Canadian spy compromised Australian, British intelligence

Most regular readers of this blog are undoubtedly familiar with the case of Jeffrey Paul Delisle, a Sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Navy, who until recently was employed at Canada’s ultra-secure HMCS Trinity communications center in Halifax. Delisle was arrested in January on suspicion of passing information gathered from radio and radar signal interceptions to a foreign power, most likely Russia. Back in May, when it was disclosed that the United States helped Canadian counterintelligence investigators build their case against Delisle, we warned that “a far more important subject concerns the degree in which [Delisle’s] penetration has affected Canada’s intelligence-sharing relationship with its [...] partners”. Now a new report in The Sydney Morning Herald reveals that Delisle’s espionage activities compromised Australian secrets that had been shared with Canada under longstanding intelligence cooperation arrangements.

Citing “Australian security sources”, the paper said that the Delisle case “has sent shock waves through Western security agencies” due to the volume of compromised information. The Herald claims that the stolen intelligence is “on a scale comparable to the alleged handover to WikiLeaks of US military and diplomatic reports by US Army private Bradley Manning”. An unnamed “Australian security source” told the paper that Delisle’s access to classified information was “apparently very wide” and that Australian intercepts were “inevitably compromised”. The article also claims that the information stolen by Delisle compromised the entire UK-USA Security Agreement, a peculiar intelligence-sharing arrangement between the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand, which has existed since World War II. The Herald revelation was soon followed by a report in Britain’s Daily Telegraph, which stated that Delisle’s espionage activities appear to have compromised “top-level British intelligence” gathered by the Government Communications Headquarters, Britain’s leading signals intelligence agency. The paper also said that a “secret international conference” was held in New Zealand earlier this year to discuss the potential repercussions from Delisle’s espionage activities. The former Royal Canadian Navy employee is scheduled to attend a preliminary hearing before the Nova Scotia Supreme Court in October. He faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | intelNews.org |