Slashdot Mirror
What's Going On in Canada?
Jack Action writes "Up in Canada, the Privacy Commissioner of the province of British Columbia is recommending an immediate freeze on all outsourcing of public data to US-connected firms, Reuters and the CBC are reporting. After extensive consultations, the Privacy Commissioner has found that the USA Patriot Act threatens the private data of citizens even if they don't live in the USA (repeat: non-Americans are at risk). You can visit the Commissioners website, and download a summary or the full report." And reader digity writes "The long-standing Canadian battle on grey-market satellite dishes took a surprising turn in a Quebec courtroom yesterday. The grounds: freedom of expression. Yet another reason to come to the Great White North!"
The wording is kind of funny... The issue we had with the Patriot Act in BC is that various loopholes allow for the FBI/CIA/Secret Service/[insert conspiracy here] to obtain records and data on Canadian citizens working for US owned companies in B.C.. As well, (as far as I know) certain stipulations of the Patriot Act make it somehow illegal for these companies to tell their employees that they are being probed. Obviously, this is something most Canadians would object to. It's also something most Americans should be objecting to, but I guess it's the price you pay for 'Freedom'.
As a Canadian, I have to say that in many many ways, I never want to leave my country. The only reasons I could possibly have for going to the US are for work related reasons, or to visit a special someone. I don't really have any desire to leave Canada, as our country is actually a fair bit saner in my experience.
:)
So no, I wouldn't say that the grass is always greener.
At least this post is on-topic by making a comparison between the patriot act and being f#$@%& in the ass. I would have given it +5 insightful given the chance... :-)
Is it me or does it seem like the US is quickly losing it's place as the center of the business world? This seems especially true in the technology sector where anytime a company does something they have to look over their backs for some other company sitting on a patent, or a DMCA violation claim coming their way. This just seems like one more for the pile of reasons to do your business outside the U.S.
As a UK citizen, the US government has decided that it has a right to collect any information about me that it chooses, from any agency in the UK (because we are Americas lap dog and would never dream of saying no), and then use that info as it sees fit. My data is not protected in any way because I am not a US citizen.
Nice to see that Canada has the balls to stand up the the USA.
In a world where Echelon is used for international corporate espionage, and where we've declared war on any country that we think is harboring terrorists, then why should anyone's privacy be protected?
Those damned pinko Canadians may be terrorists, and we need to protect ourselves.
Firms in India are setting up shop in Canada as a front for their offshoring operations. Our confidential information that crosses in to Canada ends up in India. Canada's confidential data that crosses in to the United States ends up in... well, probably India.
Folks, we're witnessing a major coup. In the century where Information is Power, all of the information is going to one country - India! India is the new world power.
And, just to piss off some neocon Bush babies who hate our freedom even more: remeber, we're half French!
Ô Canada!
Terre de nos aïeux,
Ton front est ceint de fleurons glorieux!
Car ton bras sait porter l'épée,
Il sait porter la croix!
Ton histoire est une épopée
Des plus brillants exploits.
Et ta valeur, de foi trempée,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits,
Protégera nos foyers et nos droits!
Whoo! Aaaaargoooos!! Strike, Leafs, strike!!!
I for one welcome our new pro-privacy overlords!
Bloggy Goodness
Shouldn't that be: "What's going on in the USA?"
No. We're not allowed to discuss that by law. Sorry, we're not allowed to tell you which law.
The US is no longer considered the ideal place for many types of businesses, and anti-american sentiments are definitely growing in europe and asia.
With more and more privacy-invading legislation being installed, the US will rapidly become unusable to any business that has trade secrets to protect, or deals with private customer data.
Canada has put in a nice document with recommendations what most of the world already knows and acts on.
you know there's something wrong in America when Bin Laden starts taunting Americans about the country's PATRIOT Act:
Bin Laden also said the Bush administration was like repressive Arab regimes "in that half of them are ruled by the military and the other half are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents."
He said the resemblance became clear when Bush's father was president and visited Arab countries.
"He wound up being impressed by the royal and military regimes and envied them for staying decades in their positions and embezzling the nation's money with no supervision," bin Laden said.
"He passed on tyranny and oppression to his son, and they called it the Patriot Act, under the pretext of fighting terror. Bush the father did well in placing his sons as governors and did not forget to pass on the expertise in fraud from the leaders of the (Mideast) region to Florida to use it in critical moments."
