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Canadians #TellVicEverything In Response To Bill C-30
First time accepted submitter beerdragoon writes "In order to protest the government's new Internet snooping legislation, some Canadians have started a somewhat unorthodox protest. Vic Toews, the minister responsible for tabling the legislation, has had his twitter account bombarded with tweets regarding the boring, banal aspects of regular Canadians' lives. The idea is that since Toews wants to know everything about your personal life, we should oblige him and #TellVicEverything."
He isn't asking the speaker to investigate the protest. He is asking for an investigation into one particular account, Vikileaks30 or something, which is releasing *his* personal information (details of his divorce, etc) on twitter. Apparently the tweets on the account were made from an IP address from the House of Commons.
Toews is Canada's version of Newt Gingrich with a bit of John Edwards thrown in for good measure. When he tabled an invasive citizens spying bill this week he declared that citizens were either with him or with the child pornographers.
Toews campaigns on family values and "worships the ground that his wife walks on" (more on that below). He is a devout Mennonite and runs on his faith. He is on record for being anti-same sex marriage, anti-abortion and pro-gun. So, what does a fine, upstanding anti-pedophile Christian like him do on his days off? Why, he knocks up his family's teenage babysitter, of course. In Canada the age of consent is 16, but goes up to 18 when the younger party is in a position of trust - such as between a babysitter and employer. The girl in questions is believed to have been 17 when the affair started, so it's just plain sleazy on any level.
The Vickileaks site (rumoured to be from a Parliament Hill staffer) has been publishing the (public) records of his ugly divorce. What Toews is missing here is that information, once collected, takes on a life of its own. The parallel between his public divorce file and the impact of his proposed snooping legislation is a delicious irony, especially considering that the remarkably fertile prick is himself basically a child molester with better PR.
When you have nothing left to burn you must set yourself on fire
Notice that, if this account was posting on a Canadian website post-C-30, the RCMP or CSIS would be able to compel the site to reveal the poster's private IP/email address, and the ISP then compelled to provide an address and name.
There's a reason why this bill should not pass. A chilling effect on dissenting speech is not a good thing.
(Yes, the Twitter account attacking Toews and his divorced wife is tacky, but Toews himself has been extremely tacky and hypocritical in general, and is outright threatening Canadian's privacy and freedom right now. Plus, all of this stuff is in the public record, so I fail to see any legal issues here.
As it is right now, all we know is that a newspaper says they've tracked it to the House of Commons, and they did that on their own using the ol' "send them a link to your server, then watch the logs for an access" trick. If it is a criminal problem, a judge can issue a subpoena, as far as I can tell.)