousands of other concert-goers it was he and he alone that a pair of police officers sought as they descended the aisles, finally to arrive at the row they had targeted, and where they apprehended Mr. Ao, to take him off to prison. As a felon, Mr. Ao's details were in a national database. On arrival at the stadium, cameras set up at all entrances held facial recognition technology.

He was identified, linked to his record and authorities were alerted. That is one person disposed of. When in fact the entire population will soon be under the same scrutiny where facial recognition technology will keep tabs on them. A comprehensive, nationwide surveillance system called "Xue Liang", (Sharp Eyes) is also currently underway which will monitor the presence of 1.4-billion Chinese.

(File Photo) There are an estimated 170 million CCTV cameras already in place in China  Getty Images

Its first target area will be Xinjiang province with a view to gathering data relating to the ethnic minorities in the western Chinese province. The policing program it develops there in aggregating data will serve as a model for the rest of China. In the meanwhile, in Xinjiang, home of the troublesome Uighur Muslims, an app, a mandatory-to-download one, is being circulated.

Its purpose is to detect "harmful audio, video, photos, ebooks and other electronic files" relating to "violence, terror, and illegal religions" (such as Falon Gong). Should the user not delete forbidden files as instructed by the app, and promptly, "the user will be held responsible by law". And if that sounds rather threateningly foreboding, it is meant to be.

Violating the U.S. Constitution

"This is a very serious Fourth Amendment issue. [The Obama administration use of the National Security Agency for surveillance and its failure to admit it demonstrated] an institutional 'lack of candor'."
"The full scope of non-compliant querying practices had not been previously disclosed to the Court."
"According to media reports, during the last year of the prior administration, law enforcement and intelligence officials sought, and eventually obtained, authorization from this Court to eavesdrop on then or former Trump campaign officials; continued monitoring the individuals even when no evidence of wrong-doing was said to have been found; then relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared widely within the government."
"[The administration] rushed to collect and then distribute intelligence information collected to numerous federal agencies, increasing the likelihood that certain information, including the identities and conversations of private U.S. citizens, might be leaked to the media."
U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA Court) report

"This is the sort of thing that would make Richard Nixon blush."
"President Obama ... has abused and misused the National Security Agency in a way that no one ever even pondered before."
Chris Farrell, director of investigations, Judicial Watch

"[The information showed] everyone from the chief justice of the Supreme Court, to other justices, to hundreds of judges, to Donald Trump, to me -- anybody who was anybody -- was subject to this government surveillance by the intelligence agencies, the NSA, and CIA."
"Comey sat on this for over two years, he buried this investigation of perhaps the biggest scandal in American history."
Larry Klayman, founder, Freedom Watch

One in every twenty of the NSA's searches through upstream Internet data targeted Americans, reports by John Solomon and Sara Carter for Circa state. They had been in receipt of internal, classified reports on the issue. Data intercepted by the NSA as it is transmitted through data routes between computer networks describes 'upstream' collection.  These searches, according to the FISA report, violate American surveillance laws, a situation well known to the principals involved.

Raw information received from the surveillance documents, according to the FISA report was disseminated by the FBI. This fact connects with accusations that intelligence agencies had illegally spied on members of Donald Trump's election team, as he has claimed to general disbelief. The FISA report adds that certain contractors "had access to raw FISA information on FBI storage systems [going] well beyond what was necessary to respond to the FBI's request."

The Obama administration "has not explained" how raw information it provided to FBI contractors might not have been a violation of the law. The report states that the FISA Court is "nonetheless concerned about the FBI's apparent disregard" for the rules. It was noted that the Obama administration went on to mobilize other government branches for its political motives; the Internal Revenue Service to suppress political rivals and to politicize the Justice Department and other government bodies.

A former contractor for the NSA and CIA, Dennis Montgomery, took with him 47 hard drives and over 600 million pages of information when he left his post. That data exposed illegal surveillance of judges, politicians and virtually anyone holding power in the United States. Once he was granted immunity, Montgomery surrendered the data to the FBI over two years earlier, helped by Larry Klayman.

