Citizens and advocacy groups are demanding transparency of Canada\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s surveillance operations – which lack legislative oversight, Press TV<\/b> reports.\n<\/p>\n
\u00c5\u201cYou can say that anybody today that does anything and just says, \u00cb\u0153oh, it\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s to protect the population, it\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s to save lives against terrorism\u00e2\u201e\u00a2, that\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s just a lot of baloney. These people know what the intent of these policies are. They\u00e2\u201e\u00a2re going to use the terrorism argument to defend those policies,\u201d said Jean-Philippe Lebleu, committee for the Republic of Canada, in an interview with Press TV.\n<\/p>\n
Other advocacy groups like the Civil Liberties Association and the Council of Canadians criticized Ottawa for failing to explain the government\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s practice of collecting information, which experts say has kept Canadians in the dark regarding the spy program.\n<\/p>\n
\u00c5\u201cWe\u00e2\u201e\u00a2re just being fed a lot of nonsense about celebrities, about hockey players, and then you forget reality and then it hits you: the economy is crashing, you\u00e2\u201e\u00a2re being watched by your politicians, and everything in society is broken down,\u201d said Lebleu.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Canada\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s Department of National Defense recently confirmed that the government uses metadata to track data trails of suspicious activity.<\/p>\n
Under Canada\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s Anti-Terrorism Act, the super-secret Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), which is an arm of the Department of National Defense, is allowed to listen to or monitor online communications.\n<\/p>\n
The Canadian Defense Minister Peter Mackay said the program spies on foreign threats, and is prohibited from targeting citizens.\n<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, recent revelations showed that the US\u00e2\u201e\u00a2 NSA and Canada\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s security agency spied on senior officials during London\u00e2\u201e\u00a2s G20 summit in 2009.\n<\/p>\n
This is while, documents recently disclosed to The Guardian<\/i> and Washington Post<\/i> revealed that the United States has a top-secret surveillance program known as PRISM, tracking the use of US-based web servers by Americans and other nationals.\n<\/p>\n
The leaks also exposed \u00c5\u201cBoundless Informant,\u201d a powerful tool developed by the NSA, which enables it to record and categorize intelligence it secretly collects from countries around the world.\n<\/p>\n
GMA\/PR
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