OTTAWA — More than four years after Cameron Jay Ortis was charged with breaching Canada’s secrets law, the former RCMP intelligence director is about to get his day in court. Ortis was taken into custody in Ottawa on Sept. 12, 2019 — an arrest that deeply shocked the national police force. As the head of […]

OTTAWA — The RCMP says it has introduced mandatory security awareness training for employees, one of several changes prompted by the 2019 arrest of a senior civilian member for allegedly leaking classified information. The Mounties say they have also made it easier to report security vulnerabilities, boosted the internal profile of departmental security operations and […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal spy agencies should be required to get court approval before reviewing the communications of U.S. citizens collected through a secretive foreign surveillance program, a sharply divided privacy oversight board recommended on Thursday. The recommendation came in a report from a three-member Democratic majority of the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, […]

OTTAWA — The Diefenbaker government’s 1959 decision to scrap the fabled Avro Arrow was significantly influenced by Canadian intelligence that pointed to a diminishing need for the costly aircraft in the evolving Cold War, says a new research paper based on previously secret information. The intelligence highlighted the Soviet Union’s shift away from manned bombers […]

OTTAWA — The RCMP says it is updating procurement practices after an internal review of dealings with a company that has ties to China found no serious security concerns, but some areas for improvement. A standing offer with Sinclair Technologies to provide the RCMP with radio-frequency filtration equipment was suspended in December after media coverage […]

OTTAWA — Canada’s spy agency is leaning on Soviet imagery to help prime the public against disinformation but experts say Moscow is more likely to use images that make readers think the messaging is coming from North American sources. Last month, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service started posting on social media about its efforts to […]

OTTAWA — A newly released federal memo concedes Canada is “trailing key international partners” who have updated their approaches to securing vital utilities and services from a growing array of risks. The Public Safety Canada memo says “new and rapidly evolving threats pose a greater risk of harm to Canadians and their cyber, economic and […]

WASHINGTON — Age-old political concerns — national security, public safety, government oversight and the sanctity of taxpayer dollars — emerged Wednesday alongside the unlikeliest of bedfellows: the enduring mythology of UFOs. Rechristened as unidentified aerial phenomena, or UAP, the unsolved mysteries of the skies have undergone a dramatic image overhaul in recent years, thanks to […]

OTTAWA — Canada is dusting off and updating emergency protocols to deal with fallout from a possible tactical nuclear exchange in Europe or the spread of radiation across the ocean from a Ukrainian power plant explosion. Internal Public Safety Canada notes show the measures include updating a highly secret plan to ensure the federal government […]

OTTAWA — After banishing TikTok from the mobile devices of public servants, the federal government is taking a look at possible threats from other social-media applications. The government said in February that TikTok, a wildly popular app for sharing short videos, posed an unacceptable level of risk to privacy and security. Federal officials are conducting […]

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon on Wednesday announced plans to tighten protection for classified information following the explosive leaks of hundreds of intelligence documents that were accessed through security gaps at a Massachusetts Air National Guard base. Airman 1st Class Jack Teixeira, 21, is accused of leaking the highly classified military documents in a chatroom […]

OTTAWA — Newly released documents say the intelligence community’s relationship with its key watchdog has been particularly strained over the last year due to a “level of resistance” to scrutiny. The assessment appears in briefing materials prepared for Canada’s top public servant in advance of a late January meeting with the chair of the National […]