Ron Dibert is the director of the Citizen Laboratory at the University of Toronto and the author of the book “Hunting Shadow”: cybersecurity, sabotage and global battle for democracy. These comments are a modified version of a briefing that he delivered to the employees of the American Senate Selection Committee on Intelligence on March 5, 2025.
Recently, I was asked to inform members and employees of the American Senate Selection Committee on Intelligence on Citizen Laboratory Research on mercenaries. In normal times, this briefing will be an honor. But these are not normal times.
This invitation came at a time when the American president threatens my country, over and over again, regardless of the fact that the Canadians were the most trusted American ally, and part of the most successful intelligence partnership that the world has ever known, and separated it for several centuries by the longest minted border in the world.
My father was a veterans in World War II volunteered to fight fascism abroad. Two and a half years ago, I was appointed as an officer in the matter of Canada, the second highest civil honor in the country. I take this honor seriously, take threats to my security and sovereignty as well. Instead of the invitation refusing, I decided to give the Senate Committee some real talk about the dangers of national security that waved on the horizon that emphasizes their country, in the hands of their government.
It is clear that almost every person in the world is about the United States rapidly descending into tyranny. We note the routine attacks on democratic institutions, undermine the rule of law, daily attacks on the press, politicization of government agencies (including law enforcement and law enforcement agencies), encouraging political violence, deliberate emptying of official checks, balances, street coding and self -vitality.
With the normalization of these practices in the United States, it will have great consequences for security all over the world, including, from paradoxes in the United States.
We note the sudden withdrawal of the United States' support for civil society organizations, which is a major column of liberal democracy and human rights all over the world. This cavity for a whole community of organizations is self -defeat. These organizations not only publish important American values, such as human rights and political freedom, but can also be effective in depicting threats of American national security. For example, recent investigations into abuse of espionage programs pledged by the Citizen Laboratory, which led to discoveries that US officials were targeting from the partially funded civil society groups by the American government itself. Now, the carpet has been withdrawn from under it. Worse than that, we see civil society organizations, which the United States, which was achieved by authoritarian governments in the countries where they are located. This scenario will play itself again and again wherever NGOs leave hanging until they dry. This is the way the rules of repression spread.
American measures to undermine the rule of law, establish intelligence and undermine civil society will pressure similar measures by dictators and argument around the world. The void that is created by eliminating anti -corruption efforts will increase democracy. This, in turn, will encourage few and tyranny to buy very specialized monitoring tools from the irregular mercenary market, and then reach the border to target those who see it as a threat. Inevitably, this will include American citizens and government officials. However, highly qualified employees who work in the field of law enforcement and intelligence whose mission is to protect Americans who are reduced by the Illon Musk saw.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration's disturbing attacks on its allies undermines the world's very similar countries in thinking that the United States has benefited from itself as a powerful multiplier for decades. Take Canada: How can a state of annexation cooperate in exchanging participation in intelligence, facing the spread of dangerous cyber tools, or dealing with terrorism, when its previous partner is now the largest existential risk? Canada is not alone. Many other allies in the United States now see as a chaos agent and an unpredictable threat and very aggressive threats. Since it is alienated itself from all dictators, with the exception of a few dictators who are similar in thinking, the American government's actions will leave huge gaps in its ability to see the threats emerging abroad before they are fulfilled, and their ears and eyes are effectively cut off.
The Senate Selection Committee in the United States bears an official responsibility for work as an supervision body for intelligence agencies, and in the past it has played an important role in exposing the violations of power. If these congressional committees live honestly on their mission, they will do everything in their power to verify America's origin to the harsh paragraph. These are not normal times, after everything – and failure to stand would lead to the ruin of the country.