Normal Kids In Our Midst

"[Mohamed is a] normal kid in almost every respect [with no criminal record]."
"He's never been in any kind of trouble so there isn't any kind of background to this. He grew up in Ottawa, he went to school here. There is really nothing exceptional about him."
"[Mohamed knows] very little [of what he is accused of]. Obviously, he is very confused and upset in the situation he finds himself in."
"The family are quite taken by surprise. They naturally believe that their son hasn't done anything untoward and they are anxious to see the disclosure and understand what the nature of the allegations are."
Doug Baum, Lawyer

Idris Altahir, Mohamed's father, said his son is a normal, quiet, polite and generous person. (CBC News)

The young Ottawa man facing accusations of conspiring with two brothers, also of Ottawa who were arrested days previously, is facing charges -- like twin siblings Ashton and Carlos Larmond -- of facilitating terrorism. Suliman Mohamed, 21, has made his first court appearance and was remanded in custody. His father, Idris Altahir, insists "My son is not involved in this at all" and was "not at all" radicalized.

Doesn't every father believe he 'knows' his sons' motivations and behaviours? Despite which he was unable to explain that his son whom he denied even knew the Larmond brothers facing the same terrorism charges more than slightly as "just casual acquaintances" lived together in Vanier "for a short period".

Ashton Larmond, left, and his twin brother Carlos appeared in court on Saturday to face several terrorism-related charges. (Sketches by Laurie Foster-MacLeod)

The specific nature of the evidence that led to the arrests beyond the broad charge of abetting terrorism has not yet been made public. A summary of the evidence against Mohamed, as well as that held for the Larmond twins, is yet to be presented, but when they are, full disclosure should explain much during the weeks to come. In the meanwhile, as his lawyer said, Mohamed knows "very little" of what he has been accused of.

Not that he is not aware, presumably, of what led to his arrest, since he would have been under close security surveillance for quite some time, but precisely which of his activities the charges are based on. Which, if true, will reveal what he and his colleagues have been up to. One count each of conspiring to facilitate terrorism in tandem with the Larmond brothers -- and participating in terrorist activities.

To obtain bail, as he appears to be prepared to seek, he must demonstrate to the court why it should agree to his release. The Crown, for its part, plans to oppose his release. "I think that it should be obvious that there is a serious risk with these type of charges" Roderick Sonley from the Public Prosecution Services of Canada stated. The RCMP doesn't proceed with charges if it is not persuaded it has evidence sufficient to proceed with

All will be revealed in the fullness of time.

The RCMP has disclosed information on its high-risk traveller watch list with the names of 93 Canadians, a number considered to represent a "moving target" according to a retired deputy commissioner of the RCMP, Pierre-Yves Bourduas. "The last I heard was 145." Included on the list are those who have been brought to police attention because those closest to them have noticed a "worrisome change" in behaviour.

Extremist comments on social media and suspicious travel also alert police to the presence of those whose activities should be monitored. Yet close surveillance presents a challenge all its own. "To have surveillance 24/7 on 93 or 145 individuals, it sucks the life out of any police organization. It's very labour-intensive", stressed Mr. Bourduas.

Honouring Islam

"Short-term plan, you told me that you were going to blow yourself up in America." Ahmed Abassi

"I did not tell you I was going to blow myself up." Chiheb Esseghaier

"I asked you: 'What are you going to do?' You said: 'I'm going to blow myself up.'" Ahmed Abassi

"[I have] a principle, the principle that America should be wiped off the face of the Earth! This is an immutable principle! Even if the Americans are listening to me, I don't care! From the bottom of my heart I tell you: Allah willing, I wish that it would be wiped off the face of the Earth." 
Ahmed Abassi

Wishing won't necessarily make it so. And thinking and dreaming and believing something nasty doesn't necessarily make a criminal of the mind that entertains such thoughts. Many people all over the world hate the United States; for that matter many people hate, detest, feel like threatening, wish for someone's destruction, but not many act on that emotional impulse. People cannot be found guilty of ill-wishing.

FBI wiretaps contained in a newly released FBI document spell out the link between a Canadian terrorism plot and al-Qaeda, suspected but no more, up until the present. The RCMP had stated that a conspiracy existed under "direction and guidance" of al-Qaeda affiliates situated in Iran. An undercover FBI officer stated one of the suspects arrested in Canada, Chiheb Esseghaier, had lived and trained with a man identified as Al-Masul.

