This penultimate day of the first week of public hearings of the FI Commission was different from the preceding three days. The difference was that today’s panel featured current senior officials from the Canadian intelligence community, who were before the Commission as “fact” witnesses and had to swear an oath. The panel consisted of Dan Rogers, who serves as the Deputy National Security and Intelligence Adviser at PCO, David Vigneault, the Director of CSIS, and Alia Tayyeb, the Deputy Chief of CSE for signals intelligence. Curiously, there was no senior official present to represent the RCMP and its national security function.
The panelist’s remit was limited to the week’s mandated discussion of national security confidentiality—the question of classified information and how it can be treated by the Commission. The panelists will likely appear again before the committee when it gets down to substantive work on foreign interference issues. The next public hearings, to be devoted to the first phase of the Committee’s mandate, on foreign interference attempts in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections, are set for the end of March.
The first 45 minutes or so of Q and A with the panelists covered some basic ground concerning the mandates and authorities of the departments and agencies they represent.
Things got more interesting when counsel’s questions shifted to the nature of intelligence products produced by CSIS, CSE and PCO. Basically, intelligence reports are diverse in nature and diverse in terms of their audience. Both CSIS and CSE produce intelligence reports based on raw intelligence which are designed for government clients with the appropriate security clearance and a “need to know.”
CSIS also produces analytical reports based on multiple collection sources. The distribution of these analytical products may be wider than that for raw intelligence. In explaining the production of analytical reports by CSIS, David Vigneault did not specifically mention the CSIS Intelligence Assessment Branch. Its reporting should very much be on the radar screen of the FI Commission (something that was missed by POEC).
CSE is a little different in terms of analytical reporting. As Alia Tayyeb noted for the Commission, CSE, unlike CSIS, does not produce all-source intelligence and mostly focuses on writing reports using its raw SIGINT product, which can be highly detailed. It does, on occasion, produce analytical summaries at a higher level, basically to assist clients who want an overview of the SIGINT material, but don’t need to dive into all the details.
Then both CSIS and CSE produce a variety of public reports. Both CSE and CSIS produce annual public reports which touch on the foreign interference threat. CSE produces a public report on cyber threats to democratic processes; CSIS publishes a document called “Foreign Interference Threats to Canada’s Democratic Processes.” The current version of that public report dates back to July 2021.
There was also some discussion of the art of classification. Counsel asked the witnesses who puts the security markings (classification level) on documents. Answer—it depends on who produces them. If it’s a report from a third party, an ally producer will determine the level of classification. If it is a Canadian government-produced report, the classification level will be determined by the report writer. Here, the Commissioner made her first intervention with a question to clarify whether the general practice is to classify a document according to the highest level of security marked intelligence referenced in the report. Answer—generally yes. Editorial comment--this is one way in which intelligence gets over-classified.
After a break, tidal interest rose a little higher. Commission counsel Gordon Cameron asked the panelists to give a summary from the Institutional report prepared (but not yet available on the Commission website) as to how the agencies will respond to requests from the Commission for access to intelligence reports. Panelists explained that a process (“bespoke,” like in expensive tailoring) had been custom-built for the Commission and involves considerable resources. There is a hierarchy of effort within the departments and agencies, and ultimately the sign-off on release of classified intelligence resides with deputy ministers. Dan Rogers reassured the Commission that the process will be a non-political one.
Then, we Commission watchers learned of an interesting experiment in play, in which the Commission stuck its toe in the vast pool of classified intelligence to see how the Government will respond to requests. This experiment involved the submission of 13 documents. The Government came back with redacted versions and an associated rationale, an effort that took 200 person hours to work through redactions of 13 records of a few pages each! Yikes!
As the senior officials on the panel indicated, part of the challenge is that intelligence documents are meant for a classified readership with a need to know—they were not meant for public release. David Vigneault pointed to the public reporting that CSIS and CSE produces and was clearly implying that one path forward might involve, in addition to reliance on already public reports, the production of summaries of classified records. These could be shared with the Commission and the public fully, as opposed to a laborious practice of line-by-line redaction of highly-classified reports.
The Commission looked at some of the results of this experiment, which ranged from documents that would be unredacted, through those completely redacted, to those with only partial redactions. The extent and nature of the redactions, as the CSIS Director points out, does not necessary rely on the original security classification applied to the record. What does apply are judgements about harm to Canada’s national interest.
Commission Counsel asked about the balancing equation with regard to the public interest, as classified records are scrutinised for declassification. Dan Rogers fielded this by saying that there will always be information that will need to remain highly classified in the public good, but that public servants will try to be innovative in finding and suggesting ways to bring out secret documents for the Commission. (The word “lift” seems to be in favour at the Commission).
The public interest balancing will involve, put another way, balancing what is in the public interest to know and what is in the public interest for the public not to know (because of harms to national security). It’s Solomonic in nature. Who is Solomon? Officials in the intelligence community, experts in national security harms, but not necessarily experts in public interest benefits.
So, what the public will learn will depend on the quality of the innovations mentioned by the panelists and the balancing philosophy of secret Solomons, as let untried on any scale in these circumstances. It’s the old game of the spirit and the flesh.
That was the full morning and I will push this out now. The afternoon will see the first round of cross-examination of witnesses (the panelists) by the parties with standing. Should be interesting.
A really useful insight into the process and content of intelligence and assessment reporting. Thank you.