Crucial security details about the Canadian locations where the world's most powerful leaders, U.S. President George W. Bush among them, will gather this summer have been publicly available for seven weeks on the Internet.
In what experts are calling a serious breach of security, documents published by a federal agency in February included 32 detailed diagrams showing how buildings around Calgary and Kananaskis, Alta., will be used for the G8 summit on June 26 and 27.
The drawings describe the hotel ballroom where Mr. Bush, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other leaders of the Group of Eight major industrialized nations will sit down together, and the shortest distance -- two feet, eight inches (81 centimetres) -- from their chairs to the nearest window.
Other sensitive details on the Web site that informs companies about federal, provincial and municipal contracts include the exact positions of surveillance cameras, meeting rooms, security stations and lounges for VIPs and RCMP officers.
"This is really rather stupid and naive," said Alan Bell, a security consultant and veteran of Britain's Special Air Service, who has guarded previous meetings of world leaders.
The RCMP denies that the documents compromise summit security, but experts say the gaffe will embarrass Canada and force the RCMP to revise arrangements that are reported to have cost $100- million.
"From a security standpoint, this should not be on the Internet," Mr. Bell said. "It poses a major threat."
Buried at the bottom of a lengthy request for audio and visual equipment, the floor plans have attracted no public attention since they appeared on the Internet on Feb. 22.
But six terrorism experts who examined the files said Canada has already exposed the summit to unacceptable risk by leaving them on-line, where they can be downloaded in a few minutes.
The documents were still on the Web site last night.
Public Works and Government Services Canada published the request for rental equipment on behalf of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade.
The tender appears similar to the 1,700 such contracts available on the Web site daily. It's largely a prosaic list of technical specifications -- in this case, for microphones, headsets, cables, amplifiers, loudspeakers, video monitors and other equipment.
But anyone who types in a valid credit card number, downloads the contract details and reads the attached appendices could find drawings that experts say would normally be highly classified.
Some of the information available through the Web site, such as the layout of hotels and mountain lodges, is not sensitive and can be found through other sources.
But other information on the site, such as the exact location of leaders' chairs and measurements showing how rooms will be arranged, should be available only to security teams for the visiting delegations, experts said.
The experts also objected that the diagrams show the purpose of many rooms, from art storage to bilateral meetings. The main summit room, with a circular, 14-foot-diameter (4.3-metre) table in the middle, is described in enough detail for anyone to build the kind of scale model necessary to practise a commando raid.
"The more I look at these [diagrams], the more uncomfortable I get," said Leslie Green, a retired professor from the University of Alberta and the U.S. Naval War College. "It frightens me."
No government in recent memory has allowed this type of information about a summit to slip out, said John Thompson of Toronto's Mackenzie Institute, an independent non-profit organization concerned with issues related to political instability and organized violence.
"This is a major, major mistake," Mr. Thompson said.
Michael O'Shaughnessy, a spokesman for Canada's G8 summit management office, said it was necessary to publish some information as part of the contract tendering process.
"Information about the layout of the facilities has always been publicly available," Mr. O'Shaughnessy said. "Information about the layout is necessary in order for companies to bid on the conference discussion systems contract."
Some details about facilities were attached to a similar contract before last year's Summit of the Americas conference in Quebec City, Mr. O'Shaughnessy said.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police examined the tender documents yesterday and decided they didn't threaten the event's security, Corporal Patrick Webb said. Bid documents for such a project would typically be reviewed by the RCMP before being published anyway, Cpl. Webb added.
"It's one thing to say, 'I know what chair you're sitting in,' but if you can't come within a long distance of it, it doesn't do you much good," Cpl. Webb said. "When you put it as part of a larger [security] package, it's a different world."
The documents may also have limited strategic value if the security team changes its plans, Cpl. Webb said.
"At this point in time, are those the final, exact positions [of elements inside the building]? No, those are not. They could change. Things could change right up until the time somebody sits."
Although Cpl. Webb would not comment on how precautions might change, most experts assume that the RCMP would have to revise the plans now that they have become public knowledge. They also dismissed the RCMP's argument that terrorists and other miscreants won't be able to reach the building.
"You can't close every point of access," Mr. Green said. "They [organizers] are looking for trouble."
Canada's international reputation will suffer, said Laure Paquette, a political scientist at Lakehead University, although other countries will likely show their displeasure in private.
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