Umm... CSIS?

Some Conservative is really going to need to explain this to me: In announcing his new law and order package, Stephen Harper is proposing a bunch of stuff (some good, some bad) but the one that confuses me is this one: Expanding CSIS's mandate to allow foreign espionage?

Leaving aside for a moment whether you think that is actually a good idea, what the hell does this have to do with anything? It's like saying you're going to combat shoplifting by purchasing Abrams tanks, and you're going to eliminate speeding on the 401 with the purchase of B2 bombers.

The only reasonable explanation for this, to me, is that Harper has succumbed to the cult of Tom Clancy, and finds it inconceivable that Canada doesn't have a covert foreign human intelligence service. I use specifically those words for a reason. Canada has it's own version of the NSA, for example - the CSE. CSE has a long history of listening in to foreign intelligence. But Harper - or at least his advisors - seems to think that somehow Canada needs this. We don't.

As it happens, I happened to take a class last term (in which I got an A, thank you) on intelligence-gathering, taught by a veteran of Canada's Foreign Affairs department. It was his opinion that Canada gets more good intelligence for its money without a covert HUMINT service, for a number of reasons:

1) Canada is party to a number of agreements, which give us access to allied nations' intelligence. Most of these nations already have covert HUMINT services, so there's a high risk of duplication. Indeed, a great deal of duplication already exists.

2) Depending on who you ask, 85-95% of intelligence is already available from open source materials. Most of the rest can be acquired without a covert service, something Canada already does. (Essentially, we go up to people and ask. Seriously. It works.)

3) Not to put too fine a point on it, Canada has some really bad luck with attempts at covert intelligence. Our best successes - and we've had some big ones - have been in analysis, not intelligence gathering.

Nevermind the civil liberty implications. Canada has a foreign intelligence capacity, and we've got some excellent analyts. What we don't need is for CSIS to be given broad new powers. And if you think that sounds alarmist, please please please read the history of the RCMP, the FBI, and the CIA, not to mention the present of the NSA.