Auditing Canada’s Terrorism Initiatives
I have fairly length post up at SDA exerpting the recent Auditor General’s report on the progress made in anti-terrorism initiatives.
After three years one would expect better than this:
… criminal intelligence data are not used to screen applicants for clearance to restricted areas at airports… … we found significantly fewer terrorist lookouts in the Service’s tracking system than in Immigration’s database … Immigration’s records were in such disarray that we were unable to complete a full reconciliation during the course of our audit. …Interpol Red Notices… On average, 48 days elapsed from [Interpol] publication to entry in the [RCMP] police system… … Lost and stolen Canadian passports not on border control watch lists … the information system used on the primary inspection line cannot distinguish between active and deactivated passports … … There is no system that transfers information on outstanding warrants to the border watch lists …
There’s lots more. Canada has no capacity for top-secret communications in the event of a national emergency. Government departments are using excuses ranging from the Privacy Act to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms to resist implementing change, anti-terrorism funding diverted to domestic crime control…
The full Auditor’s report is here.
