CSE (Communications Security Establishment Canada)

CSEC was originally formed as part of the National Research Council, which is a research organization focusing on science and technology. Its original mandate was to analyze foreign communication (SIGINT, or Signals Intelligence) collected by the Canadian Army.

Later CSEC expanded to collect SIGINT involving the Soviet Union during the Cold War. CSEC wasn't publicly acknowledged as existing until 1980 when the CBC did an expose on the organization and the Government agreed that it did in fact exist.

Nowadays CSEC performs Signals Intelligence, Cryptanalysis, and IT Security, in addition to participating in ECHELON.

Signals Intelligence, often shortened to SIGINT, is the name used to describe data involving radio, telecommunication, fax, and other data (Internet, ATM transmissions, etc.) captured through eavesdropping systems.

SIGINT is broadly broken into 2 categories, Communications Intelligence, or COMINT, which involves human communications such as telephones, and Electronic Intelligence, or ELINT, which involves all non-human communication.

CSEC is Canada's largest collector and analyzer of SIGINT, through the ECHELON system (see below.)

Cryptanalysis is the subject and method of code breaking: taking an encrypted piece of communication and decrypting it, to find the original. Cryptanalysis is performed by people who are known as "Cryptanalysts."

Cryptanalysis is one of the most important jobs CSEC performs, as without it they would be unable to decipher foreign communications, both Intelligence and Militaary related.

Cryptography was especially important during the World Wars, however it was also useful during the Cold War against the USSR. Nowadays, spies from China are inside Canada, and it's CSEC's job to protect information from them.

ECHELON is the name of a system involving the Governments of Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Australia. Together, these countries all collect and give SIGINT to each other.

This combination of countries allows the entire world's communication to be monitored. It has created controversy in the past because people have alleged that ECHELON was or is being used for malicious activities.

CSEC is also responsible for IT Security. Like the NSA, Government agencies who need to encrypt and secure data will often get help from CSEC.

This both ensures that the data is safe from tampering by people in the country, and to make sure that foreign governments can't decrypt the data while it's traveling across networks.

Cybersecurity also comes under the jurisdiction of CSEC. They have a mandate to prevent people from hacking government agencies, regardless of the data stored on the computers they involve.