There lie solid grounds, if proven in a court of law that sometimes people who harbour ill wishes will take steps to produce a physical result harmful to those they hate, and that clearly is a criminal offence for which there will be repercussions. Conspiring to commit a terrorist act represents grounds for prosecution which any country must undertake, to protect itself and its citizens from violence being perpetrated.

Al Masul, according to the FBI, had stated that he "was in direct contact with the Doctor". There is an Egyptian doctor whose name is Ayman Al-Zawahiri, the terrorist al-Qaeda member second in command to Osama bin Laden, and who after the death of the leader in Abbottabad, Pakistan by U.S. Navy SEALs, took his place. The FBI document refers to him as "Anwar Al-Zawahiri".

And it would appear that it was Al-Masul who had given "instructions" to Mr. Esseghaier, a doctoral medical engineering student in Montreal, now in prison, awaiting trial in the new year along with his accomplice, United Arab Emirates-born Toronto resident Palestinian Raed Jasser. The Arabic-language conversations between the men had been recorded by FBI investigators in March of 2013.

The document filed in U.S. District Court, New York, in advance of sentencing of Ahmed Abassi, another Tunisian who had met Mr. Esseghaier while studying in Quebec, who has pleaded guilty to U.S. immigration violations. Mr. Abassi, confoundingly wasn't charged with terrorism, but Mr. Esseghaier and Mr. Jasser have been, their trial to take place next year in Toronto, Mr. Esseghaier adamant that he will defend himself under Koranic law.

Suspect one: Chiheb Esseghaier, one of two suspects accused of plotting with al-Qaida in Iran to derail a train in Canada, arrives at Buttonville Airport just north of Toronto, on Tuesday, April 23, 2013

It is known that Mr. Esseghaier had travelled to Zahedan in eastern Iran, a gateway for extremists on their way to Afghanistan. In Iran he took training in jihad before returning to Canada. In September of 2012 the two, Esseghaier and Jasser, scoped out the New York to Toronto Maple Leaf train crossing trestle bridge spanning Jordan Harbour at Jordan Station, Ontario with a view to blowing it or a train up with massive casualties.

Mr. Esseghaier had attempted to recruit Abassi to commit to a bomb-making training course in Iran: "So I proposed to him a training, but he said I am not ready", stated Mr. Esseghaier in a transcript of conversations recorded by the FBI. In that same transcript the two men had argued over whether Mr. Esseghaier planned to become a suicide bomber.

After their discussion of committing to produce an incident that would be regarded in jihadi circles as "something big", such as planting a bomb on a bus, the FBI undercover officer had enquired: "Would that help Muslims?"
"It would help" was the response from Esseghaier.
"How?"
"It would help because you make pressure on them", he responded.

He was prepared to 'make pressure on them'. The destruction of a New York/Toronto train causing the deaths of travellers would do very well indeed to fulfil that purpose. And give Mr. Esseghaier reason to believe he had fulfilled his obligations as a pious Muslim.

Crisis Management

"To put it bluntly, it was never a major concern to me or to Moscow."
"It was never antagonistic or an aggressive intent to do something. To use a vulgar expression, we never fished."
"[Spying] is the game that every country is involved in [but Canada hasn't been of much interest for Russian espionage]."
"So you're not at the centre of our concern. There are other countries that are probably more tempting targets for our intelligence, like we are a more tempting target for their intelligence."
"Russia gained nothing whatsoever. If you ask your special services, they will say it was mostly their problem and not our adventure."
Russian Ambassador to Canada Georgiy Mamedov

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young   Georgiy Mamedov, Russian ambassador to Canada: there will be no intervention. Promise.

Ambassador Mamedov happens to be the dean of the diplomatic corps [senior] foreign diplomat in Canada, but he's now on his way, assigned elsewhere, as a seasoned representative of his country. He's the man who scoffed at reporters' questions several months back with respect to Russia's intentions over Ukraine, when he asserted with the authority that his position places in him that his country had no intention whatever of claiming Crimea and/or conspiring against the government in Kyiv, or mounting a military incursion into Ukraine.

"Whoever discusses rumours about Russian military intervention in Ukraine is committing an insult to the intellect of the Canadian public, full stop."

