There has been a lot of interest lately into the way countries obtain information about each other.
CBC News recently reported that it has a document showing that Canada has spied on its trading partners.
“Spied” (spying) in this case means obtained information about another country which that country may not otherwise have been willing to openly share.
The CBC said Canada was conducting “espionage” (spying) because it was asked to by a department of the United States.
The document the CBC is referring to is a four-page document that outlines the spying activities. The CBC said someone “leaked” it to them, meaning that someone sent it out when it was supposed to be secret. The document was marked “Top Secret.”
The document had been in the hands of an American named Edward Snowden. It says that Canada is helping the U.S. spy on its friendly trading partners.
The document is apparently exclusive to the CBC. That is, it is the only media agency that has this news.
The document says that America’s top spy group, the National Security Agency (NSA), asked Canada to set up spying posts and actions around the world. The information in the document includes details that CBC News isn’t giving out.
But it does reveal that Canada is working with the U.S. in about 20 countries. It talks about a close relationship between the National Security Agency in the U.S. and the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC).
A little while ago, the CBC reported on another leaked Snowden document that showed that Canada helped the U.S. spy on the G20 Summit of International Leaders in 2010.
But now, for the first time, the world knows how far Canada’s international spying has gone. It also knows that Canada is very good at gathering international information, and that the U.S. has great respect for Canada’s spying techniques.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
This article explains who did the spying and where it was done, but it doesn’t answer the question “why”. Why do you think Canada and the U.S. were spying on their trading partners? What information do you think they were trying to uncover?
Reading Prompt: Demonstrating Understanding
This is a very complex situation and a complicated article. Try to explain the situation in your own words in 3 sentences.
Intermediate
Demonstrate understanding of increasingly complex texts by summarizing important ideas and citing a variety of details that support the main idea (OME, Reading: 1.4).
Grammar Feature: Quotation Marks
Quotation marks are often used to show when someone is speaking. However, this article uses them in a different way. In this article, quotation marks are used to highlight challenging or uncommon words.
How do the quotation marks help you to read and understand this article?
