Canada: arrest of ex-head of intelligence shocks experts and alarms allies

[brooklynite]

Source: The Guardian

Canada and its allies are scrambling to assess the damage inflicted by what experts believe could be the largest security breach in the country’s history after a senior federal intelligence official was arrested on charges of stealing covert information.

Following a lengthy investigation by the Royal Canadian Mounted police, Cameron Ortis – the leader of the police force’s own intelligence unit – was charged on Friday with leaking or offering to share covert information.

On Monday, the RCMP commissioner, Brenda Lucki, acknowledged that Ortis, 47, had access to intelligence from both domestic and international allies.

Lucki did not say which foreign organizations may have been exposed by Ortis, but Canada – alongside the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia – is part of an intelligence-sharing alliance known as the Five Eyes, in which certain investigations have a large degree of overlap between countries.

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/16/concern-mounts-after-canadas-ex-head-of-intelligence-accused-of-leaking

[Fan of Da Bearse]

1. From the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation itself

Secrets in hands of alleged RCMP spy would cause 'devastating' damage to Canada, allies: documents

The cache of classified intelligence material an RCMP official was allegedly preparing to share with a foreign entity or terrorist organization is so vital to Canada's national security that the country's intelligence agencies say its misuse strikes at the heart of Canada's sovereignty and security, documents seen by CBC News reveal.

According to an assessment by the Communications Security Establishment, Canada's cybersecurity agency, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Cameron Ortis, the director general of the RCMP's national intelligence co-ordination centre, had material that, if released, would cause a "HIGH"—in all caps— degree of damage to Canada and its allies.

"Analysis of the contents of the reports could reasonably lead a foreign intelligence agency to draw significant conclusions about allied and Canadian intelligence targets, techniques, methods and capabilities," the documents said.

"This type of information is among the most highly protected of national security assets, by any government standard and goes to the heart of Canada's sovereignty and security." The documents say that the possible dissemination of the documents would threaten Canada's relations with its allies.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/ortis-cse-csis-documents-devistating-1.5285970

There is such a thing as being too trusting.

[discntnt_irny_srcsm]

2. Five eyes is...

...the surveillance and reconnaissance version of extraordinary rendition. Government agencies aren't allowed conduct random domestic surveillance and reconnaissance but they can let another country do it and share the intel.

[malthaussen]

3. Somewhere, Philby and Burgess are smiling. n/t

[Marcuse]

4. They know everything anyway