Canada's Spy Agencies Don't Care About Your Retweets

If you thought the CIA kicking off its new Twitter account would usher in an era of spies retweeting celebrity nonsense and “#unclassified” stories, Canada’s intelligence agencies have some bad news. The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) have both independently confirmed to Motherboard that they will not be proceeding with Twitter accounts.

CSIS spokesperson Tahera Mufti was particularly quick in responding to the question. “Hey Ben,” she wrote in an email, “no we have no plans at this time to have a twitter account.” CSIS is the most direct Canadian parallel to the CIA, responsible for covert intelligence gathering operations pertaining to national security threats.

CSEC's media relations people were just as quick when asked if Canada’s NSA was interested in a Twitter account. “CSE does not have plans to create an official CSE twitter account at this time,” wrote spokesperson Lauri Sullivan.

Neither agency offered a reason for their continued tweet silence.

It shouldn't be too much of a surprise that CSEC and CSIS are staying away from Twitter. Journalists have come to expect little from the Harper government in terms of communication skills and transparency. Even if the Twitter accounts would offer little actual insight into the world of CSEC or CSIS, seeing how either agency uses social media could be hilarious, or at least help civilians understand how the agencies view themselves. Are they concerned about their public image? Would they too begin their social media presence with an underhanded tweet?

We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.

— CIA (@CIA) June 6, 2014

On the public image front, CSIS hasn’t undergone the same public battering as CSEC of late. While CSIS has dealt with its own controversies in the past, CSEC was caught recently spying on the Brazilian natural resources department and grabbing citizen metadata through an unnamed airport wifi. Those two stories, which come courtesy of whistleblower Edward Snowden's leaked documents, kicked off renewed public interest in the signals intelligence agency.

That said, for better or worse, neither CSEC nor CSIS suffered the same level of public relations crisis the CIA or the NSA are experiencing since evidence of mass surveillance and the drone kill lists started emerging. In fact, Canadians are notoriously less interested in privacy issues and government spying than Americans. Not to mention, neither CSEC nor CSIS requires immediate access to a public Twitter audience for operational purposes, like threat updates or advisories.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police, more of an FBI counterpart, are already very active on Twitter doing the job for them. Just last week the national law enforcement agency actively tweeted live updates during a massive manhunt in Moncton for a gunman who killed three Mounties. CSIS and CSEC couldn’t do the same kinds of tweets, unless they wanted to give away the terrorist cell they were monitoring, or how they may or may not be infringing on personal liberties.

There’s no telling why the CIA launched its own social media presence to begin with. Jordan Pearson pointed out that it was to offset a lagging public image associated with ongoing drone strike campaigns and general human rights abuses the agency has become synonymous with. Whatever the plan is, the official CIA website is promising “throwback thursdays” and “fun facts” about the agency, along with job postings for new recruits. In other words, expect the agency known for top secret torture sites in Poland to tweet historical tidbits about the time they saved America from communists.

In the end, Fives Eyes allies like the British GCHQ and MI5, haven’t started using Twitter either. The CIA is really the lone intelligence agency willing to go millennial and curry a public image online. Even so, people can count the CIA’s “#tbt” tweets to be more fluff than tangible intel, while the Canadians stay characteristically silent.

Ultimately CSIS and CSEC will continue operating in total secrecy and with little oversight, as will the CIA, Twitter account or no Twitter account.