Slashdot Mirror
Canada: Police Do Not Have Power To Wiretap Without Warrant
omega6 sends this excerpt from The Star:
"The Supreme Court of Canada struck down Friday warrantless wiretap powers that police have in cases of emergency. ... Ruling in a 2006 British Columbia kidnapping case, the country’s top court said a 1993 provision of the Criminal Code is unconstitutional because there is no accountability or oversight for the warrantless searches, either to the person wiretapped or in reports to Parliament. The unanimous ruling was written by rookie judges Michael Moldaver and Andromache Karakatsanis. The case revolves around police intercepting the calls of the family of Peter Li, the kidnap victim."
I'm sure the U.S. Supreme Court will just overrule them.
Yes, I am ready to move there, if they'll take me. NS or PEI I'd like. Now, le tme in! I am smart and have a degree from a good college!
Thank God we have the supreme court to keep the Conservative jackboots in check. If C-30 (internet snooping) does pass despite our collective howling.. (who am I kidding we're powerless against those assholes anyways... there is no ministerial accountability anymore..) Then I hope the supreme court will knock that one out too.
There ought to be some sort of ministerial accountability for passing brazenly unconstitutional bills... *head explodes*
24 hours to get a warrant under dire circumstances? That's just asking for problems.
If we strike down unconstitutional laws, and give back to the people their rights under that constitution, the terrorists... lose?! But the (alarmist lawmakers) said that if we didn't suspend all those rights the terrorists would win...
Canada is looking like a good alternative to the USA. At least when "bad laws" do manage to get passed, they bother to get rid of them from time to time. Here anyway, anything that makes the police's job easier is apparently considered an OK exception to the constitution. :(
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
Canadian authorities DO have the right to come into your house and take your Kraft Dinner without a warrant if they're hungry! :(
Hopefully, Canada will begin to take a slightly more critical look to the whole concept of 'Emergency Powers'. I mean, here in the US(as an example), we've entertained the concept that if we're in a war, or the president has been given war powers, that he has the right to suspend the population's rights. Albeit, this isn't new(we suspended a lot of rights during WWII, at least. see here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_American_internment ), but we just need to get rid of this idea. Just because we're in war, doesn't mean that we're not human.
-- (this is a sig) My Computer Programming Forumhttp://www.programers.co.nr/
I assume this is how it works in most advanced countries. But as usual with Slashdot news stories you have to look through the US glasses in order to understand the stories. I suspect from this article that in the US the police does not need a warrant to wiretap?
This is common sense.
The fact that this even has to be discussed is reprehensible. A warrant should always be required for any breach of privacy.
We've become far too lax in letting "authority" into our lives.
.. Officially better than the United States since 2012.
In what fantasy land is fining the town or province of the police department "punitive" to the police officer who broke the law and violated someone's rights?
Do you also feel that rape or murder can be discouraged by applying "punitive" fines after the fact?
If you have to do shortcuts like that then you are doing the LEO thing wrong.
What you want to do is deliver supplies of Bourbon/Whiskey and or %Critter% to a few of your local judges so that you can show up at His/Her house to get your warrant without having a gavel or something thrown at you.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
I've been in the U.S.A. for seven years now and it seems to have gone more and more downhill.
....
- I was sitting in a room with a bunch of Americans during Thanksgiving and mentioned how much I disliked the TSA and the new scanners (back when they were new) and to a man they all said "We need the better security."
- I then tried to steer the conversation towards their rights to travel between states (in regards to if you refuse the pat down/scan they won't let you travel) and they said inter-state travel was a privilege. I was gobsmacked.
The socialist leaning, big government Canadian was more worried about his personal rights then the freedom loving Americans! Now if only the housing prices would recover
They may be new to the supreme court, but they're hardly rookie judges! Michael Moldaver was a judge on the Supreme Court of Ontario 20 years ago, and Andromache Karakatsanis was a judge on the same court 10 years ago, after being Deputy Attorney General of Ontario.
A recursive sig
Can impart wisdom and truth
Call proc signature()
I heard about this on CBC today at lunch.
I have to say I am a bit conflicted.
Usually I am the one beating the privacy drum and less impingement on individual rights, however in this particular case, it does make me think.
This is an instance where the kidnappers let the captives phone family, the family contacted police, the police did apply for a warrant, but knowing it would take 24 hours or something to get, they went ahead and tapped the line anyway because they were fearful something might happen to the family.
In any case they certainly had probably cause, and the warrant was eventually issued by the judge anyway, it is just that they set it up in advance of that decision.
So yeah, I am all for the protection of rights, although at the same time, I can at least understand in this particular case why the police felt they had to set up the wiretap in advance of the actual warrant.
So yeah I don't know. I guess in this case, the idea is that you set it up early, and you might save some lives, knowing that the content will likely get thrown out in court because there was no warrant, and that once the warrant has been issued that would then from that time on been admissible. Anyway certainly not a cut and dry case. About the only thing I can hang my hat on is that if the judgment wasn't what it was, and they did allow warrantless wire taps it would most certainly be abused, so I can get behind that at least.
That choice of words "rookie judges" was pretty biased and inappropriate.
I am proud to be a Canadian.
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
On the other hand if there is a need perhaps there should be some new courts or more judges placed in a position to hand out warrants for online crime.
24/7 15 minute warrants should be relatively easy to implement, and judges can review the warrants while the examination takes place.
What's the difference between judges giving out warants with little or no information and then reviewing afterward vs no warrant taps? Well first off the crime will be acknowledged by the system, and abuses can be tracked (especially against subversive individuals and in cases where the police have personal/bribery related antagonism). Second, this will prevent law enforcement from creating huge databases of misdemeanors.
An example might be porn websites, if the police think someone is a pedophile they can get a warrant to track their underage porn use. Without a warrant they can just track all porn someone views and show up in court with fifteen cases of 17 year old porn stars.
Same thing with drug use and subversive conversation. It's one thing to think someone is a specific threat and to track them based on that. It's quite another to casually look into someone for a long time and build a case based on specific instances spaced out by several years. The second basically lends itself to being able to arrest anyone the first is about stopping crimes or punishing criminals.
This really isn't too difficult to figure out.
If you read the decision, you'll see two very important things.
First, the justices didn't say the concept of the law is unconstitutional. Because the provision only applies in exigent circumstances, where "an officer believes on reasonable grounds that the interception is immediately necessary to prevent an unlawful act that would cause serious harm, provided judicial authorization could not be obtained with reasonable diligence", the justices said the provision would be constitutional on those grounds. However they ruled it unconstitutional on the grounds there is no oversight provision built into statute, and therefore police could use it to silently intercept all sorts of communications and no one would be the wiser. Only if someone is charged criminally, would they be (1) made aware of the intercept and (2) be able to challenge it in court. The justices did say that if parliament added a notice provision to the statute, in which the intercepted party were notified after the fact then the statute would be constitutional.
Second, the court suspended the application of their judgement for 12 months to give Parliament the opportunity to amend the statute to bring in line with the constitution, which they will most likely do.
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?