Nothing, it appears, fazes him. Calm and collected, he has a firm grip on relationships and knows intimately how the Kremlin will act and react. Intelligence that he keeps confined beyond the reach of inquisitive journalists, let alone his Canadian counterpart and in this manner he serves his country well as a loyal servant. His bland assertions tinged with cynical humour are meant to be taken with a grain of salt, and they most certainly are.

On the matter of espionage when a Canadian naval officer initiated contact with the embassy claiming he could deliver high-impact secret data to them for a fee, he is dismissive. Nothing ventured, nothing gained goes that old adage but in this case something was certainly ventured, gaining claims the ambassador, nothing whatever. Spurning the value of Canadian intelligence, which embarrassed Canada with its Five Eyes partners?

Or simply acknowledging that Jeffrey Delisle was incapable of delivering assets of any true value to Moscow? He was willing to betray his country's trust in him as a loyal Canadian in return for cash, and the relationship worked for him for awhile. In the final analysis what he gained was transitory and hardly worth the effort, as in all likelihood was the data he imparted to those who paid for his efforts to avail himself of cash in trade of honour.

On the other hand, in characterizing the affair as a distracting sideshow from the vastly more serious intelligence-sharing operations that is capable of ensuring countries remain safe from terrorist attacks and other threats, he's probably right. To a degree, that is. There is also the not-insignificant effect of principle, devotion to country and patriotic duty, all of it deliberately besmirched through the avails of a pathetic turncoat.

Securing High Value Data

"This is deadly for privacy, because invariably we're talking about defending public safety and security."
"Without privacy you cannot have freedom. What freedom means is you're free. Your stuff's not captured for potential use down the road, and linking back to you, and finding out what you were doing when and who you are connected to."
Ann Cavoukian, Ontario information and privacy commissioner

Fotolia    Canada's secret spy agency may have inadvertently spied on Canadians. Or maybe not. The records aren't complete enough to tell the agency's watchdog says.

 

Privacy, isn't that a quaint notion? At a time when people of all ages, occupations and interests are linked in to perfect strangers, offering information from the personal to the intimately private in public fora such as Twitter, and on social networking sites like Facebook and Linked In and any number of other such sites, we're still talking about privacy? People divulge extremely personal information and think little about the consequences of so doing.

If a privacy commissioner dedicated to maintaining privacy on behalf of the faceless public is so invested in her job and what it entails, perhaps she should turn her attention not to the federal security/intelligence agencies that have been formed and tasked to protect the public sphere, but to all those feckless individuals who simply cannot resist the appeal of casting a wide net to promote their unique individuality.

To protect the public's 'right to privacy', Ms. Cavoukian recommends an independent watchdog who would report directly to Parliament whose job would be to prevent privacy breaches embarked upon by the Communications Security Establishment Canada, the country's foreign spy agency. Which undertakes intercepts of phone and email transactions world wide. Much like the much-maligned American National Security Agency. Another protective intermediary between the public and those delegated to protect the public.

Most people, given the choice, and away from the hysteria of civil libertarians and those ascribing hostile and mendacious attributes inherent in those whose job it is to protect us, would willingly submit to those 'breaches' of privacy as a minor invasion with no threat to anyone, if to do otherwise would result in a terror cell gaining ground within the country, planning a deviously violent assault on government, its institutions and its citizens.

The argument advanced by Ms. Cavoukian that data could be assessed for security significance in the encryption stage (homomorphic encryption) while respecting individuals' right to privacy, built into the analytical tools, sounds harmless enough. As long as it doesn't have the unwanted effect of complicating and even restraining the intelligence agency from its primary purpose.

The solution to what upsets Ms. Cavoukian on behalf of the public however, does sound complicated and time-consuming.

Sometimes, in secret intelligence work time is of the essence, so how would that impact on the process? At the present time CSEC is overseen by an independent commissioner tasked to prevent the agency from spying on Canadians absent specific legal approval. There are exceptions when the minister of defence gives data-collection permission, as has been done over the last decades roughly on 80 occasions.

