Slashdot Mirror
Proposed Canadian Law Would Allow Warrantless Searches
An anonymous reader writes "A bill introduced by Canada's Minister of Public Safety will allow police to (warrantlessly) force ISPs to provide access to any requested digital traffic records, reports News 1130. Police lobbied for the bill as means of 'combatting gangsters, pedophiles, or terrorists,' but apparently they find the legal principles of judicial review and probable cause, as well as a constitutional provision against 'unreasonable search or seizure', to be too much of a hassle, and would rather be able to search anyone's web or e-mail traffic at their own discretion and without any oversight. All in the name of public safety, of course."
Think of the children, eh?
'Nuff said.
It's for the good of the country, you know. And if you don't support this type of legislation, you must be some sort of "pedophile, terrorist or gangster."
Truth, Justice. Or the American Way.
Do people really hate the police that much? I mean, asking for them to get a WARRANT before they invade your invade your life? Do you have any idea how much of a hassle that is? We should just hand them over every little piece of information about our lives at the drop of a hat! It's the least we can do.
</heavy sarcasm>
The internet is a public domain, why would law enforcement require a permit for that? And besides, almost all entities such as places of business/education and many ISPs will willingly give this information up anyways...
Cana ... oh, ummm, crap, now I'm in trouble.
I am officially gone from
This is ridiculous. If this passes, I'm never voting Conservative again (leaving me with no other options!)
Write to Van Loan:
The Honourable Peter Van Loan
Minister of Public Safety
Parliament Hill Office
Room 157
East Block
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
T 613-996-7752
F 613-992-8351
E vanloan.p@parl.gc.ca
Constituency Office ... in the Grist Mill Plaza,
45 Grist Mill Road, Unit 10
Holland Landing, Ontario
L9N 1M7
Mount Albert Road between Old Yonge Street and 2nd Concession
T 905-898-1600 or
1-877-738-3748
F 905-898-4600
E vanlop1@parl.gc.ca
Obligatory Simpsons Reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh2sWSVRrmo
This sounds like something the McKenzie brothers would come with.
Strange Brew - indeed.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.
enough said.
.. from which to look down my frost-bitten nose at the suckers having their rights taken away down south. Now i'm putting up with bad weather for no good reason!
Doesn't our government understand a fundamental principle of governing a country with a predominantly harsh climate like Canada: we must do everything significantly better than our neighbours to the south to prevent brain drain.
And it is showing us that civil liberties won't end with a bang, they will end with a pathetic, humiliating trifle. Apparently, we will forfeit our liberties not in order to fight terrorism, AIDS, exploitation, or poverty, but to "protect" some copyrighted content or to prevent some teenager from downloading porn. A really sad way to go, Democracy!
Intellectual Property: an immaterial non-entity, most fiercely contended by those with no proper intellect to speak of.
"Police lobbied for the bill as means of 'combatting gangsters, pedophiles, or terrorists,'"
I like that phrasing, it's like they aren't really sure. "Why do we need these powers? To combat gangsters, pedophiles... or terrorists, yeah terrorists too. Or maybe identity thieves? Whatever makes you turn your brain off and do what we want. That's why we need them."
The enemies of Democracy are
Of course I have nothing to hide, therefore you have no reason to be spying on private citizens. You are after all my public servants, from the Prime Minister on down the chain, you are supposed to be representing my interests, not attacking my Rights, and Freedoms. Start representing my interests, and eradicate the Police State mentality out of my Parliament, and Police Forces.
Fox News? Is that you? The Fair and Balanced summary threw me there for a minute...
Michael Geist has it, at Government Introduces Bill To Require Surveillance Capabilities, Mandated Subscriber Disclosure
Cause everybody knows Savoir-Faire is everywhere!!!
