OTTAWA - The Communications Security Establishment is spending $62 million to build a new home as the national spy agency struggles to keep up with its own growth.
The four-storey, 6,000-square-metre building will go up on 36 hectares of land acquired from the National Research Council in Ottawa.
The eavesdropping agency, responsible for monitoring foreign intelligence and protecting government secrets, has hired hundreds of new employees since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Its growth has rendered its current home too small to support day-to-day operations.
A request for proposals will be tendered late this spring and a construction contract is expected to be awarded by early summer.
The specialized building, housing 250 staff and banks of electronic monitoring and encryption devices, is to open in the summer of 2011.
The Ottawa-based agency, a low-profile wing of the Defence Department, monitors foreign radio, telephone, fax, satellite and computer traffic for information of interest to Canada.
The intelligence supports Canadian crime-fighting, defence and trade policies. Military listening posts assist agency efforts to intercept the communications of foreign states and organizations, as well as the phone calls and messages of suspected terrorists, drug traffickers and smugglers.
It is also known that the agency collects intelligence to assist Canada's troops stationed in Afghanistan.
It has long been prohibited from directing its surveillance at Canadians or anybody in Canada. However, the Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001 gave the agency authority to tap into the conversations and messages of Canadians.
