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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!
CAN or CDN are accepted shortforms for Canada. I know anyone could miss Canada. All tucked away down there
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:
A comment made by someone at the bottom of the article:
The real purpose is to give the Recording Industry access to people who trade music files.
Correct.
Look, the ability is currently NOT THERE. This is a request to put the ability to listen properly into place. That doesn't mean that every conversation is going to be tracked; they want the ability to there in the event that it's needed. Funding a listening program is going to likely be a separate concern. Northern Paranoids can relax for now; Big Maple Leaf Brother isn't going to be listening into your pseudo-French/English conversations about hockey, you hoser.
Now where am I supposed to flee to when things go south in the US.
I'm packing my bags and moving to -- oh sh*t!
Okay, it's a joke, and I know that a large part of the Canadian population lives in urban areas - BUT, having said that: why would a country like Canada resort to such drastic measures? To paraphrase Benjamin Franklin, 'Who would give up liberty to gain security deserves neither liberty nor security.' I live here in the U.S. and am disgusted by all the increasing trickle of loss in civil liberties. One of these days we're going to wake up and it's Big Brother - we're really getting dangerously close. If Bin Laden wanted to destroy our 'way of living' - well, I hate to say that he already succeeded. Michael
Awww, how cute, America Junior is trying to be like it's big brother...
The second comment on the article says it all:
"Criminals and terrorists can easily bypass these measures using
encryption, stegonography, etc. The real purpose is to give the
Recording Industry access to people who trade music files. Anne
McLellan has been working with them on this for a couple of years. For
the sake of the greed of a few huge music corporations they're taking
up the tools of the Police State. Political surveillance is a heartbeat
away from this.You are the target. "
Nice.
Perhaps it has something to do with the recent finding that China has more spies in Canada than in any other nation? The government can't be too happy about that - they may be feeling they've been too lax.
Come on!!! CANADA???
Exactly what kind of crime do they have to deal with in Canada?
Maple Syrup Trafficing?
Thank god I live in the US, where our government would never interfere with our privacy (or other) rights.
Lets make a law saying that all our elected officials are required to have a live webcam feed 24/7/365 from their offices, cars and houses.
In this most democratic form of the 'Big Brother show', we would be able to hold our elected officials directly accountable. We would see what lobbyists are met, how long a lunch break they take, how ethically they shop, if they are really recycling and so on.
My little Linux and tech blog
You may think that the Netherlands is a free country, but we have had laws like that for years here.
Every company providing public communication has to be able to tap all traffic on demand. This not only includes fixed telephone lines, but also mobile (including location of the mobile set), Internet, etc.
The number of active taps per capita here is amongst the highest in the world. And the consumer is paying for all this, as the cost compensation given to the companies is not nearly covering the real cost of making these taps.
Furthermore, tapping is addictive. Now that the secret service has so many taps running, they start to see that it would be even better when everything is tapped and kept, so that after-the-crime analysis of data can be done as well.
Current law proposals are moving in this direction. Call records, mobile position data, Internet logs etc have to be kept longer and be made available on request.
This is of course only an intermediate step. Once this is implemented, it is found that even more information could be gained from the actual traffic, and the next requirement is to record all phone conversations and keep them for half a year. And to capture all Internet data sent to and from customers.
Worst of all is that we are part of the EU. Politicians abuse the EU for a kind of ping-pong game where they first draft up some idiotic idea, then discuss it (behind closed doors) with fellow politicians in other EU countries, a few countries implement the same idea, and then they report back in their own country that the new laws have to be passed for harmonisation within the EU.
In the first phase, any protest is waved away with "it is too early to discuss it, too early to protest, we are still drafting it and negotiating with EU partners" and then after some time (and a behind-closed-doors decision in the EU), the stance is changed to "we cannot turn this back, we are mandated by the EU to implement these laws, no need to protest because we are not making the decision".
This nearly went wrong with software patents, and now the same risk occurs with extended tapping of all telephone and internet traffic.
What amazes me most is that todays politicians are so easily being abused by terrorists.
Terrorism is achieving its goals using threat, and politicians easily play their game of threat amplification. Without having to actually perform any attacks, they move the entire free world to break down their free societies and destroy all the values they were so proud of a decade ago.
That seems like a bigger victory than blowing up some building.
The question you have to ask, is:
Why are our governments (Canadian, US, others) so terribly afraid of their citizens?
The question is what constitutes a 'reasonable' search? That alone begs the question, "If i'm not an identified suspect as a party to a criminal act, does the government have reasonable grounds to observe me in ANY fashion?" I believe that the US courts have held that with respect to law enforcement, there must be a legitimate reason for any government entity to entangle itself within activities of a citizen's day-to-day life. Legitimate reason arises when one is a suspect of a criminal act that has been committed, or one's actions are a very clear indication that a crime is about to be committed. Downloading a file, talking on a telephone, walking in a public park, or onto a public transit system do not qualify in any sense. Therefore, any effort to observe the citizenry at large to determine if they *might* be doing something illegal, is completely unreasonable.
If you lived here, you'd know that: A. If this is passed, our taxes will increase. Probably shown as "Access Fee". A(1). This said tax will be taxed again 7% GST. B. The Canadian Government (defined); is capable of "passing" law, but in-capable of "enforcing" laws. Same with everything from election platform promises to general public funding. C. Oh, and... Hoser Defined I agree. It's a plot to monitor us Canadians downloading our copious amounts of Rush and Tragically Hip music.
The beatings will continue until Morale Improves!
What good is a piece of paper (ie. the constitution) if your politicians routinely stomp all over it, ignore it, or otherwise interpret it to be compatible with the desires of the day? I would rather have no piece of paper and a government with some semblance of sanity, rather than a piece of paper and a government that does not give a shit what it says.