As is usual, the summary is inflammatory. As described at http://www.privacylawyer.ca/blog/labels/lawful%20access.html/ a warrant would still be required for eavesdropping, but "basic subscriber information" (name, address, telephone number and Internet Protocol (IP) address, e-mail address, service provider identification and certain cell phone identifiers) would be available without a warrant.
I'll be writing to my MP in any case.
Gray says the public doesn't need to worry about invasion of privacy because getting information from an ISP is only one small step in an investigation. She also says it's not like police knock down doors as soon as they have a name connected to an Internet address.
What??? That is EXACTLY what happens when the police don't need warrants.
This bill makes it possible for it to happen, with no safeguards whatsoever. A well intentioned, but poorly thought-out piece of legislation that gives the police far too much power.
...what next?
After the government watches every single aspect of what we do with our electronic communications, what next?
Will they actually catch all the pedo's & terrorists? Will all those crimes disappear? Or will those crimes continue to occur?
Of course they'll continue to occur, so will they move on to thought control with nanotechnologies? Seriously. Will the argument still convince everyone to allow for thought monitoring because, "How else will we catch all the pedo's and terrorists! Think of the children!"
So then they watch all our thoughts, will the crimes then go away? Probably not, people will figure out ways to block those nano-bots somehow. Then what?
Then they will want to control our thoughts - because, because that way we can control everyone and stop crime and protect the children! But will crime stop? Yes. But then, the crime stopped because freedom stopped.
Crime and freedom go hand-in-hand. Can't have one without the other.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
Easy, you crazy kids. Sometimes in Canada, we'll propose some totally nuts bill to ensure it gets struck down, and it serves as a precendence to prevent weaker, yet more wily intrusions in our security and privacy.
That being said, please do, write your politicians, let them know their thoughts.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.
[Lyrics are now contradictory]
Oh my!
Ahhh, the power of irrational fear.
Todos mis movimientos están friamente calculados
I'm wondering if there's a business opportunity here...
I'm not an IT wizard or lawyer, but supposing one formed a partnership with major ISPs to run high-bandwidth proxy servers just beyond the perimeter of their network backbone. The proxy-server owners wouldn't be "ISP"s by definition, so they wouldn't be subject to data retention or any sort of disclosure laws. Then, ISP customers can have encrypted communications to the proxy, which then travel outwards to the rest of the web in whatever manner.
The police would only have legal access to the communications that the isp sees which is entirely encrypted.
Or have they considered this loophole?
In practical terms, what constitutes and unreasonable search where privacy is concerned? No, this is not a troll question. Just hear me out.
I think that the primary concern for most people where access to personal information is concerned is generally within the following areas.
1) Protection from 'planted evidence' when targeted by a law enforcement investigation
2) Protection from Identity Theft
3) Not having their private information used in a way that will harm their personal life.
4) Not having their private information used in a way that will harm their job.
If those things can be respected and guaranteed, how would a warrent less search of your e-mail by law enforcement be unreasonable? If those who accessed that information were held liable in the event that accessing that information caused harm, I do not really see the problem.
I do not care if the police know that I have a mistress and that I am planning on looking for a new job. But I do not want my wife or my boss or my friends to know these things.
END COMMUNICATION
My first reaction was YIKES, what are the Canadians doing. Then I realized that their law is very similar to the US Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Basically under FISA the US Government can request and get any information they want if they think it might cross any international border. No one is keeping tabs on what information the US collects because it is a "secret", so basically they can collect whatever they want with no warrant.
Blame Canada!
From an email of several years ago.
"The police should have the power to search anyone's hard drive over the network without a warrant and erase anything they deem suspicious. Anybody who objects to this is a thief or thief wannabe."
Sounds like Canada's on its way to granting his wish.
And what makes you believe the police wouldn't just handle the information in whatever way they please once they get it? Read the source again, no warrant = NO JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT.
