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Speeches and Presentations
Speaking Notes for W.P.D. Elcock Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to the Vancouver Board of Trade
November 7, 2002
Introduction
- Thank you very much for inviting me to be here today. I would like to take the opportunity to talk about how we and others in the Government of
Canada are working to counter threats from terrorism.
- Over the last month or two, surrounding the first anniversary of the September 11th attacks, there has been considerable media coverage
devoted to the future of what is usually referred to as the war on terrorism.
- The media often cites September 11th last year as the beginning of that war. While the savage acts perpetrated by al-Qaeda operatives
in September 2001 might seem like the logical beginning of this struggle -- at least in the case of al-Qaeda -- this is a struggle which has been
going on for some years and in the case of al-Qaeda had been increasingly the focus of intelligence agencies around the world.
- What I would like to do today is to outline for you:
- the nature of the terrorist threat;
- the nature of the target – and when I refer to target I mean our target, that is, those individuals and organizations that may be
involved in supporting or carrying out terrorist activities; and
- the nature of the response.
- What I would like to do in the next few minutes is to talk about how the nature of the terrorist threat, particularly from al-Qaeda (although I
should note that al-Qaeda is not the only terrorist organization nor the only one that we target), defines the nature of the target. In turn, the kind
of target suggests the nature of the response.
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The Nature of the Threat
- In the absence of a major attack, some had advanced the view that the lack of another major terrorist attack since last year indicated that the
threat had diminished.
- The absence of another massive terrorist operation during the last year was, however, never a reliable indicator of a lack of focus or ability on
the part of al-Qaeda or other Sunni Islamic terrorist organizations. Al-Qaeda and its associated organizations have long been distinguished by their
careful planning and patience.
- Their network has not been destroyed by the war on terrorism. Aware of the world-wide attention to the war on terrorism, they were simply lying
low, trying to wait us out, hoping that we would lose focus and that public support for the war on terrorism would decline.
- Our view had been that they would strike again when they had an operation prepared and planned and believed that they could penetrate defences
somewhere around the world. Indeed, even before the recent attacks, there had been a number of smaller attacks which bore their trademark. They
operate not on our timetable, but on their own. The recent attacks in Bali, Kuwait and the Gulf confirm the truth of that reality.
- One must also remember that significant time elapsed between the bombings of the US embassies in East Africa, the bombing of the USS Cole in
Yemen, and the attacks of September 11th . It has not been particularly unusual for a year to elapse between attacks by groups linked to
al-Qaeda. Both the September 11 attacks and the bombings at the US embassies in East Africa are believed to have taken years to plan and execute.
- The important point here is that while the war on terrorism has, in our view, disrupted al-Qaeda, it remains willing and able to strike. As George
Tenet, the Director of the CIA, said recently in public testimony, there are indications that Sunni Islamic terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda plan to
strike against American and allied targets. Many al-Qaeda leaders are still at large and are working to reconstitute the organization and resume its
terrorist operations.
- Al-Qaeda remains a dangerous organization of international scope. Its amorphous structure, always one of its hallmarks, gives it a capacity to
rely on local resources, thus making it difficult to locate and neutralize. As well, it continues to receive support from extremist Sunni terrorist
groups or individuals around the world.
- With trained al-Qaeda activists now present in dozens of countries, their operations do not critically depend on the existence of a centralized
command structure and they can operate independently of each other.
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- Given the numbers of activists trained in Afghanistan throughout the 1990s, we have to assume that they will try to strike again, and we all have
seen the consequences of their success.
- As to the nature of the threat to Canadians, while we do not have the exposure of our neighbours to the south, and like them, we are likely
regarded as a hard target, Canadians have a number of things to fear from terrorism.
- Our proximity and close ties to the United States, the openness of our society for the movement of both people and money, and our multi-ethnic
population make our country one in which terrorists may seek to find a haven. While our situation in that respect is the same as for every other major
western democracy, these are elements we would prefer not to have in Canadian society. It is, therefore, our responsibility to do everything we can do
to prevent terrorists from finding a haven in Canada and, if by chance they do, to find them and deal appropriately with them.
- To emphasize the importance of doing that, if that is necessary, we only need to remember the long lines of trucks at the border in the days after
September 11th.
- As well, because of the close ties between our two countries, there are a number of American assets in Canada that could be targeted by
terrorists.
