Communications Security Establishment

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The CSE badge.

The Communications Security Establishment (CSE) is an intelligence agency of the Canadian government, charged with the duty of keeping track of foreign signals intelligence. Part of the Department of National Defence, CSE is forbidden, by law, to intercept domestic communications. When intercepting communications between a domestic and foreign source, the domestic communications are destroyed or otherwise ignored (however, after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the CSE's powers expanded to allow the interception of foreign communications that begin or end in Canada, as long as the other party is outside the border). CSE is bound by all Canadian Laws, including the Criminal Code, the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Privacy Act.

Under the 1948 UKUSA agreement, CSE's intelligence is shared with the United States National Security Agency (NSA), the British Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD) and New Zealand's Government Communications Security Bureau. Along with these services from the United States, the UK and Australia, CSE is believed to form the ECHELON system.

CSE was established in 1946 as the Communications Branch of the National Research Council, and was transferred to the Department of National Defence (Canada) in 1975 by Order-in-Council. CSE is accountable to the Minister of National Defence through two Deputy Ministers, one of whom is responsible for Administration, the other Policy and Operations. The Minister of National Defence is in turn accountable to the Cabinet and Parliament.

The CSE and the information it gathered and shared was secret for 34 years, when the CBC program the fifth estate did a story on the organization, resulting in an outcry in the Canadian House of Commons and an admission by the Canadian government that the organization existed. The CSE is now publicly known, and it occupies the well-known Edward Drake Building in Ottawa.

During the Cold War, CSE was primarily responsible for providing SIGINT data to the Department of National Defence regarding the military operations of the Soviet Union. Since then, CSE has diversified and now is the primary Sigint Resource in Canada. CSE provides technical advice, guidance and services to the Government of Canada to maintain the security of its information and information infrastructures.

There has been some criticism over the years of the CSE. A former employee of the organization, Mike Frost, claimed in a 1994 book, Spyworld, that the agency eavesdropped on Margaret Trudeau to find out if she smoked marijuana and that the CSE monitored two of former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher's dissenting cabinet ministers in London on behalf of Britain's secret service.