Canadian Security Intelligence Service
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This is the most common use of CSIS. For other uses, see CSIS (disambiguation).
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was founded by an act of the Canadian Parliament, Bill C-9, "an Act to Establish the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS)" to be a replacement for the floundering RCMP Security Service. The creation of CSIS was a recommendation of the McDonald Commission which advised removing responsibility for intelligence from the RCMP, which is Canada's federal police service.
CSIS's mission statement is as follows: "The people of CSIS are dedicated to the protection of Canada's national security interests and the safety of Canadians". Per this statement CSIS does not have an active foreign intelligence department, but solely acts as a kind of "internal security" to protect Canada from internal and external threats. CSIS officers and surveillance personnel may still sometimes work outside of Canada's borders to attempt to counter threats to the country.
Some of the tasks included in this mission, known as Operational Programs include:
- Counter-terrorism
- Counter-proliferation (eg. preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction)
- Counter-intelligence
- Security-screening
- Research, Analysis and Production (eg. creating strategy for the implementation of the Operational Programs)
- Environmental scanning (eg. monitoring the global flow of information, see also: Echelon)
- Facing Technological Challenges
CSIS works closely with the intelligence agencies of the United States, Britain, and Australia. Under the post-WWII Quadpartite Pact all intelligence information is shared between the intelligence agencies of these four countries. While largely relying on information gathered by other countries, CSIS performs its own analyses.
CSIS has come under repeated criticism for some highly publicized failures, such as the apparent fumbling of the investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing and the theft of classified documents from the car of a CSIS agent at a Toronto Maple Leafs hockey game. CSIS scored a great success in 2003, when unlike those of its allies, it determined that Iraq likely was not a threat.
Oversight
The actitivies of CSIS are regularly reviewed on behalf of Parliament by the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC).
CSIS may also be referred to by its French name: Service canadien du renseignement de sécurité (SCRS).
External link
- Official website of CSIS (http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca)fr:Service canadien de renseignements de sécurité