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NSA spying on G8 and G20 Summits in Toronto was ’closely co-ordinated with the Canadian partner’ CSEC
28 November 2013
CRC—Edward Snowden associate Glenn Greenwald’s promise of a few weeks ago to publish additional material on Canada’s role in the ongoing NSA spying scandals was featured Wednesday in a CBC exclusive ’New Snowden docs show U.S. spied during G20 in Toronto.’ NSA spied on G20 leaders discussion on banking reform The CBC story, which was co-written by former Guardian reporter and Snowden confidant Glenn Greenwald, reveals that "the spying at the Toronto summit in 2010 fits a pattern of economic and political espionage by the powerful U.S. intelligence agency and its partners such as Canada. "That espionage was conducted to secure meeting sites and protect leaders against terrorist threats posed by al-Qaeda but also to forward the policy goals of the United States and Canada. "The G20 summit in Toronto had a lot on its agenda that would have been of acute interest to the NSA and Canada. "The world was still struggling to climb out of the great recession of 2008. Leaders were debating a wide array of possible measures including a global tax on banks, an idea strongly opposed by both the U.S. and Canadian governments. That notion was eventually scotched." The November 27 CBC exclusive was immediately picked up by major media around the world. The Globe&Mail quoted Carleton University professor Martin Rudner, an expert in security matters, who published an essay in 2000 saying that Canada’s agency, CSEC, has long been after secrets during multilateral meetings and trade negotiation. Rudner wrote that the CSEC “provided Canadian policy-makers and negotiators with economic intelligence pertaining to international trade negotiations, including the negotiations with Mexico on the North Atlantic Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) of 1994; the 1995 multilateral (“Uruguay Round”) trade negotiations; the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) Ministerial and Leaders’ meetings in Vancouver in 1997,” among other meetings. Russia Television (RT) reported : "The documents do not reveal targets of the espionage by the NSA - and possibly by its counterpart, the Communications Security Establishment of Canada (CSEC). The NSA briefing notes say the operation was ’closely co-ordinated with the Canadian partner.’ "Ultimately, the documents obtained by CBC do not give exact specifications of CSEC’s role, if any, in the Toronto spying...But the documents do spell out that CSEC’s cooperation in the venture was crucial to ensuring access to telecommunications systems needed to spy on targets during the summits." Several newspapers including The Times of India quoted a Canadian civil liberties group, OpenMedia.ca. "It’s ... clear this spying was aimed at supporting US policy goals during a highly contentious summit," executive director Steve Anderson said in a statement. "This is sure to cause huge damage to Canada’s relationships with our other G-20 partners." [GG] {} |