Obvious disclaimer: I in no way support terrorism, or even the use of force in conflicts unless there is no other alternative. I also consider Bin Laden a piece of shit, but that doesn't mean he hasn't got a point above.
-- james
Seriously folks, what does the patriot act allow the US government to do that it wasn't able to do before, just illegally?
It allows it to do bad things legally. Any other questions?
Shouldn't that be: "What's going on in the USA?"
What's going on in the USA is that we're in the process of forfeiting our economic dominance by screwing up our legal system such that doing business with American companies is becoming more of a pain in the ass than it's worth. It's not like there are many industries where we enjoy a monopoly any more, and these kind of laws are just further incentive for other countries to take their business elsewhere.
The power that this gives is huge. (Does some senior politician have a mistress or do private business with a drug dealer?--Amdocs has the information. Etc. And Slashdotters are surely familiar with data mining.) Many people have claimed that this power has been abused by the Israeli government--in particular, by Mossad--and such power obviously facilitates espionage. Whatever abuses have occurred, it seems insane to give this much power to a foreign agency.
For references and links to more information (there's lots, and it's downright scary), google for "Amdocs" and "Comverse Infosys".
It has nothing to do with where the data is actually stored.
= /2 0041002/TTMONEY08/210020513/-1/MONEY
Case and point.
Up here, Royal Bank of Canada's credit card business is outsourced to a U.S. firm. Because of this setup, this U.S. credit card firm has to give up RBC customer data to government officials if they use the Patriot Act to get at it.
http://canadaeast.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID
So, let's say (hypothetically) that the scenario is flipped around. So instead of RBC outsourcing to the U.S., we're talking about Chase Manhattan, and they've outsourced their credit card business to RBC. I think it'd be pretty safe to say that credit card data would still be accessible to the U.S. government through the Patriot Act.
I think this would be the case for any company that incorporates in the states, no matter where their head office or data is.
From the summary: All levels of government in Canada must ensure that their laws are consistent with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and that their policies and actions do not off end Charter protections. Several submissions suggested that putting British Columbians' personal information at risk of seizure under the USA Patriot Act might confl ict with privacy protection under the Charter. While we do not analyze this question, we acknowledge that Canadian courts require Charter values and rights to be considered in interpreting legislation such as BC's FOIPPA.
So I decided to look up this charter, and I found it. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which goes to unusual lengths to tell the world that French and English are it's official languages.
Then I decided to look for the US Bill of Rights, which is located not on a website with the words "law" and "justice" in the URL, but rather on "archives.gov" and what I'm reading is a Transcript of the Bill of Rights, as if it's chronicling an event and not informing me of my rights.
And I noticed the transcript of the Fifth Amendment: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger , and I contrasted it with Canada's charter: 9. Everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned. 10. Everyone has the right on arrest or detention a) to be informed promptly of the reasons therefor; b) to retain and instruct counsel without delay and to be informed of that right; and c) to have the validity of the detention determined by way of habeas corpus and to be released if the detention is not lawful. Period, end of sentance, no "except."
Is America more interested in the history of it's laws than in the current reality? Are we, under the Patriot Act, in a constant state of "public danger" and therefore subject to being held, as I've heard people have been, without being told the crime they're being held for, with no court date, and no trial. What a strange, and convoluted time we live in that we are in a constant state of being the exception and not the rule.
First of all, entrenching formerly illegal actions into law is NOT a good thing. The fact that they were being done before isn't a valid reason at all to make them legal.
Secondly, this law allows the US government to compel American companies operating in foreign countries to secretly hand over information on foreign employees, in violation of that country's laws. THAT'S why BC is raising the red flag on this one.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
LOL! Do you really thing the DPR will act against the USA. It's simple: the US has told the UK that it will bar entry to flights from the UK and UK citizens for whom full data records are not handed over. In the interest, of course, of 'security' and 'prevention of terrorism'. The US is starting to make the old USSR look enlightened in its entry requirements.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
Obviously something needs to change. All this terror-paranoia is not normal. We, the Europeans, also suffered attacks in Madrid but we didn't pass laws like that. We didn't get mad. We do fight terror, but we do not destroy our civilisation of democracy and freedom just to catch some crazy terrorists.
I hope the USA legislators will understand that they can fight their enemies without undermining the privacy and freedom of Americans (and the world!). I believe that laws like PATRIOT aren't needed.