Employees of the Communications Security Establishment Canada agency will be moving into this state-of-the-art facility in Ottawa in 2014. It will contain the largest repository of Top Secret information in Canada. Photo: Postmedia News / Files
 
The commissioner, points out Ms. Cavoukian "is not an independent oversight agency. He reports to the minister of national defence, who is part of the government. He doesn't report to Parliament, which consists of all political parties. He reports directly to the head of the agency that he might be criticizing." Um, that didn't stop the Conservative-government-appointed Parliamentary Budget Officer, Kevin Page, from holding heels to the fire of his indignation.

As for "unauthorized surveillance", responds government, it remains "incidental" and rare. "The complexity of the global information infrastructure is such that it is not possible for CSEC to know ahead of time if a foreign target will communicate with a Canadian or person in Canada, or convey information about a Canadian."

On this topic, the government and its security agencies have an obligation that transcends individual privacy. And it behooves us to trust and give it the benefit of the doubt.

Opting Out to Link In To Quantum

"What's new here is the scale and the sophistication of the intelligence agency's ability to get into computers and networks to which no one has ever had access before. 
"Some of these capabilities have been around for a while, but the combination of learning how to penetrate systems to insert software and learning how to do that using radio frequencies has given the U.S. a window it's never had before."
James Andrew Lewis, cyber-security expert, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington

 

"How do you ensure that Cyber Command people [are able to look at] those that are attacking us? That is what the submarines do all the time. They track the adversary submarines. [Precisely what in cyberspace the U.S. does] to silently track the adversaries while they're trying to silently track you."
Senior (unnamed) U.S. official

Back in February of 2013 when the United States was publicly excoriating Beijing for its presumed cyberattacks on American military and industrial sites, Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng accused overseas computer hackers of targeting two of China's official Defence websites an average of 144,000 times each month in 2012.

AP / Kyodo News filesIn this Feb. 20, 2013 photo, the building housing “Unit 61398” of the People’s Liberation Army is seen in the outskirts of Shanghai. For state-backed cyberspies such as the Chinese military unit implicated by a U.S. security firm in a computer crime wave, hacking foreign companies can produce high-value secrets ranging from details on oil fields to advanced manufacturing technology.

Two thirds of those attacks, according to the Chinese, originated in the United States. Who, us? Beijing's countercharges arose out of U.S.  cybersecurity company Mandiant's claims that Chinese military-backed cyberspies infiltrated overseas networks to steal massive data from American companies and other entities. China denied its military has ever supported hacking.

It has now been revealed to the public eye that the American National Security Agency implanted software in 100,000 computers across the globe allowing the U.S. to conduct surveillance and also enabling it to create a digital highway from which it can launch cyber attacks. Most of the software was put in place through access to computer networks, but the NSA has also made use of a secret technology enabling it to enter and alter data in computers even when they aren't connected to the Internet.

Now that's amazing, in a sinister kind of way, isn't it? But it's a technology in use since 2008, relying on a covert channel of radio waves that can be transmitted from minuscule circuit boards and USB cards stealthily inserted into computers. Then forwarded to a small relay station that intelligence agents can set up kilometres from the target. Computer security impervious to cyber attack? Not if the NSA has anything to say about it. Strike before you're struck. Proactive cyberwar.

This is all misunderstood, needless to say. A country must defend itself through a reliable security network, and this is precisely what the United States is doing. Amusingly enough, the technology has been in active use since the election to the presidency of the country of a dove, a socialist-minded democrat swept to power in a promise of the 'audacity of hope', promises of equality and a brighter future not only for his country but the international community. It earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.

The Quantum program, since that's what it has been named, succeeded in inserting software into Russian military networks and systems used by the Mexican police and drug cartels, trade institutions inside the European Union, and 'partners against terrorism' like Saudi Arabia, India and Pakistan. NSA insists it has never, would never, use its investigative powers to appropriate industrial secrets to empower American corporations.

That, it declares emphatically is what China does, and its actions relating to the Quantum program are not to be compared with China's. Check the Internet to determine the number of American companies hawking solutions to ridding computers of NSA malware, and the complaints lodged online by panicked Americans.