The police may have a legitimate case to need the data (and most of the time they do), but the whole concept of judicial review is it's NOT FOR THEM TO DECIDE. We have independent courts and judges who are getting paid to be a neutral party and balance the rights of the community (represented by the police) vs. the rights of the individual. The police are NOT neutral - they have a vested interest in prosecuting a case, just like a defendant has a vested interest in the prosecution to fail. Sometimes the police are right, sometimes the defendant, that's why a neutral and independent court needs to decide matters. Since in this case the police want to dig into a suspects private data, a court must decide whether the request is legitimate or not. The police's own word is NOT good enough.
was a policewoman?
Makes it easier to use pervasive, automated, data mining (e.g. SMS text messages containing key words, &c.) results as "evidence" against people. Warrants? Probable Cause? Due Process? These technicalities are not necessary in a modern techno-fascist police state.
(Where do I "opt-out"?)
Some people up here speak Quebecois, which is a dialect of French. Many of us do not however, I barely speak a word of it. No intelligent Canadian would want to move to the US though, so you don't need to worry much. You couldn't pay me to live down there to be honest.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Yikes, these people think they rule the world or part of it anyway. I hereby revoke their right to do this. If they implement this they become the State Based Terrorists that they themselves fear!
Nitwits like you didnt pay attention when the Reform Party which formed less than two decades ago because the Conservatives werent far right enough for them helped shut down the party so the Reform Party could take it as their own.
Joe Sixpack didnt notice that it was the Progressive Conservatives but just Conservatives so nothing has changed and now he is surprised.
The Reform Party was also called the Canadian Alliance and probably another name or two but it was beyond fringe until they took a name that was around for over 100 years.
Youre an idiot and shouldnt be allowed to vote.
And the police/government are so reliable that they never lose your data or let it be stolen and put all over the internet.
I have to believe 'gangsters, pedophiles, or terrorists' will be using encryption to carry out their nefarious plans. The real target here is people downloading music and movies.
The real problem with getting a warrent in many cases is that while there may be strong indications that something is going on, there is nothing that a judge would consider probable cause.
This can even extend to siuations where it is clear to someone technically inclined that someone is involved in probably illicit digital traffic but it is not at all clear to someone less technical. This comes up with botnets and compromized computers - you see a computer hammering away at sending spam or a brute-force attack. It is clear from simply looking at traffic statistics that something is going on. Is this cause for someone to take action? Usually not, because there is no "real world" evidence of this other than some ephemeral digital indication, which isn't good enough.
Requiring physical, real-world "probable cause" in order to examine digital information would seem to be a sure guarantee that there is no digital crime. Since it can't be identified, it therefore doesn't exist. And I am sure there are plenty of judges that cannot conceive of anything beyond physical, real world probable cause and will not grant a warrant based on anything digital at all.
I do find this interesting that this comes up on the same day as an article about Sweden's court rejecting IP identification. Clearly nobody knows what is going on and the courts in different places are utterly lost.
Of course, step 2 will expand on this. Not only that, but I'd imagine that it's not entirely unlikely that we may end up with "Criminal Copyright Infringement" being at some point investigated by the police on behalf of the media companies. So then not only can they get the info of the aforementioned criminals, but all those dirty commie filesharers as well...
A story http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:enWVsPf5lZAJ:www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html%3Fid%3D1285658+http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html%3Fid%3D1285658&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&client=safari about this was submitted to slashdot in Feb 2009, it was rejected.
Did not see any interest in the story and thought it was 'over' for Canada back then. Looks like the Canadian Taliban have won. Your broadband devices will be smashed and hanging from lamp posts and trees.
Become a citizen journalist and talk to your politicians in public.
Film them and get it up on youtube. Always fun to see them try to explain their policies without a teleprompter and a set of tame journalists.
Pastor Martin Niemoller's poem is getting filled up again people.
When the Canada's Minister of Public Safety came for the pedophiles,
I remained silent;
I was not a pedophile.
Then they rendered the terrorists,
I remained silent;
I was not a terrorist.
Then they came for the gangsters,
I did not protest;
I was not a gangster.
