An unsettling thought...

[robkelk]

robkelk wrote:

Pyeknu wrote:Canada has pretty much stayed with paper balloting as well, though instead of pencil-making-the-X, you fill in the dot and feed it into an electronic reading machine. Don't know if that can be messed up, but I doubt the Communications Security Establishment - the Dominion's version of the NSA - would do that sort of thing.

I won't speak about the CSEC - I don't know their culture well enough.

Having the paper ballots means we can re-count the votes, by hand if necessary, in case of any allegations of irregularities. That's the main strength of the system.

Truthfully, I don't know about them very well, either . . . and I was in the military for six years moons and moons ago.

I have heard that the CSE has sometimes helped the other ECHELON partners - of which NASA and the GCHQ of Britain are two - does help in ethically questionable actions against American and British citizens . . . but that might just be RUMINT for all I know.

I would be more inclined to expect CSIS be the group that liaises with ECHELON rather than CSEC, myself. From what I understand from browsing unclassified documents and websites, http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/index-eng.asp]CSIS is the operational group, while http://www.cse-cst.gc.ca/index-eng.html]CSEC is closer to being our "Q branch" analog (although both groups are involved in SIGINT).
--
Rob Kelk
"Governments have no right to question the loyalty of those who oppose
them. Adversaries remain citizens of the same state, common subjects of
the same sovereign, servants of the same law."

- Michael Ignatieff, addressing Stanford University in 2012