Members of the committee, thank you for holding these public consultations.
My name is Aaron Thaler. I'm going to focus my remarks today on two main points.
The first concerns the disruption powers authorized by Bill C-51. Bill C-51 is still in its original form, and the disturbing powers it authorizes are becoming entrenched despite the current government's promises to repeal its problematic elements.
Bill C-51 violates the charter. It also ignores the McDonald commission's recommendations to separate policing and intelligence work.
Under Bill C-51, CSIS can do anything to reduce threats to the broadly defined security of Canada, including violating any and every charter right. The only things CSIS can't do are cause death or bodily harm, violate sexual integrity, or willfully obstruct justice. That's a very concerning threshold. CSIS has already used its disruption powers nearly two dozen times, and without any meaningful oversight or accountability.
I have a pretty basic expectation of my government. When the government limits my rights or the rights of any other Canadian, I expect it to justify why those limitations are necessary. The current government has not provided a single reason as to why the disruption powers authorized by Bill C-51 are necessary.
If the current government wants to regain the trust of Canadians, I urge it to repeal Bill C-51 in full. These consultations are cold comfort to the Canadians who are engaged right now in lawful dissent and face crippling surveillance by CSIS.
The second point I want to express today, and I'll deal with it very quickly, concerns the activities of CSE, the Communications Security Establishment, Canada's intelligence agency.
CSE operates in secret, so we have to rely on American whistle-blowers to help us learn about a Canadian intelligence agency and how that Canadian intelligence agency impacts our privacy and security.
What do we know? We know that CSE engages in mass, warrantless surveillance of Canadians, collects troves of Canadian metadata, and sometimes shares that data illegally. We know that CSE worked with the NSA to undermine an encryption algorithm, relied upon by millions of Canadians for online security. We know that CSE hoards and stockpiles computer vulnerabilities, and in doing so, prioritizes their foreign intelligence capabilities over the digital security of ordinary Canadians.
Moving forward, I urge you to ensure that the intelligence activities of CSE rely on judicial, not ministerial, authorization, just like Joyce Murray proposed in Bill C-622.
Metadata has to be afforded strong privacy protections, and any oversight of CSE must evaluate the impact of foreign intelligence gathering on Canadian cybersecurity.
We are all foreigners to someone. When CSE does not afford any privacy protections to foreigners, the government is complicit in setting a dangerous precedent for other governments to spy on Canadians. We all rely upon computers for security. When CSE stockpiles computer vulnerabilities, the government is complicit in undermining the security of ordinary Canadians and encourages other governments to do the same.
In these national security discussions, let's move beyond the paralyzing discussion of how to respond to terrorism only. The sooner we do this, the sooner we'll realize that Bill C-51 is fatally flawed and that the powers of CSE need to be reined in.
Thank you.