Then they came for the p2p users,
I did not speak out;
I was not into file sharing programs.
When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out for me.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
This is all political ammunition for the next election, but the chances of this actually getting anywhere before the parliament goes into recess is pretty slim. See Canada's government shuts down on Friday for the summer. The Liberal party has been repeatedly trying to dig at the minority, and topple the government. More than likely Canada will have a fall election, so any issue that is a traction issue is a good issue. This happened the last time when the Liberals were in power as well.
So what will happen is this: Bill will get stuck, parliament will close. Government will collapse sometime in the fall. Election comes up. This becomes a traction issue along with a pile of others, that amazing 6% of the electorate that hasn't decided who they're voting for is being swayed one way or the other. Back and forth, and we'll find out who is the next PM.
So on and so forth, welcome to Canadian politics.
Om, nomnomnom...
Because no bad guys would ever actually use encryption. Warrantless searches are only going to allow law enforcement to catch complete idiots who could have been caught 1000 other ways. Phone call asking them personnally would probably work. It will be useful for surreptiously monitoring the casual and (expected to be) private conversations of average citizens.
The possibility and probability for abuse of this is staggering. So:
1. cops get easier means of collaring idiots rather than doing the hard cases...aka "we're so incredibly busy pulling over speeders to make our quotas, we have no time to stop the drunks and reckless maniacs."
2. a whole staff of official internet peeping-toms get overpaid to go through personal data.
3. The few really bad apples in the government get an incredibly powerful new tool for blackmail, insider trading, political manipulation, fraud, and a whole host of other evils.
5 years from now some reporter will be write an expose on how some evil gov internet monitor is abusing his power and has hurt or ruined hundreds or thousands of individual citizens, and everyone will be saying "how could this have possibly happened?" Duh.
For all those who say "that'll never happen", please see what the original purpose of the American social security number was, how it's used today, and the assurances protesters of the time where given. "Only ever going to be used for SS benefits"...yeah right.
My main concern is that I trust the cops about as much as the criminals, so I don't want them having more than the minimum required power to investigate crimes.
"We returned the General to El Salvador, or maybe Guatemala, it's difficult to tell from 10,000 feet"
See? Nobody here has any sense of VISION!
Don't protest this? PROMOTE IT!
Then apply to be a police officer.
You'll get in, don't worry. Its very easy!
You now have carte-blanche to "examine" the ISP records of every single pubic official, without any oversight or them having any legal recourse. I also imagine that once the ISP's figure out what you're up to, you'll have their most eager and FULL cooperation.
They'll probably even give you a secure VPN tunnel to Wikileaks.
As for what happens to the law afterwards, don't worry? Once the people get done lynching all the thieves, rapists and pedophiles in the government, there won't BE a government and they'll have to start over.
[End Of Line]
You couldn't pay me to live down there to be honest.
Bullshit man, everything's got a price tag, its just a question of how much.
How is it that that the gangsters, pedos and turrists who apparently lurk in every corner and shadow, just waiting for a momentary lapse in which they will terrorize, rape and beat you, were thwarted from taking over the world before we threw away the rule of law to "get them"?
can they introduce a bill to do something football fans dont want, or similar ? they cant. because they fear that there will be rioting, heads will roll, heads will be whacked. same goes with minorities, etc etc.
you cant do such things, even in the name of public safety, or anything else.
buuuuut, you can introduce all kinds of shitty legislation to curb internet. you can. because, all they will be doing is protest, send emails and whatnot. all will peacefully shout and yell, politely, send a few mails and go about their business. if you can make a law stick, it will stick, and they will whine on, and do nothing.
maybe we are too mild.
Read radical news here
I concur with the need for judicial oversight with anything the police might want to use for the purpose of law enforcement. If the Police want to get directly into my personal business, they should need to get a warrant.
