Adams speaks

The latest issue of Canadian Government Executive carries an interview with CSE Chief John Adams (Paul Crookall, "Gathering Intelligence: The challenges of the Communications Security Establishment," Canadian Government Executive, December 2006). In fact, Adams is the cover story (no pun intended).

The interview covers the challenges facing the CSE in an interesting but necessarily generic way.

Some comments on CSE support to military operations that I found intriguing:

We work more intensively with the uniforms; we provide direct support to Canadian Forces deployed abroad, particularly in Afghanistan. We work much more closely with the tactical side now.... We provide intelligence in real time to operations in Afghanistan. The information we gather, if accurate, can provide the tipping point for the success of an operation – or if inaccurate could have serious consequences.

SMO is not news, but the point about real time is interesting. Presumably, Mr. Adams is not referring to the local interception/analysis that may be done by the CFIOG "291ers" who deploy to Afghanistan. So where is CSE getting the raw material to analyse for Afghanistan operations? Local collection that is remoted back to Ottawa for analysis? There could be some of that I suppose. But I have long suspected that CSE helps to analyse some of the material collected by the so-called TRUMPET satellites operated by the Aerospace Data Facility at Buckley Air Force Base in Colorado – maybe that's where the Afghanistan material is coming from.

The Taliban, like Al Qaeda, are of course aware of the existence of SIGINT satellites and the fact that people are listening to their communications. But don't expect Mr. Adams (or anyone else from CSE) to comment yea or nay on the question of the specific collection systems CSE may be using.

I wonder if 771 Communications Research Squadron is missed now that SMO has taken on such importance?