Special Report: CSIS and Globalisation
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), a domestic intelligence organisation under the authority of the federal Department of the Solicitor General, is responsible for collection, analyses, production, and dissemination of national security intelligence. It participates in information sharing with allied countries but does not independently conduct operations abroad.
What we have learned since the August 22 release of the CSIS report "Anti-Globalization - A Spreading Phenomenon," is that CSIS prefers piffling polemics to rigorous analysis. The CSIS tract is at best a highly inflammatory document riddled with logical fallacies that would embarrass an undergraduate philosophy student.
Designed to alarm the political leadership to cough up new funding, CSIS argues the extremely shaky case that anarcho-racists could bring the OAS Summit to a halt in Quebec City in April 2001. One reason CSIS feels compelled to argue such nonsense is Ottawa's security funding parameters. Because of limited resources, Canadian funding decisions for security programs (anti-terrorism, organized crime, etc) are based on the likelihood of a specified event or activity actually taking place, not the country's overall vulnerability to civil disturbances. For example, because Canada rates the risk of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear terrorist attacks as low, the best the Canadian security bureaucracy could do was get approval for a policy initiative to strengthen the national counter-terrorism response capability. In other words, to snare new funds, CSIS must produce at least a "moderate threat" assessment related to a specific event.
This new report is also part of the ongoing struggle since at least 1993 by CSIS to define a role for itself in the field of economic intelligence, traditionally the domain of the Department of Finance and the RCMP.
Needless to say, the foreign affairs bureaucracy in Ottawa strives to keep the security force well away from policy making, and has largely succeeded over the years. The existence of coordination among various departments and the intelligence community through the interdepartmental committee on security and intelligence, and monitoring by the Security and Intelligence Coordinator within the Privy Council Office, has not proven to be an effective collegial forum.
"Decisions informed by the provision of economic intelligence range from determining whether to raise interest rates to the proper stance to take in contentious trade negotiations. This type of intelligence support to government decision-makers is generally accepted as a legitimate function of state intelligence services."
Commentary No. 59, Commercial Interests And Intelligence Services, Canadian Security Intelligence Service, July 1995
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Security reports usually go directly to top-level officials, who may not bother to question the intelligence product. This top-level access leads to situations in which the security force generates unchallenged positions on matters with which they have modest if any track record.
Since it is styled as an "open source" report on "anti-globalisation," one should immediately consider the sources CSIS used. As it turns out, of nineteen footnotes, sixteen originate from conservative publications, including the Globe and Mail, CNN, Reuters, the Ottawa Citizen, and the Calgary Herald. Of particular interest is the introduction on the first page of the document of claims made by the Sunday Times of London, regarding events alleged to have occurred at the time of the G-8 meeting in Cologne in early June 1999. The Sunday Times is given as the authoritative source of a claim that "at least 20 companies were subjected to more than 10,000 attacks by hackers" during the collateral London protest. Owned by Rupert Murdoch, the Sunday Times lacks credibility even amongst the tolerant London journalistic community.
A moment's reflection will be sufficient for most people to realize that cyberattacks of that magnitude exist only in Hollywood. Extremist groups have done very little so far in the field of cyberwar.
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ISSN 1492-7187, TRADE POLICY MONITOR, September 2000,
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