But for a bluk / wholesale search where they know exactly what they are looking for, but not necessarily who has it, then getting a warrant to search 10 000 people would be a bit much. Further more, when such a search is non invasive, and would have absolutly no impact on the ability of any one searched in that manner to go about their business, should a warrant be required in the first place?
Lets say the police know for a fact that someone using YourLocalNeighborhoodISP for internet service has been distributing child porn. Or stolen credit card numbers. Or operating a phishing scam. And lets say that this dirtbag is smart enough that he is co-opting the user account info of other customers.
I say that if the police want to do a wholesale search of all traffic sent to and from YourLocalNeighborhoodISP to help identify the criminal, that they should be able to do so without a warrant. I think it is reasonable to go right up to the point where they actually have a specific suspect in that case.
But yeah, I admit that this shit would need some pretty goddamn hardcore oversight to keep bored cops from looking at things they do not need to look at.
END COMMUNICATION
A recent Supreme Court of Canada decision found that the police can collect and examine your garbage without a warrant, even if it is in sealed, opaque bags, in a trashcan, within your property line. Decision: http://csc.lexum.umontreal.ca/en/2009/2009scc17/2009scc17.html.
The actual text of the bill is at C-47.
Like all bills, there are some interesting bits to it. For example, requests of service providers can be made by (for the purposes of carrying out the duties of) the Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the Director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, or the Commissioner of Competition under the Competition Act (Section 16.2). Federal police body, intelligence body ... I can see why they might have a desire to get subscriber information, but the competition commissioner? What kind of competition requires particular subscriber data - other than maybe the RCMP and CSIS competing for liberty-trampling-jackboot-thug-of-the-year.
It isn't -quite- as ridiculous as the summary makes it out to be. Section 17 outlines the circumstances under which police may request subscriber information, and while it falls short of requiring a warrant be issued, it is allegedly limited to circumstances of imminent harm by or to the subscriber. Section 17 also requires reporting by the police to the applicable agency who would normally make a request, listed in section 16. Section 18 refers to records which must be kept when requests are made. Section 19 restricts the use of requested information to the matter about which the request was made (no fishing expeditions or tying subscriber information into other matters). Section 20 outlines auditing and reporting by the bodies making requests, the privacy commissioner, and the Minister responsible for the requesting body.
In Soviet Russia, the new overlords welcome you! ... There. Fixed that for you.
In Soviet CANADA , the new overlords welcome you!
.
- aqk
F U
I guess they are technically not an ISP - they are my online/offsite backup provider ...
But they have maintained a "warrant canary" for years:
http://www.rsync.net/resources/notices/canary.txt
I don't know how effective it would really be if push really came to shove, although it's difficult to imagine a court upholding a LEA coercing them to make public false statements ... the point is, someone is pushing back.
All they need after this is a rectal probe and some dental records and they have you body and soul. Phone tapping? No problem! What you watch on TV? Of course! What you buy, how you shop and what your bank account has? Naturally! Health records? Certainly! What a fucking joke of a bill! I need more information on the ass-hat who proposed it, and send them to Auschwitz for some sensitivity training and reality checks on abuses of power. Perhaps we can call this one 'the Star-Of-David bill' in recollection of the Nazi's demanding Jewish citizens wear the Star of David to identify them (and persecute them). This bill turns prosecution into persecution. On second thought, this isn't just a rectal probe, its a rectal probe that also acts as a cattle prod. If you are uncomfortable but not in a lot of pain bzzzzzzt! Hows that? The sonofabitch who dreamed this up needs more than a gentle bitchslapping, he needs an oedema!
why do ISPs keep extensive records anyway?
This is in regards to the tabling of a law regarding warrentless electronic intercepts, links below for refence.
http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2009/06/18/tech-internet-police-bill-intercept-electronic-communications.html
http://www.news1130.com/more.jsp?content=20090617_213536_8084
The bill proposes the ability for police to make warrentless intercepts of electronic information with the aid of ISPs. While I believe in the best efforts of the police and our intelligence communities, and I believe in making their job easier, I do not believe this is the path to take.