BTW I wrote a story with some more information here. As you can read, the probe started in May and produced a report consisted of more than 100 pages. The report was written by OIPC, a Canadian authority on privacy issues in British Columbia.
This is not even close to the full transcript. The full transcript contains a lot of taunting of the ineptitude of George Bush, in that after the president was informed of the attacks he chose to do nothing and keep listening to the story of the goat. Here's a direct quote of Bin Laden speech(translated): "He thought listening to a child about her goat .. was more important"
I find the American news media tends to self(?) sensor a lot lately, especially when the content is politically motivated. Try Canadian (CBC) or British (BBC) for the true story. If the US citizens don't start insiting on their rights of free speech, they are going to lose them without even realizing it.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
I'm a Canadian citizen who recently lived in the US (Washington, DC) for three and a half months. I was planning on staying longer, but the Social Security Administration screwed up (read: lost) my application (I'm an American citizen also, having been born in Colorado, but I left for the sunny beaches of Canada when I was less than a year old).
I should have known that the SSA was going to botch my application when I had the following conversation with the woman processing my forms at the office:
Woman: Where did you live most of your childhood, sir?
Me: In Manitoba.
Woman: Where is that, sir?
Me: I think it's just north of North Dakota.
Woman: I thought that Canada was up there.
Me: It is.
Woman: *obviously confused* Then where is Manitoba?
Me: It's in Canada.
Woman: What province is that in, sir?
When I did finally move back to Canada upon discovering (after waiting nine weeks) that my application had mysteriously vanished, I have to say that I was utterly relieved to be back home in the land of healthcare (I couldn't afford coverage in the US, and that made me very nervous) and sanity.
The truth of the matter is that we don't have nearly as many religious fundamentalists as you guys have: I think you'd be hard pressed to find someone who believed one of our politicians was ordained by god to bring freedom to the rest of the world.
We don't exploit our national symbols like the maple leaf in order to press propaganda: in the US, I went to the Bank of America, where they had a sign saying, "Due to the 9/11 attacks, we must request that valid photo ID be presented with all transactions." This message was printed on a watermarked picture of the American flag. Why? I do not know, but perhaps for those with a lower level of education, somehow seeing this picture makes this annoying negative request (which I fail to see a connection between and the 9/11 attacks) somehow okay.
We don't throw around buzzwords like "independence", "liberty", and "freedom". Walking through the streets of DC and seeing security guards on nearly every intersection, and walking past police officers armed with semi-automatic weaponry certainly didn't make me feel particularly safe or free. Frankly, I felt observed and under suspicion, even though I had no reason to feel as such. A concert held in the park was an "Independence Concert". A show on the National Mall was a "Liberty Art Show". It was ridiculous. What does an art show have to do with liberty? I support patriotism, but tempered with common sense and sanity. These ideals of American life are losing meaning through their overuse and through the laws passed since 9/11.
I also suspect that our poverty levels are far lower here in Canada. Living in DC on the edge of the projects, where every poor person was black was incredibly depressing. Trying to see people raise a two children family on a $15k / year salary was heart-wrenching. There are poor families in Ottawa where I'm from, but those are largely the people who pull in a combined household income of $40k / year, take public transportation, and maybe have their two children sharing a bedroom.
Our politicians don't prance their families around on stage like some kind of ideal of American goodness. Frankly, the only reason I know that Jean Chretien is married is because his wife recently made the news in a rather entertaining way. I mean, seriously, why do Bush and Kerry's children speak at the national conventions? What do they have to do with politics? How is their opinion remotely valid in the context of the parties, any moreso than yours or mine?
Additionally, Canadians seem to be less divided on issues like politics and religion. I tire of hearing the atheist vs. christian debate about words like, "In God We Trust" written on your money, and "Under God" in your pledge of allegiance. While I'm atheist in the sense I reject the concept of god, up here in Canada, we have the words, "God keep our land glorious and free" in our national anthem, but i
Yeah, if by "free speech" you mean "allow terrorists to broadcast propoganda with possible underlying go codes for their cells".
Why would they do this when they've no control over which parts of the tape will be shown, whether the original soundtrack or a dubbed translation will be used etc? Just off the top of my head I can think of several more efficient and faster methods - a small advert in a local paper or particular comments in a weblog for example.