- Furthermore, our close friendship and support of the United States, including our participation in Afghanistan, could see Canada or Canadians
targeted for attack.
- Canadians should not, therefore, feel that we are insulated from terrorism, and we need to remain vigilant if we are to deal with the risks.
- To that end, prior to September 11, two-thirds of CSIS’s operational resources were already directed to our Counter Terrorism program. Also,
well prior to the events of September 11, Sunni Islamic terrorism was the major investigative focus of CSIS’s Counter Terrorism program, and it has
been for a number of years. To quote from the report of the Security Intelligence Review Committee – our review body – we have run an “aggressive
investigation” which is “a longstanding one and has grown steadily in scope and complexity since its inception.”
- The events of September 11 did not change our focus; they only served to intensify it.
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The Nature of the Target
- Having described the nature of the threat, let me describe the nature of the target, specifically here in Canada. Here again, when I say target, I
mean our targets, those individuals or groups that, as a Service, we investigate.
- You may have seen a newspaper article a few weeks ago that stated that CSIS is investigating approximately 50 organizational targets and 300
individual targets under our Counter Terrorism program. The headline read “... fewer terror suspects monitored post-9/11.”
- As I have said before, such numbers, however important they may be to a good newspaper story, are often less useful than they appear. On any given
day, our target numbers could vary considerably, in either direction, as we look at, or discard or acquire new or different targets. The numbers on
any given day, therefore, reveal little or nothing about our level of success or, indeed, the nature of the problem. Indeed, in fairness to the
journalist who wrote the article, he also quoted my comments from an earlier speech and noted that perhaps the decline in the number of targets meant
nothing at all.
- To give some context to the numbers, however, it is important to keep in mind that the number of people we are looking at in Canada is not large.
It is also important to understand that of the broad spectrum of groups or individuals that qualify as threats to the security of Canada in the sense
of our Act, few of those groups or individuals pose a threat of a direct terrorist attack in Canada or, indeed, to our closest neighbour, although
they may in some cases pose such a threat elsewhere in the world. Thirdly, one needs to keep in mind that the level of commitment and capacity of the
individuals of interest to us can vary widely. The goals of the hardcore terrorist will be very different from those on the fringes of the same group
who may be connected only by shared faith, ethnic origin, ideology or whatever other thread of association they have in common.
- Finally, when one is looking at a group or a network that is of concern internationally, and most of our targets fit into that category, the
targets here may be interesting in their own context, but absolutely crucial in the context of our ability to warn of a threat to another country or
another place.
- All of that said, most of the world’s terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, have adherents in Canada, as they do in every other western
democracy. Sunni Islamic terrorist organizations from Algeria, Egypt, Libya and Somalia also have sympathizers in Canada, and we are obliged to deal
with that reality.
- In the past, Sunni extremists in Canada have generally engaged in the recruitment of supporters, the acquisition, preparation and distribution of
false travel and identity documents, and the provision of logistical support for terrorism overseas.
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- Our efforts against such activities and further to the attempts by individuals like Ahmed Ressam to go to the next step and to try and use Canada
as a base for their operations, are crucial. Our government and Canadians expect no less, as do our allies, in the international effort against
terrorism.
- Sunni Islamic terrorism is, however, not an easy target to investigate.
- Most of CSIS’s more committed Sunni targets are products of the jihad. They have fought in the Holy War with the Arab Mujahedin in Afghanistan,
Bosnia and Chechnya, and have participated in Osama bin Laden’s terrorist training camps. Many of the people trained in those camps have since
dispersed widely into the international arena to an estimated 60 countries, including Canada. These facts can, indeed, be clues to start an
investigation.
- In al-Qaeda, however, the hierarchical organized structure that makes the investigation of many other terrorist organizations somewhat easier does
not exist. The informal network, highly decentralized and distributed, that characterizes al-Qaeda is fundamentally different from that of other
terrorist groups like the Tamil Tigers or, indeed, even a criminal organization like a Mafia family.
- The links between individuals or the groupings are therefore hard to find.
- The men recently arrested near Buffalo provide an example of the difficulty in identifying these targets. A recent New York Times article
described theirs as “underwhelming lives.” To most around them, there was nothing of which to be suspicious. One was even described in the article
as “a pillar of the neighbourhood, someone who constantly talks up the golden opportunities of American life.” The article notes that most of them
had no criminal records and those who did were for very minor crimes.