Universal Heroism

"The reality is that I have acted at great personal risk to help the public of the world, regardless of whether that public is American, European, or Asian."
"These nations, including Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador have my gratitude and respect, for being the first to stand against human rights violations carried out by the powerful."
Edward Snowden, former contract worker with the U.S. National Intelligence Service

Edward Snowden photographed in Moscow, Russia December, 2013. (Photo by Barton Gellman for The Washington Post)

President Barack Obama is being called on to consider granting Edward Snowden "some form of clemency" in recognition of the "great service" he has done for his country. Certainly Edward Snowden agrees that he put himself out on a fragile limb to expose what he considers to be human rights offences of invasion of privacy against Americans, and foreign governments. For having the courage to expose the United States of America for its demonic infiltration into peoples' privacy.

And expressing his sincere and unabridged gratitude to the kindly auspices of other countries who in their rigorous observation of the niceties of human rights imperatives have recognized in him, Edward Snowden, a hero for these parlous times of Internet spying, cyberspace invasion and communications interception making the world a far more dangerous place for the governments and peoples of Russia, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Ecuador.

The wonder of it all is that the United Nations has somehow held back on offering Edward Snowden an executive position in its own vast communications system to ensure that no untoward underhanded surveillance carried out by that bastion of democracy-crushing imperialism that once employed him, infiltrates that hallowed institution courageously dedicated to human rights protection.

Edward Snowden harboured such an amazingly low opinion of his country and its national security apparatus, scornful of its paranoia of terrorist activities unkindly aimed toward its citizens and its institutions that he deliberately set out to scupper its relations with friend and foe alike. And then sought refuge first in China, then in Russia, as his considered first choices for asylum from the anticipated and unfair arm of American justice that would seek him out.

Long may he live in China or Russia.

Then he entertained the world's press by accounts of his prowess in pursuing a course of action undertaken in defiance of loyalty to the nation that bred, sheltered and entitled him.  The plan was carefully laid and carried out to achieve the end he had targeted. Gaining employment with Booz Allen Hamilton which garnered him a position with the NSA as a contractor to give him "access to lists of machines all over the world [that] the NSA hacked".

Three months of his unstinting attention, machinations and malevolently intrusive labour were sufficient to achieve that goal. Gaining access to his notorious cache of documents by convincing 20 to 25 of his fellow employees to share their logins and passwords with him to aid him in 'managing his job' as systems administrator. Effectively managing to ensure that all of those gulled into innocent alliance with his infiltration would be fired.

Estimates range from "tens of thousands" to over a million classified documents having been purloined by Edward Snowden under his very successful scheme at NSA's signals intelligence centre in Hawaii.  He began modestly, sharing some of his data with the Washington Post and Britain's The Guardian, but he has far grander and more far-reaching plans to achieve even greater celebrity, planning to release ever more data through an even wider distribution.

He achieved his goal of embarrassing his government, and revealing to the world at large the existence of classified documents demonstrating infidelity to trust of one's allies, to the great disgust of those same allies who may have known what was revealed, but had no wish for it to become public. Edward Snowden's megalomania, however, knows no bounds, and he is beyond gratified at the attention he has received, basking in the nomenclature of celebrity and hero and courageous.

The United States government is understandably invested in reclaiming its documents, illegally and immorally lifted by one of its very own. Who most certainly must know if he is a fraction as intelligent as he believes he is, that the very two countries he first relied upon to rescue him from his stupid folly have self-incriminating files of a far more all-encompassing nature than those of the NAS in reflection of one of the world's oldest preoccupations; spying on one's neighbours and enemies alike.

And? Give Us A Break!

"In the course of targeting foreign entities outside Canada in an interconnected and highly networked world, it is possible that we may incidentally intercept Canadian communications or information."
Revelatory statement published on the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSE) website.

Welcome to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service

This is the agency, Canada's foreign electronic intelligence organization, that works in very close collaboration with Canada's spy agency, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. They are in the business, as federal government agencies, of securing intelligence in aid of protecting the country internally and externally from exploitation or violence by sources intending to do harm.

The statement, according to a CSE spokesperson, represents an initial response to media attention that has focused on the organization, particularly in the wake of the disclosures by former American National Security Agency (NSA) contractor Edward Snowden who infamously and illegally lifted secret data and documentation, then fled the United States, claiming himself to be a loyal American distressed by the covert screening activities of his own country's spy and surveillance agency.

