CSE 2017-18 budget to be $596 million

The 2017-18 Main Estimates, tabled in parliament on February 23rd, show a projected 2017-18 CSE budget of $595,983,723.

As the document shows, the budget projected for 2017-18 is slightly higher than the $583.6 million that was originally projected for the current fiscal year (2016-17) and slightly lower than the $599.8 million 2016-17 "to date" figure, which reflects additions made to CSE's budget authorities during the fiscal year. It is $23.6 million lower than the $619.5 million that was actually spent in 2015-16.

After accounting for inflation, this would suggest that CSE's 2017-18 budget will be roughly 7% smaller than it was in 2015-16.

CSE's actual spending in 2017-18 could well turn out to be greater than its 2015-16 spending, however. The agency has received large in-year budget top-ups every year for the last seven years.

Thus, it may be safer to say that CSE's budget appears to have stabilized for the moment at the roughly $600 million level, but with significant year-to-year fluctuations.

That level is about 4.4 times as high, after adjusting for inflation, as CSE's pre-9/11 budget.

According to the Main Estimates, 72% of the money will go to CSE's SIGINT program, while the IT Security program will account for the remaining 28%.


Update 27 October 2017: Make that eight years. This year's Supplementary Estimates (B) added $33 million to CSE's FY 2017-18 budget authority. More here.

Kevin O'Neill in 1945

I was recently reading The Emperor's Codes, Michael Smith's 2011 book about the Allied effort to break Japanese codes during the Second World War, and to my surprise I ran across a 1945 photo that shows Kevin O'Neill, the Bletchley Park veteran who later became the Director of CBNRC/Chief of CSE.



O'Neill, who finished the war with the rank of Major in the British Army, worked on the Tunny problem, among other systems, during his time at Bletchley. But by 1945 he was part of the British liaison team at the U.S. Army's Signal Security Agency at Arlington Hall in Washington.

For reasons not clear to me, he appears in this photo (second from the right) with members of the British liaison office at the U.S. Navy's code-breaking agency, OP-20-G, which was located at the Naval Communications Annex. Note how, aside from civilian Wilfred (not William) Bodsworth, everyone in the photo other than O'Neill is in naval uniform.

O'Neill and John Manson, another British Army Major serving at the Signal Security Agency, were recruited by Ed Drake in 1946, becoming part of CBNRC's initial staff. Manson died in 1952, but O'Neill remained with the agency for his entire career, becoming the Director of CBNRC in 1971 and retiring as Chief of CSE in 1980.

List of Senior U.S. Liaison Officers at CSE

I've finally managed to get a reasonably complete list of the Senior United States Liaison Officers, or SUSLOs, assigned to CSE over the years.

SUSLOs are assigned by NSA to all of the Five Eyes SIGINT agencies, with the various SUSLOs distinguished from one another by suffixes. The SUSLO assigned to Canada is known as the SUSLO/O, for Ottawa.

The photo above shows Velva Klaessy, who served as SUSLO/O from 1970 to 1971. Klaessy was the first woman to serve as SUSLO at any location.

SUSLO/O list (with years of arrival and departure)

Lt. Robert Carl, USN (Acting)	1950	1950
Maj. Oval Jones, USAF	1950	1952
LCdr. Arthur Conant, USN	1952	1953
Maj. Robert Morin, USAF	1953	1955
Maj. Ralph Barch, USA	1955	1958
LCol. Robert Maurer, USA	1958	1960
Fred Sims	1960	1963
William Kaczmar	1963	1966
Maurice Edens	1966	1970
Velva Klaessy	1970	1971
Francis Irons	1971	1974
Martin Sullivan	1974	1977
Melville Boucher	1977	1981
William Gerdes	1981	1984
George Abbott	1984	1990
Gary Kirkey	1990	1992
Robert Arndt	1992	1995
John Dirks	1995	1999
Maria O'Connor	1999	2002
Cindy Farkus	2002	2005
?	2005	2008
Donna Marie Barbano	2008	2011
Cynthia Daniels	2011	2014

The SUSLO identities from 1950 to 1974 are from a recently released version of History of CBNRC (Access release A-2015-00045). The more recent identities were assembled by me from public domain materials, with invaluable assistance from U.S. intelligence historian Matthew Aid, and may still contain some errors. I haven't included the current SUSLO/O on the list.

For earlier compilations of CSE's own liaison officers, the CANSLOs, see here and here.

ATIpper #10: CSE might have moved to Kingston

More from the Access to Information files:

According to access release A-2013-00055, CSE considered 17 properties in the National Capital Region, Arnprior, and Kingston when it was choosing the location for its new headquarters complex.

As is well known, the site ultimately chosen was in Ottawa's east end, adjacent to CSIS's headquarters.

But the agency's number two choice was Kingston.



It's a bit hard to believe that Kingston was ever seriously considered, however.

The fact that CSE personnel would have to drive two hours each way every time they needed to attend a meeting in Ottawa would surely have weighed heavily against selecting the site.

And convincing the agency's more than 2000 employees to move to Kingston would also likely have proved difficult and disruptive to morale.


Update 8 February 2017:

David Pugliese, "Kingston was the number two choice for CSE’s new headquarters," Ottawa Citizen, 7 February 2017