Canadian Privacy Commissioner Addresses 'Lawful Access'

EvilAlien writes "The Privacy Commissioner of Canada has commented on the federal Government's Lawful Access proposal calling the proposed legislation "a grave, needless and unjustifiable deterioration of privacy rights in our country". Canadian news sources have covered the comments, bringing the issue to the forefront of public awareness. For discussion on the Lawful Access Consultation, see the earlier Slashdot story in YRO."

Comments

america doesn't care about canada

[joe094287523459087]

no U.S. news source will mention this at all, just like no U.S. news source mentioned the softwood logging tariff or the canadian who went to a U.S. jail for a month for crossing the border into U.S. by 10 feet at a U.S. gas station with a gun in his car.

Re:america doesn't care about canada

[Embedded Geek]

I think your title is a little harsh, but your point is otherwise disturbingly accurate. I'm an (US) American but have glanced at a map of North America once or twice in my day. I find it interesting that our president (no, I didn't vote for him) keeps talking about the UK as "our most important friend" when in fact the countries that meet that description are to our north and south. Nothing against the UK, but if Canada had the SAS or Mexico had a few aircraft carriers floating off the coast of Iraq, maybe the current administration's short attention span would be piqued.

Of course, one of the sad proofs of your post is the location of this whole story - buried under the YRO topic and not on /.'s font page.

Re:america doesn't care about canada

[sdjunky]

"...just like no U.S. news source mentioned the softwood logging tariff..."

You mean like this?

I understand that that is old news but we do get some Canadian related material even if it is few and far between.

However, I must agree that Americans can be extremely US centric in their news. I see quite a bit of world wide information in news.bbc.co.uk but nothing like that on CNN. However, I must say that we have news that doesn't quite make the limelight that is US based that I feel should so it's not just Canadian news that is pretty much ignored.

Re:america doesn't care about canada

[Alsee]

However, I must agree that Americans can be extremely US centric in their news.

Yeah, people keep mentioning that, but there's a pretty good reason. If the states hadn't united they would comprise a signifigant chunk of international news. A single US state is often comparable to an entire country.

Canada population 31.9 Million ~ California population 33.9 Million

Australia 19.5 ~ New York 19

England 49.1 ~ Texas 20.9 + Florida 16 + Pennsylvania 12.3 = 49.2

France 59.7 ~ Illinois 12.4 + Ohio 11.4 + Michigan 9.9 + Massachusetts 6.3 + Washington 5.9 + Missouri 5.6 + Wisconsin 5.4 + Maryland 5.3 = 62.2

Netherlands 16 ~ Georgia 8.2 + North Carolina 8 = 16.2

Norway 4.5 ~ Maryland 5.3

Sweden 8.8 ~ New Jersey 8.4

Switzerland 7.2 ~ Virginia 7.1

Denmark 5.3 ~ Tennessee 5.7

Isreal 6 ~ Indiana 6.1

Then there's THIRTY MORE STATES with another 68 million, plus Puerto Rico 3.8 million, Washington DC, and some minor territories. You can match the left over population up against either Germany or a slew of small countries.

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Re:america doesn't care about canada

[Embedded Geek]

I stand corrected. I do recall hearing about the Somalia issue in the news. I am glad there's been some reform, although the very secrecy of their replacement unit (while understandable) makes me wonder.

You sound like a reasonable poster, but I feel compelled to add the following for anyone who might have taken my post the wrong way: I had no intention of slighting the Canadian armed forces. Nor the Mexican Navy, for that matter. I had merely used the SAS as an example because of their reputation as a counter terrorist unit, not just as a commando unit.

And for those who are going to take my clarification the wrong way: I steadfastly refuse to get into a debate about the SAS'es historical role in Northern Ireland and the "terrorist" vs. "freedom fighter" semantics.

Re:america doesn't care about canada

[Alsee]

By that logic, all of your news should be in Chinese... :)

A point worth considering.

I'd say one of the primary reasons it isn't is that China is very isolationist. Little news goes in or out. A lesser contributing factor is that China is on average far less developed than any of the other contries I listed.

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I am American, and I care about Canada

[TamMan2000]

I am an able-bodied 24 year old. I need to have someplace to go so I don't get drafted!

Bush is a war-mongering buffoon

Go Figure

[chriso11]

Of course, you need to remember the mantra "Blame Canada".

So Canada does a lot of things right such as Universal Health Care (cue libertarian nuts to reply with 500 posts knocking it), and they seem to have a clue regarding the internet.

I've visited Canada several times, and it seems like a metric version of the U.S. without as many assholes (or stupid presidents). Of course, I never visited Quebec, so I may be naive on that point.

This is coming from a GOVERNMENT agency

[debest]

The Privacy Commission is an independant body of the Canadian government. Its existance, and its stance, gives me as a Canadian at least a bit of comfort that there is someone with influence who is looking out for some of my rights.

My question is regarding the USA. Is there an equivalent body in the American government? Is anyone "official" (read: not like lobbying bodies such as ACLU, EFF, etc.) looking out for the US citizenry's privacy rights? If so, have they been muzzled during the last 15 months?

For more info, including extra-national sources...

[EvilAlien]

... see Lex Informatica's Cybercrime page.

Other than that, do people in the US really care as little as they appear to about what is happening in Canada? I know we're not even a terribly significant trading partner, but we share a border dammit =)