Canada Unveils Internet Surveillance Legislation

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist is reporting on his blog that the Canadian government today introduced new legislation that would require ISPs to establish new surveillance controls to monitor Internet activity. The bill will also require ISPs to disclose subscriber information without a warrant. The bill may not survive given the state of the government, but this is a sad indicator of things to come."

Comments

Silly Canadians

[Cytlid]

Need a law to create "intercept legislation".

Some of us techies know it as "packet sniffers".

Like this'll pass

[YetAnotherDave]

Given the state of the minority gov't, I'd be stunned if anything of substance passed, let alone something this offensive...

Re:Like this'll pass

[Senes]

Do not underestimate the power of old people in large numbers legislating against the internet. Their grandparents did it for TV, and their great grandparents did it for Radio.

Comparison with wiretap

[5, Troll]

The press releases are spinning this as an update of the wiretap law.

For those of us who are not legal experts, can someone clarify the procedure to obtain a wiretap?

With respect to this bill, the CBC report at
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/11/15 /surveillance051114.html?ref=rss
says:

"However, McLellan said that just like in the old wiretap days, police investigators will have to get the approval of a judge before they can have access."

This sounds different from the article.

Re:Comparison with wiretap

[linuxbert]

In Canada, Wiretap requires a warrent. You have to convince a judge that one is needed, and theri has to be a high level of confidence that one is required, and will provide needed information.

CSIS - essentally the Canadian version of the CIA can listen to what it wants - no warents or oversight needed. the catch is that information CSIS collects through its methods is not admisable in court, though they have in the past provieded information to the RCMP.

Your employer however can monitor your communications on their network at their pleasure, provided you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. If you are presented with a logon banner, stating that you are subject to monitoring, and have a signed usage agreement, then you can be monitored. These logs can be turned over to law enforcement without a warrent - they a the companies propery and they can concent to search.

IANAL - i just had a lecture on this.

Re:Comparison with wiretap

[prof_peabody]

FYI:

CIA does international work.
CSE would be the Canadian equivalent of the CIA

CSIS is the Canadian equivalent of the FBI.

Not many people know about CSE, but they have several buildings in Ottawa.

No right to privacy

[aussie_a]

Does no-one have the right to privacy anymore? For probable cause before getting searched? (Note: I don't know if these things are protected in Canada's constitution, however I do know that for the most part, while America has been whittling away its citizen's rights, Canada hasn't). I guess New Zealand really is the only place left that can be considered the land of the free.

Re:No right to privacy

[bhirsch]

Canada basically doesn't have a Bill of Rights like the US. There is a similar constitutional amendment (Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms), but its language makes it very easy to circumvent (ie, it can be violated for what is seen as a good reason). Beyond that, let's keep in mind there is no right to privacy in the US constitution beyond the fourth amendment's guarantee against unreasonable search and seizure.

Keep in mind that Canada, like many other countries, has laws forbidding hate speech. I believe it is still illegal to voice skepticism about the holocaust in Canada.

Re:No right to privacy

[bhirsch]

Yes, Section 1 of the Charter does describe the circumstances under which the government may pass a law contravening the rights outlined in it, but I would hardly say that it is very easy to circumvent.

That text is pretty awful. Passages like that are what get laws declared unconstitutional in the US. Hate speech certainly does not seem to impede a free and democratic society...

Yes, Canada does have laws against hate speech. The last time I checked, expressing skepticism about the holocaust itself was not hate speech.

Although I don't doubt it has changed, it certainly was a crime at one point. My point stands in response to the OP, that Canada is not the haven of civil liberties it is frequently viewed as.

Non-Confidence Vote Next Week

[Lockz]

As there will most likely be a non-confidence vote passed this week, anything introduced now is quite futile, and the government knows it. They will throw this out there and then show it as an example of the "wonderful" legislation that will be lost if they are defeated.

Advanced technology.

[Spazntwich]

Encryption technology is advancing more quickly than technology to crack it. This is just going to force people with something to hide underground.

Like gun laws, this is just feel-good rights-restricting bullshit put out by politicians to pander to the idiot masses. Nobody will benefit in the long run.

coincidence?

[Foktip]

why is it all the nasty canadian bills end in the number "4"?

C64... evil copyright stuff
C74... insane spying stuff

Re:coincidence?

[whogben]

Thats because Canada is 90% good guys, and every tenth bill they let their hair down and do something crazy (evil!) Kinda like buy 9 burritos get the tenth covered in evil.

IANAL

[The Amazing Fish Boy]

Canadian Constitution says:

8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

5. IS A WARRANTLESS SEARCH OR SEIZURE ALWAYS UNREASONABLE?

S.8 protects a persons right to be secure against unreasonable searches and/or seizures. There is no constitutional warrant requirement. If there was a constitutional warrant requirement s.8 would state "Everyone has the right to be secure against warrantless search or seizure". However, the Supreme Court of Canada has adopted the position that all warrantless searches are prima facie unreasonable. What this proposition enunciates is that when a search is conducted in the absence of a warrant (prior judicial authorization) the search will be presumed to be "unreasonable" and therefore a violation of s.8 of the Charter.

Re:A new america

[Scrameustache]

require the citizens to be personally responsible for their lives. Drugs would be legal. There would be no speed limits.

When people drive, they are also responsible for other people's lives, wether they realise it or not. Hence the speed limits.

Especially if you're gonna have people driving high on coke.

Anyway, go play nationstates, it's free, and fun for a while.

what are the real reasons behind this?

