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CIPS Chimes In On Internet Predators Act
alphabet26 writes "The Canadian Information Processing Society has formally responded to the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act introduced in February of this year. Bill C-30 would grant authorities extended powers to monitor and track Canadians online. In the statement CIPS recommends that the Government of Canada 'prohibit access to personal information, related records/data, content, communications or records of internet use without the safeguard of a warrant.' CIPS is a non-profit organization that represents Canadian IT professionals and is a member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP)."
It's interesting the way that we (as a collective civilization) have gone from attempting to block dangerous activity on the Internet for children, to creating safe "playgrounds" for them, to giving up completely on user-based controls and instead just doing semi-autonomous monitoring of country-wide Internet traffic looking for "dangerous" on-line activity.
We so desperately want to make our children's safety a government problem so we don't have to do anything ourselves and have someone to blame/sue if they are ever in danger. Governments desperately want to exercise their control over us because that is what governments all seem to move towards at the end of the day (taking their responsibility to keep us safe a little too much to heart (or just an extension of the power play that people in the business of government seem drawn towards)).
How is a minority of responsible citizens ever to stand in the the way of the majority that want to be controlled and the governments who are willing to control them? I wish I knew the answer. It doesn't appear that a democratic system of government is enough.
I am not interested in articles about life extension advancements.
Since the Canadian supreme court ruled in April that even in exigent circumstances that the government must obtain a warrant the bill is unconstitutional on its face. This is just like the US Congress passing CDA, COPA et al, it's pandering to the conservative right even though anyone with a brain has to know it won't stand up to judicial review.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Why not just create a separate network for children only? With separate browsers, separate trafffic?
The internet is no place for children anyway. It should be 18+ (or 16+, or whatever politicians and their voters desire) like alcohol and tobacco, and it could simply be prohibited for parents to allow their children to be on the "regular" internet in the same sense as it is prohibited to hand out large quantities of vodka to 8 year old kids. I fail to see why adults should be punished, surveilled, and harrassed by authorities just because of a few irresponsible parents. Technically, it's no problem, you can even build the net on top of the regular internet, make phones and tablets with "kid network" browsers (even more sales!), etc.
The added benefit of separate networks would be that kids can no longer look up their homework solutions and there are no longer whiney little pricks on game servers for 18+ games.
This week, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said that Bill C-30 would have allowed police to catch a killer who had posted his killing and dismemberment online. He wants us to believe that the fact that police need to take a few minutes to get a warrant prevented them from pursuing this guy who had posted the killing online and had for years posted his animal cruelty vids. Problem is this: People DID report it to the police who ignored it. If they had chosen to investigate they could have found him quite easily, but they chose not to use the rather robust powers they ALREADY have to investigate. Bill C-30 only really gives the government (even non-police entities) the ability to snoop on citizens without need for a warrant or even a suspicion of illegal activity without leaving any sort of paper trail or accountability. The current government has already been found to be hiring people to spread propaganda on forums and scour facebook to find people that might not agree with their policies and remove them from rallies. We should trust people like that to not abuse their power? A government embroiled in a voter fraud scandal, several finance scandals and the FIRST Canadian government to have been found in contempt of Parliament? No thank you Mr. Toews.