This is a fundamental erosion of personal privacy. Warrants for searches are applied for and executed all the time, and justice is well served by the judicial oversight. The point of oversight is to balance the justice of the many against the privacy of the individual. Wholesale disregard for oversight leads to abuse, the police are only human and humans are fallible.
I also call into question, the scale of which these are laws are designed to help the people. Terrorism and child pornography (while abhorrent) are todays boogeymenm, occupying such a fractional percentage of actual crime. The value of the electronic intercepts a law like this would provide would be minimal in cases of drug/organized crime when compared to phone tapping and physical searches (both of which require warrants).
There are ways to fight crime; money for more officers, money for investigations, prosecution and witness protection, and better inter-agency communication. We can reduce poverty, increase education, raise the standard of living to fight crime. Eroding the rights of the innocent populance doesn't fight crime.
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely,
*********
*********
Vancouver, BC
no text
According to the Calgary Herald: "Police currently face a patchwork of responses from Internet providers, as some comply immediately, others delay, and some demand a warrant before releasing the information. Others simply do not have the capabilities allowing for cyber wiretapping." I'd like to know which ones are standing up for their customers rights and which aren't... A Bell spokeswoman was quoted "The costs of policing should not be downloaded on to one particular industrial sector. Other funding mechanisms must be found." So basically they will gladly sell out their customers but are still haggling over the compensation.
First it was the copyright reform, now this. Fuck you, Canadian government.
They always stealing/selling drugs, shaking down hookers, planting drugs, selling protection to drug dealers and killing people for shits and giggles.
Those 4 are not the primary concerns for everyone. For instance, my primary concern is that the contents of my communications and the list of web sites I visit is none of anyone else's business . So, unless a judge agrees that they have probable cause to believe that I'm a criminal and using my Internet access to further those activities, they have no business knowing who I communicate with or what websites I visit. Just because what I do is neither illegal or immoral doesn't mean I don't mind everyone knowing about it.
The Conservatives, of course, are now pushing their spin on the need for internet service providers like Rogers to record and disclose personal identifying information without a warrant.
As a former postmaster for <a canadian university>, I had a legal duty to protect this sort of information unless the University received a court order, or, in the specific and limited case of a student, if they were brought before an academic tribunal to answer for an action.
In the entire time I was there, over five year in all, only one academic investigation took place, and no legal ones, despite this being the era in which some blatantly unsuitable material was broadcast via the "alt.sex.pictures" newsgroup.
I would not enjoy knowing that the University or an ISP was going to hand my name, address and billing information to a police officer without a warrant, especially as the web is now a much more civilized place.
Nor would I like to have them reading through logs of who I spoke to or what I read.
The librarians of the Canada had the best thought-out set of rules: only a strictly limited amount of information was kept about who had borrowed a particular book, it was available only with a warrant, and it was destroyed as soon as the book was returned undamaged.
That is the kind of behavior we aimed for at the university, and is the least I expect out of an ISP. Neither they nor the state has any compelling interest in my activities unless they can go before a judge and make a real case that a crime may have occurred.
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
[...] the last election with Dion?
Seriously? I always thought that the 'Canada loves Celine Dion' comments were jokes, but you're telling me she was in your election?
Although not as bad as a musician, if the US ever elected an actor to the presidency (fortunately, former-President Ronald Reagan isn't alive to hear this blasphemy) or state governor (we'd have to call in an action movie star, possibly one who co-starred with Sinbad, to resolve the issue), it would be fodder for millions of jokes!
I don't think this bill has anything to do with its stated purposes.
I smell RIAA, and various other copyright lobbyists.
This is a "SAVE THE CHILDREN" attempt to get around Canadian privacy laws to get at, and identify people for civil legal purposes. Not criminal.
Gangsters, Pedos, and Terrorists oh my! My ass. Lions, Tigers, and Bears! Oh No!
