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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>
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
.. 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
Michael Geist has it, at Government Introduces Bill To Require Surveillance Capabilities, Mandated Subscriber Disclosure
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?
Ah yes, it's new, therefore existing rules don't apply.
Maybe the rules should be rewritten so that the police can open all mail without a warrant because it's passing through a public domain?
Maybe CanadaPost could be grandfathered in to 'still needs a warrant' but for the newbies, Fedex and UPS, they would be required to have a station at all their sorting locations for the police to process every single item going through their system.
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
The internet is a public domain, huh? I can't tell if you're a troll so I'll answer in all seriousness.
The internet is primarily a communication tool, right? So are private gatherings, phones, snail mail, etc. How would you feel if the man were allowed to peer into those without oversight? The police reading your email or tracking what you do online is ultimately no different from tracking what you do on the phone or in your own home. You have a reasonable expectation of privacy, and that must be respected if we want to live in a free society.
P.S. I'm an upstanding citizen and really do have nothing to hide, it's a matter of principle.
Porquoi?
Sure. You're 100% correct. Why can't I snoop your bank account's user name and password? All that encryption is getting in the way. Oh wait, I got it now. Thanks to the new law from the Minister of Public Safety.
Views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of the author.
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!
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.
The Reform Party was also called the Canadian Alliance and probably another name or two [...]
I believe the other name to which you refer is the Canadian Reform Aliance Party, or C.R.A.P.
Actually it's because there was two conservative parties in Canada and the vote was split down the middle. Big shock that the liberals won in nearly every riding where a conservative would normally win due to a vote split. Guess what happened in the last election with Dion?
Due to their left-left pandering, a high majority went far to the NDP. Some went to the Liberals and big shock, they lost in areas except liberal strongholds(Toronto, etc). In Canadian politics, parties rise and fall all the time.
Om, nomnomnom...
Hmm... How is the internet a public domain if the information lies on [disks in] privately-owned servers?
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