CFIOG detachment locations in U.S.

A recent article in the Communications and Electronics Newsletter (Col G. D. Loos, "Update from CFIOG," C&E Newsletter, Vol. 52, 1 December 2009) provides some new and more up to date information on CFIOG detachment locations:

CFIOG Detachment. This group of some 50 personnel continues to strengthen our Canada/United States partnership as imbedded personnel in such locations as Anchorage, AK, San Antonio, TX, Denver, CO, Honolulu, HI, Norfolk, VA, and Fort Meade, MD.

The sites Loos lists are probably the FLR-9 circularly disposed antenna array operated by the 381st Intelligence Squadron at Elmendorf AFB, Alaska (air photo); the Medina Regional Security Operations Center at Lackland AFB, San Antonio, Texas (air photo); the Denver Security Operations Center at the Aerospace Data Facility-Colorado, Buckley AFB, Colorado (air photo); NSA Hawaii, formerly the Kunia Regional Security Operations Center (air photo), soon to be replaced by the Hawaii RSOC; Naval Information Operations Command Norfolk in Virginia (air photo); and NSA headquarters at Fort Meade (air photo).

This is the first time to my knowledge that the Elmendorf and Buckley locations have been acknowledged. A number of Canadian personnel used to be assigned to Naval Security Group FRD-10 locations; it is possible that these two predominantly Air Force locations were added to replace the FRD-10 slots (all the U.S. FRD-10 arrays have been shut down).

Buckley is an especially interesting site in that the Aerospace Data Facility-Colorado is one of the mission ground stations for U.S. high-altitude SIGINT satellites and is the sole operator of the TRUMPET and TRUMPET Follow-On satellites, which monitor the northern hemisphere from Molniya orbits.

The article does not specify whether other detachment locations acknowledged in the past, such as the Georgia RSOC, also remain active.

21 EW Regiment stands up

A little catch-up on this one: 2 EW Squadron and its reserve counterpart, 772 EW Squadron, were merged in April to create the 21 EW Regiment:

21 EW Regiment: A weekend merger at CFB Kingston, CKWS Television, 19 April 2010

Soldiers attend parade to celebrate new regiment, DND, April 2010

[Update 14 April 2013: Removed erroneous claim that 21 EW Regiment is the first new regiment in the Canadian army since the Second World War. The second reference (above) describes the merger of the two units as "The first time since WW2 the Canadian army has in fact instated a new regiment." However, as the anonymous commenter on this post pointed out, this is not correct.]

zOMG! UKUSA agreement declassified

NSA and GCHQ have released the texts of the UKUSA agreement and related appendices, memoranda, etc.! Somewhat redacted, yes, but an amazing amount of material intact.

UKUSA Agreement Release 1940-1956 (NSA website)

Newly released GCHQ files: UKUSA Agreement (UK National Archives site)

Bartleman vindicated by Air India Inquiry

The Final Report of the Air India Inquiry, released on June 17th, has vindicated former Ontario Lieutenant Governor James Bartleman.

Bartleman, who was Director General of the Intelligence Analysis and Security Bureau at the Department of External Affairs at the time of the attack, told the Inquiry that he had seen a CSE communications intercept during the week before the Air India flight indicating that it was to be targeted that weekend. CSE and other government witnesses subsequently denied that such an intercept had ever existed, however, and the government sought to discredit Bartleman's testimony. (Background here.)

In his report (specific part here), Inquiry Commissioner Mr. Justice John Major stated that

On balance, the evidence cited by the Attorney General of Canada to discredit James Bartleman was not persuasive. Bartleman was a unique consumer of intelligence who had exceptional access to CSE materials. It was a well-accepted fact that there were many threats to Air India flights from Canada and these threats were generally discounted. In light of these surrounding circumstances, it is reasonable to conclude that James Bartleman saw a document with a direct threat to Air India Flight 182 on June 22, 1985 that other witnesses do not recollect seeing.

The Commission accepts the evidence of Bartleman, and finds that he delivered a message to the RCMP identifying a direct threat to Air India 182 the weekend of the June 22, 1985 flight. In accepting Bartleman’s testimony, it is significant to note that he had nothing to gain by coming forward with his testimony, and stood only to suffer a loss to his reputation in facing government-wide efforts to impugn his credibility.

Further coverage:

Bill Curry, "Inquiry vindicates former security minister [sic] whose Air India warnings went ignored," Globe and Mail, 17 June 2010

Richard J. Brennan, "Former Ontario lieutenant governor praised for recalling terror warning," Toronto Star, 18 June 2010

New CSE Commissioner appointed

Former Justice of the Federal Court of Appeals Robert Décary was appointed Commissioner of the Communications Security Establishment on 21 June, bringing an end--at last!--to the Peter Cory interregnum.

Official announcement here.

Robert Décary's bio.

Previous comments here and here.

Recent commentary on the position of CSEC Commissioner by blogger Patrick Baud (Who Watches the Watchmen?).

May 2010 CSE staff size

1789.

(If you click through on the link and get a different figure, it's probably because the Canada Public Service Agency has updated its website; they update the numbers once a month.)