The Communications Security Establishment,
Canada's equivalent of the National Security
Agency (NSA) in the United States, was established
as the innocent sounding Examination Unit in June
of 1941. The Examination Unit was originally an
arm of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), and
secretly drew its funding through that agency. It
was headquartered in the house next to the then
Prime Minister's residence on Laurier Avenue in
Ottawa. The present day CSE operates from the Sir
Leonard Tilly building on Heron road, near the former CBC building
in Ottawa.
The Examination Unit was formed to establish
Canada's role in international signals
intelligence (SIGINT) during World War II. One of
the first people assigned to the Examination Unit
was Herbert Yardley. Yardley had worked for US
security agencies during the first World War, but
had been out of a job since the end of that
war. He had published a book, The American
Black Chamber, in 1931, which gave away
American secrets and greatly angered and annoyed
both the British and the Americans. As a result,
Yardley became a liability in the early years of
the Examination Unit, for neither the American or
British intelligence agencies would cooperate with
an agency that employed someone who had given away
state secrets. Since the Examination Unit needed
raw material to work on, and was only able to get
spotty coverage of Abwehr messages between Hamburg
and Nazi agents in South America from the Canadian
Army station at Rockcliffe, Bletchley Park was
asked to provide some raw material for the Unit to
work on. The British made it clear that they would
not cooperate with Canada until Yardley was
removed, so on November 22, 1941, Yardley was
dismissed by Lester B. Pearson, a diplomat who
would later become the Prime Minister of
Canada.
Yardly was succeeded by a man from Bletchley
Park, one Oliver Strachey. Strachey put the Unit
to work on Abwehr messages, which tended to
contain very specific orders and information;
highly valuable intelligence information. This
signals intelligence helped bring Canada into the
international intelligence game, a role that was
formally acknowledged by the 1947 UK/USA Security
Agreement and a 1948 bilateral agreement with the
United States.
The Examination Unit became the Communications
Branch of the NRC somewhere around 1945, and in
1975 it was renamed the Communications Security
Establishment and transfered to the Department of
National Defense (DND) by the Public Service
rearrangement and transfer of duties act. The
existence of the CSE was not publicly reveled
until 1983, although it was partly exposed by a
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC)
television program in 1974. By 1991, the CSE had
known monitoring stations in Argentia and
Gander Newfoundland, at Leitrim Canadian
Forces Station near Ottawa, at Massett Canadian
Forces Station in British Columbia, at Canadian
Forces Station Alert on Ellesmere Island, and
in Bermuda.
The CSE is known to keep a database of personal
information on foreigners and Canadians who are
suspected security risks. This database is exempt
under the federal Privacy Act, so individuals
cannot leverage that legislation to find out what
the CSE knows about them. Government officials
have repeatedly denied that the CSE monitors
domestic phone calls.
The CSE's mandate includes information
technology security (INFOSEC) and signals
intelligence (SIGINT). Under INFOSEC, the CSE
provides technical advice and guidance to the
federal government on aspects of
telecommunications and data processing security. In
its SIGINT role, the CSE works with the support of
the Canadian Forces Supplementary Radio System to
collect, study, and report foreign intelligence to
the federal government on foreign radio, radar,
and other electronic emissions.
References
J.L Granatstein and David Stafford, "Spy Wars:
Espionage and Canada from Gouzenko to Glasnost",
Key Porter Books, Toronto, 1990
Philip Rosen, "The Communications Security
Establishment - Canada's most secret intelligence
agency", Parliamentary Research Branch, Sept 1994, Ottawa,
http://dsp-psd.pwgsc.gc.ca/dsp-psd/Pilot/LoPBdP/BP/bp343-e.htm
CSE Website: http://www.cse.dnd.ca/