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Canadian Government Backs Down On Airport Recording
New submitter ryanakca writes "In a followup to a story we discussed on Sunday, Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has ordered a halt to the installation of eavesdropping equipment at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport until a privacy review could be completed. Although 'similar audio-video equipment has been operating at other Canadian airports and ports of entry for "many years,"' the Canadian Border Safety Agency failed to complete the Privacy Commissioner's required 'privacy impact assessment' before the Ottawa airport installation."
Hurray! So instead of putting them in now, the government will get a report done, spin it so it benefits them, THEN get them installed anyway but this time with some publicity of being "good for security and for the country"! Give me a break.
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"While a completed (privacy impact assessment) is not a requirement that prevents the CBSA from continuing with AV monitoring and recording, it will provide us with additional information concerning how we can strengthen current practices and continue to evolve our operations," Nadon said.
Nope, it's install and use regardless of the report...
The summary says "the Canadian Border Safety Agency failed to complete the Privacy Commissioner's required 'privacy impact assessment'". Note the use of the word "required". So if it was required and nobody did it, somebody broke a rule. Who's going to be accountable for that and what will their punishment be?
Surely it wouldn't be no punishment since that would just be sending a message that rules can be ignored and nobody will be held accountable.
No joke, dead serious---Here in the US, they scan you again if you sneeze....really-- I sneezed, looked up, and all these TSA agents were looking at me like I killed someone. I'm like crap! I probably have a booger! I wiped my nose and turns out nothing! Maybe five minutes, later 5 TSA agents said I was selected for random re-screening. WTF!!! But who knows...maybe they just liked my crotch...
OK, headline says "Canadian Government Backs Down On Airport Recording"
Summary says "Canadian Government Halts Airport's installation of recording equipment due to failure of due process"
Article says "Canadian Government is a stickler for red tape, but doesn't care about the results"
"until a privacy review could be completed"
Which is another way of saying until the uproar dies down so we can sneak it in later without objection.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
This is the government that wanted anyone authorized by the Minister (Minister Vic "You-support-this-spying-bill-(which-I-Haven't-Read)-or-you-support-child-pornographers" Toews), someone such as Pierre Poutine, to scour telecommunication records of anyone they deem worthy (watch out opposition MPs - the old election fraud scams need updating).
They're just worried about Conservative MPs using the airport on a weekly basis. After all, their privacy is paramount, such as the same Minister being so upset and the gov't going on a witch hunt when public court records were posted to VikiLeaks that showed this minister knocked up his baby sitter, left his wife & children, and didn't pay proper support payments.
Worst government in Canada's history; an illegitimate regime aquiring majority status through lies & election fraud: a coup in other words. A silent one. Like Quebec's Quiet Revolution but on a national scale, and malevolent.
The problem was the airport they chose to do it at.
Instead of some major or not-so-major one, they chose to use Ottawa airport. Which of course is frequented by all the politicians who may be having well, inflight meetings. You can bet having them listened to and recorded will probably make them uneasy and thus quash it.
Last thing they need is for someone to leak out juicy details about meetings with industry following legislation.
After all, Vic Toews has decided it would be better to have child pornographers than have their precious "constituent" meeting details leaked.
The difference between US Customs & Border Protection and the Canadian Border Safety Agency is that the primary purpose of the CBP is to inconvenience Americans. The CBSA's purpose, on the other hand, is to inconvenience Americans.
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I'm almost certain they've listened in on lineups using microphones or parabolic microphones for a very long time. The change now is probably due to automation of the process. A computer can only be so accurate and the audio needs to be recorded for review by an officer. Maybe I'm wrong but they were legal to use listening devices - just not record?
My experience:
I was heading out on a student trip from Edmonton to Japan in 1988 or so. I whispered under my breath to my friend in the security line that "I hoped my baby brother hadn't put his squirt gun in my luggage". I was at least 50 feet back from the nearest security agent. As I got closer to the front of the line a female officer approached me and warned me not to talk about guns in the security line and that I was almost removed from the student trip. The only explanation that made sense to me at the time was that they had installed microphones in the ceiling or were using a parabolic microphone.
There are other possible explanations ( like someone tattling on me.. and it was my classmates in line). I pondered it for quite a while at the time and the most plausible explanation to me at the time were microphones. 9/11 wasn't an issue but the Air India bombing had just occurred a few years earlier.