March 24, 2014
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CANADALAND
#25 How Canada’s Spies Game the Media
CSEC is shadier than the NSA. Nobody really knows what they are doing, including the Ministers who empower them and the judges who grant them warrants.

Synopsis:

CSEC spy on Canadians and lie to the press and to the Courts.  Globe and Mail reporter Colin Freeze talks about the frustrations of covering a secret institution.

Guest:

Colin Freeze (link)

Links:

Colin Freeze’s super awkward visit with CSEC (link)

Canada’s top CSEC expert is blogger Bill Robinson (link)

People mentioned: 

Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, John Forster, Ray Boisvert, Elizabeth Renzetti, Mike Frost, Margaret Trudeau, Jane Shorten, Andrew Mitrovica, Richard Mosley, Robert Decary

Topics discussed:

Is CSEC spying on Canadians? Just what do we know about them? What do they tell the media? Who is keeping an eye on them? Why don’t Canadians care about government surveillance as much as Americans? Why do we not have one journalist reporting on this full time? Does boring or jargon-y coverage of CSEC contribute to public apathy? So can CSEC basically just do anything?

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