CSIS. What does it do?

hey well i'm canadian and i was wondering if anyone knew the sort of things the canadian version of the CIA (CSIS) does like wether it does covert operations or is it simply electronicly gathers information from places?

well thanks ahead of time.

Truthfuly, I think we either dont do anything, or just get some U.S. agency to do it for us.

well we mujst do something cause i went to their website and for career oppurtunitys it says "intelligence officers" so i figure they must be the real spy guys

I guess there are not many Canadians on this site, id kinda like to know what the CSIS do too.

ok well i can answer my own question here...partly i found a link talking about the sort of things i was asking about if you go to www.ctv.ca... 069_61///?hub=Canada it talks about how canada might form foriegn intelligence network simialar to tthe CIA so with almost no one else saying anything i figured it out....slackers

Why not try their homepage?
I'm sure this has all the information you are looking for.

www.csis-scrs.gc.ca...


Mr. M

Here's a link to a CUPW memo on a book I read not too long ago about a CSIS agent who worked at Canada Post. It gives an incredibly detailed and none too impressive view of the day to day doings at CSIS.

www.cupw.ca...

CSIS is the Canadian version of the CIA and maybe to some respect the NSA. It has a mandate to protect Canada against terrorist activity and intelligence gathering communities that could be hostile towards the country. It is a spy agency that reports directly to the parliament. It was created from a branch off of the RCMP in 1984. It is believed that the RCMP still conduct intelligence operations and counter intelligence operations but I believe that most of those tasks are within the circle of the CSIS now
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As per some word of mouth they do not operate the same way the CIA does. It seems to be more of a within border operation with limited actual spying on other nations. Either that or they are real pro’s and the information does not come out that often. You rarely hear about some actual on the scene field work but that doesn’t mean they aren’t doing anything. And being a Canadian myself I can tell you do not underestimate what we are capable of doing as a people. (I am just a proud cannuck thats all and I like hockey too )

Back in the 1960’s the C.I.A . had a front in montreal without going into to many details you can imagine that they either where working with backing of the Canadian government or our guys were just not present at all. Considering what happened and the way regional police and RCMP reacted I would have to say that Canada was not as invested in intelligence gathering before the 60’s. I imagine that a special branch of fewly selected units were enough to gather what was needed considering the oversight we had from our neighbors in the south. And probably the RCMP handled all of this with direct line of contact to the prime minister. But things changed after a court hearing and the RCMP unit was split to create the CSIS.

There have been spy rings dismantled in the past in Canada. And it had to do with the RCMP. Some interesting things do happen in the intelligence community now that terrorism is on everybody’s lips. Considering the opened positions on their website I believe that their reach is becoming more widespread. Considering also that I live in a place where someone was arrested on a ferry boat within the first hour he had crossed the border, I would say that they have a very good looking eye.

If you know canada’s history you also know that we were one of the first to send a satellite in orbit. I am guessing that our intelligence agency is much more than they are letting us on. But that is just an educated guess.
Now the rest of this is just an educated guess based on information that is online that you can google easily.
C.S.I.S. analyses data, counter-intelligence programs, intelligence gathering, Terrorism prevention, Spy infiltration you name it they probably have a hand in it. It is our spy agency.

And while we haven’t heard as much as let’s say the CIA, its reach and finances are a lot less than its counterpart. So the focus is on protecting the country within the limits of our borders. This is what I know about it. Hope that helps.

reply to post by KpxMarMoTT


The CIA front in Quebec was well known to our government. They were allowed to test torture techniques on psychological patients. It's covered early on in this documentary



What CSIS does is intelligence operations. Not a whole lot is known about them, but that's probably because they do important things for national security- unlike RCMP intelligence operations, that focus on infiltrating and spying on "anti-status quo" individuals and organizations accross the country (this is exactly how they describe it).

More than likely, CSIS works in tandem with other organizations, both domestic and foreign. As you said, CSIS works directly for parliament, which is very good considering that parliament is much more public-owned than the executive branch that the RCMP works for. What this means is that CSIS would be more interested in maintaining Canadian sovereignty, as opposed to the RCMP's mission to enforce what the federal government feels Canada should be.

National security issues of concern have always been geopolitical sovereignty, counter-intelligence, illicit cross-border trade, and terrorism. Though rationally speaking, terrorism in our homeland in modern times is nothing more than some media farce; the real terrorism is not by Islamic fanatics (or at least we weren't a target before Afghanistan), but domestic groups.

An example of real domestic terrorists is "Direct Action". They were a group of enviro-terrorists back in the 80s from BC who bombed power stations and military production facilities. While I'm not going to get into if they were justified or not, their asymetrical style of operations (albeit, within the country) is exactly what CSIS is designed to counter. It is kinda funny how Direct Action is rarely mentioned anywhere anymore, because they were a big deal back then. Near my hometown out in the boonies, there is a rather large hydro substation and the army would deploy around it whenever their was a viable threat (taking out that substation would take out a lot of power to the west coast of the US), and the Direct Action threat was no different.

I was working in a computer book store in college, when 2 CSIS agents came in. They wanted to know about a Russian customer, what books he had purchased. My manager took over so I didn't talk to them too long.

Originally posted by The Cusp
I was working in a computer book store in college, when 2 CSIS agents came in. They wanted to know about a Russian customer, what books he had purchased. My manager took over so I didn't talk to them too long.

Did this happen to be in the British Columbian interior?

No, in Ottawa.

reply to post by globalmisinformation


Canadian Security Intelligence Service pays architects to construct a building which from ground view appears normal, but from aerial point of view is triangle shaped with another smaller set of buildings underneath it which clearly resemble an inverted cross. I hope the next building is shaped like a flower.