[bzipitidoo]

TFA nicely dissects the given reasons as wrongheaded thinking to outright b.s. What organizations sponsored this horror? MPAA/RIAA? The Security Industrial Complex? Could be revealing to learn which lawmakers sponsored this and who their biggest political donors are.

Oh Canada!

[slashbob22]

Oh Canada!
My online spying land!
Telco intercept at CSIS's command

With packet sniff and account info
The True North now South and "free"

From net and mobe,
Oh Canada, we foil(*) our heads for thee.

ISAKMP our tunnels to the free(**)
Oh Canada, we foil our heads for thee

Oh Canada, we foil our heads for thee!

----
*
a) Tin Foil - Aluminum Foil has been shown not to work.

**
a) Patch to avoid DOS
b) Avoid tunneling to the US or China both have stronger anti-communication laws


Canadian Government Information Site

This can all be resisted

[Sloppy]

People, the powers that be want this stuff. It doesn't matter if you live in UK or USA or Canada or whatever. There will be haggles about whether it's legal or not, there will be haggles about whose responsibility it is to spend the money to provide intercept capability, and different jurisdictions will end up with different rules.

But in the end, none of it will ever work without your consent. All people have to do, is Just Say No, and the powers that be will be totally fucked, unless they crack down so hard (pretty much outlaw all encryption) that the side-effects will be unacceptable to everyone -- and thus it won't be doable. We can stop this shit forever (assuming lack of certain breakthroughs) if we can just get non-nerds interested enough to create the network effects and critical mass.

Tap my communications, and maybe you can learn a bit from traffic analysis, but you won't know what I'm saying if you can't crack the ciphers. And maybe you can compromise me if you focus on me, just as you can compromise a criminal when you're willing to get a warrant and break into his home and install a bug. But they can't do that to all 5 or 6 billion of us. With encryption, we can deny them the capacity to install a massive driftnet to fish for dirt on everybody.

And the way to do this, is to decentralize control and encrypt. Your telecom provider is required to install a backdoor and let people spy on you without your knowledge? Well, that doesn't work if you are your own telecom provider -- what are they going to say: "don't tell yourself"? Anything over a public net has to be encrypted. Make the endpoints be the only viable intercept points.

It will impede organized criminals, it will impede nosey sysops, it will impede crackers who compromise the in-between systems that you currently blindly trust, it will impede the unethical marketing division of your communication providers, and yes, it will impede law enforcement. But even if you're a diehard statist and insist that Big Brother has the right to watch us, do we not still have a right to be protected against all the Little Brothers? You can't have it both ways -- you can't give the good guys this power and keep it away from the bad guys. That is not possible. So pick your poison: a free society where Bad Guys have privacy too, or one where we always feel like maybe we're being watched, not by one benevolent eye, but many who unlike government, don't even operate under the pretense of serving our interests.

Minority government

[bareminimum]

Those of you unfamiliar with the current state of Canadian politics may find it interesting to learn that the current Gvt is in a minority position and since Monday has completely lost control of the Parliament. They have no intention of regaining it - i.e. we will have elections as soon as the opposition decides to put its trousers on and defeat the Gvt on a confidence motion (i.e. financial)

Therefore in an attempt to stall said oposition and force them into election the Gvt has presented many incomplete bills today knowing that none of them will have a chance to pass.

Sorry but nothing to see here, maybe next year.

Re:A new america

[Kuukai]

Marx dreamed. Jefferson dreamed. Things don't always go the way you think they will, even if you're as smart as those guys. I for one would hate to live in a country where the streets aren't safe to drive on all because some guy who bought the island had some crazy ideology about law. That kinda defies the entire primary purpose of government (to keep other people from killing me or taking my stuff). Not to mention some of your laws are contradictory. How are you perserving privacy if you punish murderers publicly? (and you're practically guaranteed not all "murderers" found guilty in your society acutally committed a crime) And the guilty would be very hard to punish with everyone fending for themselves. No one's going to work for an unpaid police force, and you won't be able to investigate crimes anyway because that will invade someone's privacy. Hell, without taxes, no one's going to enforce your "one law", and people somewhere on your island might set up an "invasive" government just to protect themselves from the chaos around them. I'm not trying to discourage you or your dream, I'm just saying many brilliant people have spent lifetimes trying to figure out "a better way", and there's a reason there's no utopian countries out there. Also, on an "I learned something today" note: Government is about compromise. We give up some of our freedoms in order to make the world an overall safe place for us, our loved ones, and our stuff. It's a unending game of give and take, and before it started, you would have lived in constant fear of a larger guy coming and killing you just because he felt like it. Maybe being able to feel secure about the world around me is a kind of "freedom."

Europe risks becoming silly too

[Christian Engstrom]

There is an overwhelming risk that Europe will get the same kind of privacy invading legislation through the Data Retention Directive.

If you are a European citizen you can sign a petition against the directive here.

According to a joint newspaper article by Swedish MEPs Charlotte Cederschiöld (conservative) and Jonas Sjöstedt (socialist) that was published some months ago, the only thing that can stop the directive is feedback to the politicians from the general public on the same scale as the software patents directive generated. I don't know if they are right in their assessment, but signing the petition against the directive is at least a first step.

Personally, I would also like to see the European ISPs becoming more active and start spending some real money on lobbying.

As long as it's only the old dinosaurs with pre-Internet business models that are spending lobbying money in Brussels/Washington/Ottawa/Canberra, we will continue to see bad pieces of legislation getting passed everywhere. It's time for a new generation of businesses to realize that politics don't take care of themselves, and that if you let the bad guys' lobbyists rein unopposed, there is a bill to be paid for it later.