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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."
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>
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
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!
Ummm... where's this fantasy version of the US you speak of? Everything you've said doesn't even remotely describe the United States.
The US is very divided and there's a strong right-wing group but by no means in the entire US conservative. Usually people in rural areas tend to be right wing while people in urban areas tend to be liberal. Liberal is really only used as a swear word on Fox News which exists solely to be a right-wing news network.
I've never thought of Canada as violent but you sure make it sound like it is. You make it seem like everybody and their grandma has a gun in Canada with the number of people you listed with a gun. I grew up in the US and I have never known a single person who owned a gun. Gun owners are most definitely a small minority in the US. Americans would generally take for granted that a house does NOT have a gun. And most people that do own a gun claim to do so for protection.
Extremely nationalistic? Sounds to me like you've been watching too many TV stereotypes. Do you think that every American wears a cowboy hat and shouts "Yee-haw!" too? Being extremely nationalistic and ignorant of the rest of world is a stereotypical trait of rural red necks.
Funnily enough, you have shown that you are quite ignorant of even your neighbouring country. You shouldn't base your assumptions on what you see on TV. Even if the content is from the US, it's full of over blown or outdated stereotypes. You should actually try visiting a country before making a bunch of absurd assumptions. Even if those assumptions are in part based on Americans you have met you do have to remember that most Americans don't have a passport and hence don't travel abroad thus the people you do meet outside of the US aren't exactly representative of the country.
After all, if I based my assumptions on you, I'd think Canadians are quite ignorant and simple minded(for assuming that a country of 300 million people could be imbued with such over simplistic stereotypes) but I've actually been to Canada and know better.
I agree. In Calgary, if you say anything that does not support the Calgary Police Service, you must be a criminal.
Speak out about Calgary Police Service beating up and raping women who walk the street for money, or other acts by the Calgary Police which would get a normal citizen arrested, and you will find your self in the Calgary Prison system before you know what happen.
Your name will be in the newspapers, all over the news, and broadcast by the Calgary Police to ensure everyone knows you are guilty of what the Police say you are guilty of. Of course this is long before your trial.
You will not be able to find employment, because Calgary Police will show up at your place of work and tell everyone you are a criminal.
Meanwhile, the Calgary Police Service have members who attempt to pick up young girls on line, sell drugs which they took from drug dealers instead of arresting them, selling firearms which should have been destroyed, drinking and driving, and worst of all doing what ever they want too. There are even Calgary Police member who are paedophiles. Other member commit assaults with out any investigation. Because the Calgary Police who do not report to anyone.
Most of these acts have been documented on the CBC and other websites. But on the CBC news stories which make the Calgary Police look bad, disappear almost as fast as they appear.
Freenet, and a few darknets has good selection of video of the crimes committed by the Calgary Police Service.
The truth is there, just have to look for it.
I've sent an email to my MP. I hope all other Canadian /.ers do likewise. Here is what I wrote. Be sure to add your name and full address to yours, and cc the Honorable Peter Van Loan (vanlop@parl.gc.ca) as well. Feel free to modify to suit your own political beliefs. (Not that you need my permission for that, just being honest and transparent.) If you don't have their email address, you might want to look that up.
In regards to a proposed new bill:
http://www.news1130.com/more.jsp?content=20090617_213536_8084
The point of laws regarding privacy, and court-sanctioned warrants overriding privacy, is not to make it easier for the police to solve crimes, but to weigh carefully the right to privacy on one hand and the reasonable evidence pointing to a particular suspect requiring further information on the other. The police, being human beings, can easily get emotionally attached to the pursuit of an individual, and invade what could easily turn out to be an innocent person's privacy. The whole point of a warrant being issued by a judge is for oversight to ensure that the police aren't cutting corners prior to actually invading someone's privacy.
By removing this level of oversight, I feel we are going in the wrong direction on personal liberties and freedoms, and are sliding towards a police state.
It's not that I have an issue with ISPs keeping logs, the same way corporations are supposed to keep account of their transactions in case of an audit. But it requires some oversight to keep the police from accessing just anyone's account without reasonable evidence otherwise. As long as the logs are protected by similar privacy laws that any other aspect of citizens' private lives, and only released under proper court warrants, the police continue to have the tools they need to pursue internet crimes while continuing to protect citizens' privacy, thereby protecting liberties and freedoms we all enjoy.
I hope you will incorporate proper privacy protections in this bill, requiring the police to act the same as they do with any other aspect of our private lives.