Stop Online Spying
6 Comments
Recent Posts
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 223: Looking Back at the Year in Canadian Digital Law and Policy 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 222: Robert Diab on Canadian Media’s Copyright Lawsuit Against OpenAI 
Government Finally Splits the Online Harms Bill: Never Too Late To Do The Right Thing…Or Is It? 
Canadian Media Companies Target OpenAI in Copyright Lawsuit But Weak Claims Suggest Settlement the Real Goal 
The Law Bytes Podcast, Episode 221: Inside My Canadian Heritage Committee Appearance on Freedom of Expression
Signed. Not that I think it will really do anything, Harper hasn’t shown a huge wiliness to listen to people unless it gets him votes.
Who knows, perhaps people who blindly voted for Harper without bothering to read up on the bills and such he was passing will realise this bill is something they didn’t want.
Where do ISPs stand on this? They’re normally quick to make sure the public knows it’s the government’s fault they are raising rates.
I strongly think Canadian National Security will be at risk with this bill. The patriot act in the States has become a nightmare for law enforcement and the US intelligence agencies. Basically what this will do is focus attention onto regular Canadians and take away from focused investigations.
Nova did a documentary on the failings of 9/11 called “The Spy Factory”. The Patriot Act is touched up on by the very people that used to run things in the FBI and NSA. It’s too bad we have twits in Ottawa that still believe this will protect Canadians. A link to the nova program is here:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/military/spy-factory.html
@Jason K
Personally, I suspect that it could go either way. It depends on how the security apparatus decides to use the bill. If they decide to use to go on fishing expeditions, then I’d say you are correct. It isn’t like the police haven’t in the past done this, and not just by rogue cops either. Have a look into the history of “Project Safe City” in Toronto mining the registries for firearm licenses and the hand and long gun registries.
The biggest issue that I have with the bill is the removal of the requirement for warrants. The expansion of the range of personal electronic communications, so long as it is vetted by a warrant, does not bother me. In fact, given the way that people have complained on the copyright file with respect to the problems with respect to new technologies, the complaints about the inclusion of the new technologies in these bills surprises me (well, not really… as a group we tend to complain about something that negatively affects us personally but are very willing to impose changes on others). A phone call is a phone call. Why should the police be able to tap the call if made via POTS via Bell but not a VOIP call via Rogers, so long as a warrant is acquired?
@Anon-K
Coming from a law enforcement family myself, there needs to be reasonable grounds for courts to issue a search warrant. The Canadian Constitution protects citizens from unreasonable search and seizure. Even if this bill gets rid of the warrants, law enforcement would still have to prove to the court that there was reasonable grounds prior to obtaining evidence. Otherwise that evidence can be labelled as inadmissible by the court.
There is most certainly going to be constitutional challenges to this bill I would think. But I don’t think it’ll be doom and gloom for our civil rights. I think the main danger revolves around what I had posted earlier, that is there will be way too much information for law enforcement to shift through, which very well could put Canadian National and Personal security at risk. The government needs to provide assurances.