I cannot believe how thinly veiled this attempt is to do an end run around our privacy rights simply so some industries can start suing Canadian media downloaders.
Right now the ONLY reason we in Canada are not getting our grandmothers getting the bejesus sued out of them is our privacy laws. In the US they get a John Doe warrant in some wishy washy State for force the ISP to release the identity of the individual. They then drop the charges against John Doe, and place new ones against the named individual somewhere else. In Canada they can't do this. You can change an unnamed individual. You have to have an identity first. Our privacy laws here are stronger. So far they have tried to get our telecoms to capitulate, but thus far have been told to bugger off. In fact with our privacy laws one could argue they they might be held libel for releasing the information in the first place.
Case in point the police regularly get information from ISP, and Telecoms all the time. They have a right to it. All they have to do is present enough evidence to get a warrant. For offenses like the above, you would think they would have a lot of evidence before they move anyway. Getting at private information without just cause has abuse written all over it. Anyway I hope this bill doesn't go through, it would be a black mark on all Canadians.
So are basic human rights. Let's just rebuild our countries into giant prison systems, where you're supervised and watched around the clock, and have to ask permission (submitted in triplicate with the appropriate filing fee, of course) to go pee. You will be born into debt and work from cradle to grave to pay the debt back, you own nothing and can be nothing except what you're told to be. Then all the police AND all the politicians will be happy, right?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Research In Motion (through some easy manipulation by Govt't "definitions" of ISP), their servers, their internet pipes, their entire network that connects to all the Blackberry devices around the world would be subject to these regulations. Thank god I hate blackberry devices.
Wow, it just keeps pushing the envelope further and further. Wait until they automate everything so that your entire privacy is 100% compromised. All of a sudden, if you speak out against the government there will be an email in your inbox along the lines: "well... we could just charge you with the most petty of possible crimes, which you may or may not have committed, then release all your personal information to all publications world wide... Still want to challenge us?" The part I'd love is how they would defend to death in a courtroom that evidence ceased in this manner to prosecute themselves was illegally obtained and should be dismissed. Way too much abuse of power made possible by a bill like this. The internet needs to be kept free, open, and lawful. That includes requiring warrants. Why should someone be lawfully penalized based on their use of a utility. I'm definitely sending off my own letter to my MP about this.
With so many people actually supporting stuff like this, our rights wont slowly fade but will go out with much fanfare and flag waving.
Reminds me of that scene in starwars: 'so this is how freedom ends... '
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Why do the Tories distinguish between on-line and in person (Tories seek to widen police access online - June 18). Why not require libraries to keep records of what I've read?
Or have my phone provider collect a list of people with whom I've been talking? Or require my name, address and phone number if I walk down the sidewalk?
Merely using the internet may be sufficient evidence to convince the government of Iran I'm some kind of criminal, but I expect better of a Canadian government.
Letters to the editor, June 20, 2009
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/letters-to-the-editor/why-stop-at-on-line-tracking/article1190659/
--dave
davecb@spamcop.net
Silence the Alarms, I say.
While I am generally quite wary of anything which may invade my privacy, in this case, I am not terribly concerned. Everyone seems to be working themselves into a righteous frenzy over what amounts essentially to a trifle. With no warrant, this bill only allows the acquisition of specific pieces of general information such as name and address, for which there is no reasonable expectation of confidentiality - indeed, little more than could be expected from a telephone directory. A telephone directory is not a wiretap. Likewise, this bill would not allow the acquisition of content without a court order. That said, I am not completely indifferent as to the passing of this bill - I believe that, as always when privacy is concerned, we should proceed cautiously, but not immediately and indignantly strike this bill down as an affront to our privacy.
If you are worried, try:
- IPsec
- Tor
- SSH
- SSL
- GnuPG
etc, etc.
P.S. Mr. Van Loan: A rotary telephone sits atop my desk. I use it regularly.