Two spy agencies, common threats, different tongues
How ASIO and CSIS differ in their efforts to address the public
The Director General of the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO), Mike Burgess, delivered an annual threat assessment in public from his headquarters building in Canberra on February 9, 2023. Burgess reflected at the outset of his speech on the growing trend among spy agencies to tell the story of national security threats in public. In Australia’s case he said the country was facing an “unprecedented challenge from espionage and foreign interference” and added that he doubted the country fully understands “the damage it can inflict on Australia’s security, democracy, sovereignty, economy and social fabric.”
He could, of course, have been speaking about Canada.
While the ASIO director began his statement reflecting on ongoing terrorism threats within Australia and further afield, he was clear that espionage and foreign interference were the two key threats of concern.
According to ASIO, the foreign interference threat has three dimensions: efforts to shape political and business decisions in favour of a foreign adversary; threats to diaspora communities; and the manipulation of messaging through foreign language media and community organisations. Of the three dimensions, ASIO highlights as a special concern efforts to penetrate and harm diaspora communities, including critics of foreign regimes. In ASIO’s experience, attempts to clandestinely collect data on dissidents even fed into kidnap and assassination plots.
Another warning note involved efforts by foreign actors to hack into media outlets, in what the ASIO Director General called a “concerted campaign.” The assessed intent of this campaign was to get early warning of relevant stories, identify sources, look for ways to shape reporting and identify possible insiders for recruitment or “elite capture.”
The insider threat across many sectors—government, business, academia, media--is clearly of growing concern for ASIO. ASIO’s language is scathing—calling attention to “lackeys,” including former military officers and pilots who sell their skills to foreign governments. ASIO describes such low lifes not as “top guns” but as “top tools.” Good on the Aussies.
Every country’s national security environment has unique features, but many of ASIO’s concerns have to be Canada’s as well, especially when it comes to such threats as foreign interference and espionage.
But the ASIO take is interesting for two reasons: for one it is current and very public. For another it views the foreign interference problem primarily through the lens of how it can harm diaspora communities. There is nothing more important about foreign interference than this, though it is a missing element in current Canadian media reporting involving leaks about Chinese foreign interference during elections.
Contrast the ASIO approach with that of Canada, and our counterpart security intelligence agency, CSIS. The most recent CSIS public report was issued a year ago and covered events during 2021. Its most recent report on foreign interference dates from July 2021. The CSIS Director, David Vigneault, has not made a public speech on national security threats since May 2022, when he visited the University of British Columbia.
The Service, of course, has not been sleeping since then, but it has been silent.
The CSIS 2021 public report extolled the service’s work on foreign interference threats and called attention to Chinese intelligence collection and asset recruitment against Canada but made no mention of any specific Chinese election interference campaigns. In terms of threats to diaspora communities it mentioned only the reported targeting of Iranian-Canadian families in the aftermath of the shoot-down by Iranian republican guard forces of the Ukrainian civilian airliner PS 752, with the loss of 85 Canadians.
CSIS’s earlier 2021 report on foreign interference does a good job of providing a basic description of the threat, but details, cases and named countries of concern are missing. ‘Foreign Interference 101’ is useful but not enough to really raise the level of national security literacy in Canada. As CSIS says in the conclusion of its report:
“Keeping Canada’s democratic institutions, political system, and democracy safe requires a national security-aware population. This means that all citizens need to know about the threats to Canada’s democracy and be equipped to protect themselves from foreign interference. We all have a role to play in protecting Canada’s democracy.”
To this, I say, hear-hear.
I also say CSIS and other national security agencies must do a better job of informing Canadians about national security threats in a timely manner. This has to go beyond 101 type statements. Let Australia’s greater openness and saltiness of language be a guide.
Peggy, thanks for writing. The US will always be the 'elephant' in our house. We just have to hope that it is, on the whole, a friendly beast. As to US interference, we have to distinguish between the overt activity--US media penetration, transnational political groupings (including right wing extremists) and the like--from covert interference. I would argue that Canadians need to be resilient to the overt forms but probably don't need to worry too much about the covert.
I wonder how much US interference in Canada is considered by CISIS . As a older person, born 1944, US interference in politics, economy etc appears blatant. As a country we seem to have become nearly blind to even considering this issue.