Canadian Government Scrapping Internet Predators Act

dakohli writes "The Conservative Goverment of Canada is scrapping the controversial bill C-30 They will instead make 'modest' changes to the existing Warrantless Wiretap bill. This bill was widely panned by Privacy Critics and members of the opposition. Another victory for online privacy!"

Comments

Modest changes

[EmperorOfCanada]

I suspect that by modest changes they mean that they are going to gut our rights. Anyone who works in government quickly learns that control of information is power. It makes them angry that they can't get more information and it makes them scared that we can get so much.

Exhibit #1: Egypt. They want to turn off Youtube for a month because of "blasphemy" what they really don't want people seeing is the growing discontent that is visibly displayed every day along with the misdeeds of the police; this will work of course because youtube is the only site on the whole Internet that hosts videos.

We don't need a new internet law we need something at the constitutional level that protects us from government spying while also enshrining our rights to force the government to expose its secrets.

Re:Modest changes

[Luckyo]

Ah, another "government is this monolithic entity that is sooooooo scary" post. Massive upmods incoming.

Reality is, most of these bills in the West are drafted by interested parties. Most of which are no governmental but private in nature. And while many laws look (and are) quite terrible as they are drafted by people with massive vested interests in them, modern Western democracies have numerous checks and balances to thwart such legislation from becoming actual law. Which is what happened in this case.

The fact that you chose Egypt, a country that essentially survived beginning of a civil war and still hasn't worked itself through it and has never been a democracy befiore as an example of average Western government shows that you're quite pants on the head kind of special poster.

Re:Modest changes

[Mashiki]

I suspect that by modest changes they mean that they are going to gut our rights. Anyone who works in government quickly learns that control of information is power. It makes them angry that they can't get more information and it makes them scared that we can get so much.

Well, my first question is do you actually live in Canada? If you did you'd already know that the SCC has a history of upholding the charter of rights and freedoms against intrusive laws unless the government can justifiably demonstrate that there is a valid S.1 argument. And there have been very few cases where the SCC has let the S.1 argument give leeway. Probably the best case to show where the government has been given leeway under that is the RIDE Program, where warrentless stopping of a vehicle is considered a small enough violation of public rights vs the protection of society as a whole.

Remember now, that this has already been to court in terms of the warrentless wiretap, and the SCC struck it down as an overeach of power. This bill is to come into compliance to the SCC's ruling, it will end up being challenged again, and if the bill is found to be in breach or an excessive overreach the SCC will strike it down again.

Re:Modest changes

[blahplusplus]

"Ah, another "government is this monolithic entity that is sooooooo scary" post. Massive upmods incoming."

If you knew anything about the history of the current conservative party (reform party take over) you would not be saying such things. Most people commenting in this thread know nothing about canadian politics and how the canadian parliamentary system works. Right now Conservatives have a majority, what that means is they essentially get to shove any legislation they want through with impunity.

Whether they 'slightly soften' totally bankrupt laws is a non issue since the opposition has no power at all given the majority.

Re:Modest changes

[Runaway1956]

Did you read TFA? There was not one sentence in the proposed law that could be construed to protect children from predators. The only reference to predators was in the title of the bill.

I can title a bill as "A bill to provide for Anonymous Coward in his old age"

Then, I can fill the bill with demands to have total access to all the information on Anonymous Coward, including his IP address, posting record, referral data, every single bit of data that slashdot or any other site maintains. All of the verbiage in the bill is designed to identify you, then prosecute you for posts that I don't like. But, I TITLED it as something GOOD for AC, so you would be a douchebag to oppose the bill, right?

Omnibus bill

[CanadianMacFan]

Probably everything will get thrown into the next budget omnibus bill which will pass and then we'll only find out six months later what was contained in it.