- However, US federal prosecutors allege that the six men arrested, along with two others who are still at large, are al-Qaeda operatives. According
to US court documents, two of the accused have admitted that the group attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in May and June 2001, and
that Osama bin Laden himself spoke to the trainees about jihad.
- According to the New York Times article, people in the neighbourhood realized that the men had caught the attention of the FBI soon after
returning home in the summer of 2001. The article also notes that interviews were conducted with some of the accused in July 2002. If the article is
correct, this means that the accused were under some form of investigation or surveillance for over a year before being arrested.
- Getting back to our situation, many of the Canada-based Sunni extremists are also well educated and highly computer literate. They take advantage
of encrypted e-mails, cell phones and satellite communications. All of their skills pose a real challenge for CSIS and, indeed, other intelligence
services around the world, as well as presaging the threat from those who will seek to use those skills as more than operational tools.
- They are also unlikely to expose themselves to investigation by participation in criminal endeavours. Indeed, contrary to what some believe, the
links between criminal groups and terrorists are, with some specific exceptions, rare, until the terrorist commits the terrorist act that makes him or
her a criminal. While some of Ahmed Ressam’s connections in Montreal were involved in credit card fraud and other small-time crimes to support
themselves and to assist their operations, the heightened vigilance on the part of authorities at all levels in North America in the wake of the US
attacks has reduced even further the likelihood of such petty criminal activity. Moreover, if such individuals have a larger plan, they will not
jeopardize it by engaging in petty crimes that would expose them to prosecution and visibility. Those involved in the events of September 11 appear to
have done nothing illegal until they moved to hijack the planes.
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Nature of the Response
- To quickly review what we know about the threat and the target:
- While there is currently no specific threat to Canada, Canada is not insulated from terrorism and, indeed, to take a lesson from Bali, threats
can escalate against all of us allied in the struggle against terrorism.
- Al-Qaeda remains a dangerous operation of international scope that will likely strike again when there is an operation prepared and the
opportunity occurs.
- The threat is international in nature.
- Our targets are very security conscious and operate in non-hierarchical, loosely affiliated entities that make them very difficult to
investigate.
- Since the increase in attention in Canada and elsewhere, the targets are even less likely than before to become involved with criminal activity
that would expose them to visibility and to prosecution.
- So what does all this imply about the nature of the appropriate response? Above all, it means that we have to be very flexible and that we can ill
afford to muddy the water ourselves in our investigations. We need to pursue our investigations very thoroughly, very carefully, and very patiently.
- It means that without a national focus and, indeed, an international focus to investigations, we would be blind. In that context, our ability to
directly link our international investigations, and information accrued from, relationships with other services around the world to our own national
investigations, is crucial. Similarly, our capacity to carry out centrally run national investigations on targets that may be associated – whether
one is in Halifax and the other is in Vancouver – leaves us well placed to deal with the threat. All of this is, when coupled to our ability to
manage the information collected, to make sense of it, to find the patterns – and our technical skills in that respect, as well as the
professionalism of the people working in CSIS, are as good as, and in most cases, better than most other services in the world – allow us to play
our part, whether in Canada or in association with our allies, in the war against terrorism.
- To canvass some of the ways in which people of concern will be dealt with when they are identified, some will be dealt with under Immigration
legislation. The first step is to keep people of concern out of Canada, something that happens on a regular basis without impinging on the public
conscious. To do that, we rely on our intelligence, whether derived in Canada or from operations abroad, and information shared by intelligence
services around the world with whom we have relationships. In addition, the Service is now screening all refugee claimants as they arrive in Canada.
As well, the new Immigration and Refugee Protection Act sets out a process that makes possible the use of classified information in dealing with
inadmissible refugee claimants who may come in the future, and some of those who are already here. The deportation provisions of that Act – held
over from the old Immigration Act – will also continue to allow the government to expel those who do not have Canadian citizenship.
- We have succeeded in expelling some 14 major terrorist targets under section 40.1 of the Immigration Act, now section 77 of the new Act. Each of
these cases was carefully selected because the individual was regarded as a threat. Those cases have drawn repeated legal challenges, but more
resources and a very solid body of successful jurisprudence should allow this option to be used more frequently.