Those documents, released to newspapers in Britain and the U.S., have been incrementally and dramatically released for optimum impact, in essence betraying the trust placed in an American citizen acting as a professional IT contractor in security issues whose loyalty to his country's best interests most certainly is under question. But whom some in the United States claim to have acted as a patriot, guiding the U.S. to a better, finer place through his revelations.

He has himself found a better, finer place, having absconded with his treasure first to Hong Kong, then to Moscow, both countries considered to be less than stalwart supporters of American interests.
Both countries, China in particular and Russia bringing up the rear, conducting continual surveillance and control of their own populations, and engaging in cyber-surveillance of all other countries. They do this in their own best interests.

And surprise, most countries do, and always have, conducted secret intelligence programs of one kind or another to apprise themselves of the activities that may or will impact on their own. The domestic issue for many people, spurred on to grave indignation over agencies of their country's intelligence security apparatus capturing and storing millions of Internet users' online contacts -- metadata; through browsing history to email activity -- is anger.

Not necessarily outrage over someone in a trusted position absconding with privileged and highly secret data whose release could and most certainly has been deleterious to the country's interests -- and that of those countries being spied upon as well -- but at the very suggestion that their government has undertaken to exercise a covert protocol that might result in their personal data being collected and perused.

This, at a time of unrestrained, voluntary social online contact and personal revelations of a kind that should only be whispered behind closed doors to secure confidantes. Whipping up public reaction of dissatisfaction with 'betrayal' by government of the public's 'right to privacy' is an especial delight of newspapers. The indignation sells well, and the revelations are greedily gobbled up by people who take great pleasure in expressing their umbrage.

CSE has informed that it intends to post additional information about the manner in which it operates, in the coming months, "to share more information about our organization in as transparent a manner as possible while still respecting our security obligations", perhaps in the naive but very human and accommodating hope that by being as frank as possible they will succeed in forestalling public annoyance.

"It is no longer an adequate response to reproduce 'Surveillance Law 101' boilerplate summaries and to refuse to address the astonishing facts. The question is not whether CSEC and CSIS know the law. It is whether they followed it", thundered Craig Forcese, a leading scholar on national security law at the University of Ottawa, whom no one in the public may have ever been aware of, but now, will be.

We can be assured that Canadian courts are more than capable of assessing whether the two agencies have followed the law.

There are those others in the public, however, who likely view all of this rather askance. They place their trust in the actions of those professionals tasked and trained to do their jobs in support of national security. Should they be trusted less than those who conduct their scurrilous jobs of agitating for public irritation at revelations that aren't exactly earth-shattering?

The alternative, of course, is to believe that terrorists who aspire to infiltrate the peace and serenity of societies such as ours are to be trusted to do so in a civil manner. Most people would pass on that one. Kind of ridiculous, aren't we?

The Newly Powerful and The Meek

Russia and Vladimir Putin are making waves. Mr. Putin has overtaken U.S. President Barack Obama as Forbes's candidate for top spot of the world's most influential individual. Perhaps Mr. Obama might consider trading in his Nobel Peace prize for a bare-chested photograph of himself to wow the world. He most certainly has not fulfilled the world's expectations of that fresh new face with his fresh new ideas of hope and audacity.

ALEXEY NIKOLSKY / RIA NOVOSTI / KREMLIN POOL/EPA 

Mr. Putin, on the other hand, the autocratic ruler of a renascent, oil-rich Russia, has restored pride in the country's Communist past, charging and incarcerating his political opponents, imposing a rigid law-and-order schedule, growing personally immensely wealthy and building sumptuous mansions for himself, while America groans under dysfunctional government closing down in a grudge match between political parties each opposing the aspirations of the other.

While the United States of America reels over revelations of spying both internal and external by their National Security Agency, Moscow welcomed Edward Snowden with open arms, offering him the clemency of their forgiveness and giving him haven from extradition to the U.S. to stand before a court of law charged with disloyalty to his country. The charged emotions of betrayal emanate from furious European allies of the United States, disappointed that the NSA has snooped on them.

But last month at the St. Petersburg Group of 20 summit meeting foreign delegations were given lovely gifts from the Kremlin. USB pen drives capable of downloading sensitive data from laptops, cellphone rechargers capable of tapping into emails, text messages and cellphone calls. President of the European Council, Herman Van Rompuy is reputed to have been the first to raise suspicions about Russia spying on foreign powers, but where's the outrage, pray tell?

