No. There's the historical context; that is, the Federal Court cases that are the genesis of this bill have dealt with extraterritorial surveillance. But of course the CSIS mandate in section 12 is not confined to surveillance, covert or otherwise.
Of course, we do have instances where CSIS members have gone abroad to conduct interrogations. The most notorious example of that is at Guantanamo Bay with Omar Khadr. Presumably, in conducting that interrogation, they were acting within their section 12 mandate.
The issue, in my view, is what sort of supervision might there be in a context above and beyond surveillance for overseas activities. I think if we're talking about CSIS conducting interrogations overseas, the constitutional issues are potentially dramatically different in the sense that it's no longer a question of section 8 of the charter anymore; now it's a question of section 7, the very provision that was at issue in the Khadr case.
That's one reason, just to refer back to the comments about clarifying language, that I would hope the committee might consider including very specific language indicating that in every circumstance where the conduct of CSIS “may” infringe international law or foreign law, there be an obligation first to go and get this warrant. So it's not confined simply to overseas surveillance but every form of CSIS operation. Presumably at that point it's subject then to direct oversight by a court, that can presumably then impose conditions on the nature of whatever overseas operation might be involved, including, presumptively, interrogation.