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- In many cases, the freezing or seizing of assets or the denial of charitable status will be the appropriate course of action. Indeed, since
fundraising is one of the major preoccupations of some groups in Canada, it is likely to be a key to success in many cases. Again here, as is the case
under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, there are new processes, depending on which approach one uses, that should allow classified
information to be more effectively used.
- While disruption is low on our list of desirable outcomes for a number of reasons, it does have its time and place. There are instances in the
past where extensive interviews or other approaches have been carried out with targets of concern to try and disrupt any operation they might be
planning. Similar tactics may also be necessary in the future, particularly where there are serious warnings but not enough to justify any other
action.
- Let me make two points in respect of such action. First, the decision to undertake such action is frequently not simply a Canadian choice. As I
said at the beginning, not all the targets here are major targets, but they may be connected to others abroad who are. As a result, such action has to
be coordinated carefully with others. In such situations, we would all agree that unilateral action would be unwise to say the least. Secondly, such
action has to be very carefully considered where one is dealing with a sophisticated, highly motivated terrorist organization.
- One can quickly lose all one’s intelligence access and, therefore, any ability to monitor targets here and elsewhere. In respect of al-Qaeda in
particular, it is not always the individuals we know whom we worry about, but rather the individuals we may not yet have identified and who may only
be identified by their contact with known targets.
- Finally, we come to the anti-terrorism legislation that was passed by the government in response to the attacks on New York and Washington. Like
all legislation, it has had a preventative effect. I have said several times since the legislation was adopted that we could see the effect it was
having.
- Why? Because it draws clearer lines around the sort of behaviour that is unacceptable and helps to ensure that fewer people on the margins will
get caught up in the enforcement net by association alone.
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- In a society governed by respect for peoples’ rights, it is not difficult to know how to deal with the hard-core criminal or terrorist, and the
new law will assist, in particular, in the prosecution of hard-core terrorists. In addition, it should allow more effective use of classified
information to do so as the new provisions of the Canada Evidence Act are used by the courts. For those individuals in the grey zones between
hard-core perpetrators and mere sympathizers, the legislation helps to achieve the right balance by giving people clearer choices between the merest
sympathy and what is now criminal activity in support of terrorist aims.
- Another mechanism that Parliament chose in order to help ensure that sanctions are not applied too indiscriminately was the CSIS Act, which was
adopted more than 17 years prior to the attacks on New York and Washington.
- The CSIS Act created a security intelligence service which works within a process that is subject to review by two agencies, one reporting to the
Solicitor General, the other to Parliament.
- CSIS is not a law enforcement agency; it is an intelligence service. In 1984, the intelligence function in Canada was separated from the police
function because the two groups do very different, but essential things, and it was believed that using police powers for intelligence purposes could
and, in the view of some, had opened the door to abuse of those powers in the past.
- This approach was chosen by Parliament when the CSIS Act was passed and Canada’s counter-terrorism strategy was adopted. It has served well for
more than 17 years. It allowed CSIS to identify counter-terrorism as its number one post-Cold War resource priority. It allowed CSIS to identify Sunni
Islamic Extremism as our highest counter-terrorism target years prior to the September 11 attacks. It has provided a basis for us to acquire an
insight into the threat which has allowed us to provide substantive and substantial assistance to our allies.
- This approach has also enabled us to distinguish between people who are clearly associated with the threats and those who are merely caught up in
circumstances and events. It has enabled us to recommend deportation of individuals for reasons of national security, and it has allowed us to disrupt
activities that are potentially threatening but that do not yet cross the threshold of criminality.
- Equally important, it has also enabled us to assess and to turn our attention away from individuals who are not a threat to Canada’s national
security.
- These are just some of the reasons that CSIS has a central role to play in the war on terrorism. And we will continue to play that role, whether
by conducting security assessments for our immigration and citizenship process, by providing information that can lead to disruption of terrorist
fundraising activities or the seizing of assets by law enforcement authorities, or by coordinating our efforts with other intelligence agencies around
the world to ensure that we do the most effective job in disrupting and preventing terrorism and helping law enforcement to bring terrorists to
justice.
- In closing, I hope that I have given you a somewhat better appreciation for some of the challenges we are now facing and also preparing for in the
future. The terrorist threat is not going away for the foreseeable future, nor likely will some of the hurdles I have just spoken about today.
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