President Putin prevailed upon President Obama to pedal back from his 'red line' intention to march on Syria to rescue the millions of Syrian civilians who have become refugees, and restore their country to them, wrenching it from the bloody control of the tyrant who bombs and strafes his population but who cannot any longer commit atrocities with chemical weapons. That's the smilin' work of clever President Putin, and the accompanying loss of prestige for President Obama.

Is the Kremlin in any measure responsible for President Obama's administration playing nicey-nice with the Islamic Republic of Iran, or has President Obama decided that he might just as well make a full sweep of the Middle East, having alienated America's long-time allies there by dumping former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in favour of the Muslim Brotherhood's Mohammad Morsi, then damning the Egyptian military, and abandoning its alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia in favour of scowling Ayatollah Khamenei?

In 2008, researchers at the Citizen Lab of Toronto's Munk School of Global Affairs discovered that the Chinese version of Skype had been coded with a special surveillance system. That special coding sent data to China's security services in response to certain keyboarded key words. The server where the messages were stored was not password protected, giving access to millions of personal chats, credit card numbers, business transactions and a multitude of other private goodies.

Whatever happened to unique American enterprise?

A National Dilemma

"Our nation takes stopping terrorism as one of the most important things. And with that, when you think about it, how do you do that because we stand for freedom. ... And what tools should we have to stop those (terrorists)?
"Our job is defending this country, saving lives, supporting our troops in combat. It's our responsibility to provide the information that they need to survive (and) to go after the enemy."
General Keith Alexander, director, U.S. National Security Agency

General Alexander was speaking to skeptics at a convention in Las Vegas. The National Security Agency is on a recruiting and legitimization drive. And he has discovered that one hinges on the other. He cannot recruit without impressing on the skilled computer hackers who just love what they do, to hitch themselves to this national security instrument. The Agency has suffered greatly, thanks to the decision by a man trusted not to disclose national security secrets.

That man is no longer answerable to his country's accusations of treason; Edward Snowden has found himself asylum within the bosom of the security apparatus of a country most likely to benefit hugely from that insider knowledge. The deep satisfaction felt at the Kremlin, and particularly within the patriotic bosom of Vladimir Putin who has been busy re-writing and bleaching Soviet history to a glorious period in the heritage of eastern Europe, must be enormous.

And rather ironic; a former KGB agent welcoming the appearance and the trade secrets of a nation with whom competition on the world stage has surrendered to detente in the wake of a long Cold War, and then stuttered back to a condition of guarded but fairly transparent political combativeness. A weakened world power needs the back-up assistance of its one-time nemesis to put out some raging fires consuming civilization in the Middle East and North Africa and Asia, and Russia isn't buying.

America the proud has become America the humble, stretching out an imploring hand of cooperation, reining in the belligerence of power, stumbling over its newly-emasculated self as its detractors become legion, and see weakness and surrender where conciliation is proffered. Suddenly, America's foreign phone and Internet surveillance program, PRISM, has been laid bare for its critics to peer within and find amusement and outrage in equal measure.

Internally it is little better with Edward Snowden and Bradley Manning conflicting the public with praise on the one hand as courageous, self-sacrificing whistle-blowers, and on the other condemnation as patriotism's sell-outs, their inside track on surveillance exposed to anyone who can read or hear or use a mouse, confirming them as outright traitors. Surveillance warrants linked to terrorist investigation is being inextricably wound up with spying on innocent civilians.

"It is very, very difficult to have a transparent debate about secret programs approved by a secret court issuing secret court orders based on secret interpretations of the law", commented Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico at a senate hearing into the NSA's domestic surveillance.

"So when you look at this, this is not us doing something under the covers. This is what we are doing on behalf of all of us for the good of this country", explained National Security Agency director General Keith Alexander.

Wasn't an intercept between two al-Qaeda figures just recently responsible for alerting the United States to an imminent attack, attacks, series of attacks, somewhere, anywhere, the alarming news being sufficient to alert all of the Western world to new jihadist attacks capable of coming out of anywhere, and nowhere at all?