Monday, July 5, 2010

Canada's top spy: Nothing to apologize for

In testimony today before the House Public Safety Committee, CSIS chief Richard Fadden refused to back down from his surprising declaration a couple of weeks back that foreign governments have infiltrated local and provincial governments.

While I question why he went public while the base of his assertions were still being assessed, I don't think he should apologize or resign for doing his job.   Sure, there's a lot to be concerned about, especially if one doesn't want an entire ethnicity to be sullied.   Matter of fact, that's one of the reasons why espionage was stripped from the Mounties in the early 1980s when CSIS was created -- to provide an impartial analysis and operations unit that could perform counterintelligence competently and credibly.

But frankly, he was just stating the obvious ... that there are foreign governments who want to topple our own by any means necessary, starting with subterfuge.   And as to why one would start at the local and provincial levels, it's simply because that's where a lot of the meat and potatoes of government operates within Canada.

Discretion might have been better advised on Fadden's part.   But politicians from all parties need to wake up, and either fight the real enemies within or be prepared to spend billions more of our hard-earned money to fund retaliatory measures.   This includes but is not limited to fighting identity theft before it even happens, especially using the name of dead people.   But such counterintelligence can also be done without violating basic human rights which our enemies have never and will never respect.

The Cold War never really ended, it's just the combatants and the reasons for the hostility changed.

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2 comments:

Vindicator said...

I haven't heard Mr Fadden say anything about ethnicity -- but I'd say that if he wants to go public with these kinds of accusations, he needs to provide some evidence to back them.

The sooner, the better.

Anonymous said...

Fadden did tacitly agree during the CBC interview that it was at least partly China they were most worried about (I saw it). But they're not trying to "topple" the gov't[s] [what, in favour of a communist one?!]. THat's nonesence. Fadden & the other intelligence folks made it clear that these are economic issues they're concerned about; that they're seeking things like more favourable trade deals, or the inside track on investment opp's.