Canada has had a difficult time playing a double role — a staunch military ally and North Atlantic Treaty Organization partner of the United States but also a country that has sought, at least since the end of the Second World War, to promote peace, human rights and global cooperation through the United Nations. The events of 9/11 did much to change that. You have to survive in order to enjoy freedom, the proponents of security-first argue. Even before 9/11, Canada was an integral part of the Western intelligence-gathering system, and 9/11 has only increased that role. That Canada has thwarted some terrorist plots and has remained secure underlines its emphasis on security. Canadian security agencies were wary, in the past, of Soviet agents or of North Americans recruited by the Communists. Since 9/11 they see the threat coming from civil rights activists, Aboriginals, radicals and Muslims. Most of them are Canadian citizens, though some might be students or immigrants. So it is that the latest eavesdropping revelations, though chilling to those who value human rights and dignity, have been greeted by Canadians as inconvenient rather than a major threat to their freedom and dignity. The Washington Post and Britain's Guardian newspaper produced the sensational reports of the US National Security Agency obtaining access, years ago, to Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Yahoo and other US internet companies in order to spy on Americans on a massive scale. Canadians are also being subjected to large-scale spying, given the cooperation between Canadian and American security agencies. Canada has been a partner, for decades of a Western network that collects and shares intelligence. The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) maintains that it does not spy on Canadians in Canada. It is hard to believe this assertion. The agency has an annual budget of more than $400 million and employs thousands of people. It works in close cooperation with Canadian security agencies, such as the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, the Canada Border Service Agency and the Department of National Defense. Canadians know that Canadian citizen Maher Arar was arrested and tortured in his native Syria, where he had gone on a family visit, because of false information provided to the Syrians by Canadian agencies about his being a potential terrorist threat. Arar was released following a huge public uproar in Canada. A judicial inquiry in 2008 found him to be innocent. He sued the Canadian government and received some ten million dollars in compensation. Three other Canadians of Arab origin have sued the federal government for their being arrested and tortured on visits to the Middle East because of wrong information provided to those countries by Canadian agencies about their being terror suspects. Their cases are crawling along in the court system at a snail's pace, partly because of Canadian government obstructionism. Canada has been far more prudent than the US. The Obama administration has hounded journalists for the source of their reports, it has been spying through the phone and by digital means on Americans, and it has been using drones to attack people in foreign countries — mostly Pakistan and Yemen - whom it suspects of being linked to Al-Qaeda. It has also gone after soldier Bradley Manning, who is accused of providing material to WikiLeaks, and former CIA employee Edward Snowden, who blew the whistle on large-scale American spying. Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay has assured Parliament that the CSE, the signals intelligence agency, is not prying into the private discussions and messages of Canadians. But Federal Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has expressed concerns about the data spying. Retired Justice Robert Decary, the Commissioner for the Communications Security Establishment Canada, which monitors CSE's activities, has urged the government to be more transparent about such activities. Their concern is not so much about the spying itself but about the lack of oversight by Parliament of the government's activities that violates the privacy of innocent citizens. It is terrifying because, as the cases of the four Arab-Canadians showed, the security agencies have not been meticulous in determining who is or might be a potential threat. Rather, assumptions are made about that person without reliable evidence. No one has clearly defined what makes a person an Al-Qaeda suspect or an Islamist. The terms are used vaguely. Anyone critical of destructive US policies could be termed an Al-Qaeda sympathizer, supporter or member and could be targeted. In Pakistan, wedding parties, funerals and mosque-goers have been subjected to drone attacks on suspicion of being connected to Al-Qaeda. An Islamist is also hard to pinpoint. They are loosely defined as trying to impose Shariah, planning to destroy the West, impose Islam by force on others, or hating the West. Some even define these people as jealous of the success of the West. Muslims in North America are under suspicion. Muslims are not the only ones. A huge number of other innocent Canadians are being spied on in the name of security. For precisely this reason there is no visible indignation on the part of the Canadian public over the loss of their privacy. They want safety first.
— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge
