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Canadians are blind to the threat posed by terrorists who publicly espouse their rights while privately believing in nothing but “nihilism and death,” Canada's new spy chief says.

“We have a serious blind spot as a country,” said Dick Fadden, who was appointed the head of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service this summer.

Public skepticism about intelligence agencies has built to a point where being an accused terrorist in Canada is now akin to being a “status symbol” in certain quarters, he lamented.

The speech Thursday at a security-intelligence conference amounts to Mr. Fadden's public debut as a CSIS director. A peeved, almost bellicose tone marked his comments, as he pushed back against recent intelligence controversies.

A career civil servant, Mr. Fadden complained that the public too readily embraces terrorism suspects as “folk heroes” and too eagerly dismisses government intelligence to the contrary. He said that security and liberty should not viewed as a zero-sum balancing act, but rather as a DNA double-helix structure where the two strands reinforce one another.

“I would argue security is a human right,” he said, adding that “terrorists are the ultimate enemies” of liberal-democratic states.

Mr. Fadden said that a “loose partnership” of non-governmental organizations, advocacy journalists and lawyers have skewed the public debate even though “terrorism is still the most important threat we face.” He harangued unnamed journalists for being too credulous and Canadian “elites” for being aloof to the threat of terrorism entirely.

“Why then, I ask, are those accused of terrorist offences often portrayed in media as quasi-folk heroes, despite the harsh statements of numerous judges?”

He added: “Why are they always photographed with their children, given tender-hearted profiles, and more or less taken at their word when they accuse CSIS or other government agencies of abusing them?

“It sometimes seems that to be accused of having terrorist connections in Canada has become a status symbol, a badge of courage in the struggle against the real enemy, which apparently is government.”

CSIS, created 25 years ago, has lately been beset by a number of controversies inside and outside the courts.

As the public has grown increasingly skeptical, judges are ordering the spy service to cough up state secrets to better safeguard the rights of individuals who have surfaced in intelligence investigations.

The Supreme Court of Canada has also ordered CSIS – which tries to keep out of court – to retain and produce notes and recordings it used to routinely destroy.

While top judges hope the new practice will preserve civil liberties of terrorism suspects who want to fight allegations in court, Mr. Fadden said he anticipates the vast record-keeping will lead to new complaints.

“Within a few years someone will accuse us of acting like the Stasi,” he said, referring to the notorious and bygone East Germany intelligence agency.

The push toward transparency seems to have led to something of an existential crisis for CSIS. Agents are now “too often thinking about where we stand rather than what the bad guys are up to,” Mr. Fadden said.

“We would all benefit from a more nuanced debate worthy of a G8 nation,” he said.

He pointed out Canada has been the home to many serious terrorist plots – including the 1984 Air India bombing that killed 329 people, as well as the thwarted 2006 Toronto terrorism plot that has resulted in five convictions.

But B.C. Muslim Association President Sikandar Khan said all Canadians he knows take terror threats seriously. But that doesn't mean Canadian authorities shouldn't be called to account for harsh treatment of suspects.

“Muslims have been marginalized in many ways by authorities,” he said, adding that he can't think of a single instance when Canadians have turned a terror suspect into a folk hero.

“When has that happened in Canada? This comment is uncalled for…It's in somebody's imagination.

With a report from Anna Mehler Paperny