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CND Government Demands Widespread Tap Access
north_of_49 wrote to mention a Globe and Mail article stating that the Canadian government is seeking the ability to conduct surveillance on the communications of its citizenry. From the article: "The major boost in interception capacity is in proposals the government has put forward in confidential negotiations with the telecom industry as it prepares new legislation on high-tech wiretapping scheduled to be introduced next month. Government officials insist their proposals will bring Canada's laws on wiretaps -- drafted when people still attached alligator clips to telephone lines to listen in -- up to speed with new technologies. But privacy advocates fear an erosion of safeguards, and telecom companies worry the government wants them to build in a costly interception system."
is CDN - Thanks!
Fortunately laws like this are only good for 5 years until a new government has to pass another exception to the charter (charter exceptions are only good for 5 years, no more, and must be passed repeatedly by all new successive governments for the law to stay on the books).
Specifically, this violates section 8 of the charter:
Yes, the summary is a bit misleading. What this is, is a bill to request that telecommunication companies have the CAPACITY to allow authorities WITH warrants to perform wiretaps on a variety of services including email and phone. The capacity they want is about 1/5000 users. So, if you're an ISP with 10,000 users, you need to be able to tap 2 users simultaneously. This isn't news, and certainly nothing that matters. On average 2000 warrants for taps are issued per year in Canada, and are only good for 60 days without renewal.