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Canadians, Too, Should Demand Surveillance Answers
An anonymous reader writes "Privacy and surveillance have taken centre stage this week with the
revelations
that U.S. agencies have been engaged in massive, secret surveillance
programs that include years of capturing the meta-data from every
cellphone call on the Verizon network (the meta-data includes the
number called and the length of the call) as well as gathering
information from the largest Internet companies in the world
including Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Apple in a program called
PRISM. Michael Geist explains
how many of the same powers exist under Canadian law and that it is
very likely that Canadians have been caught up by these surveillance
activities."
Guaranteed that our country is willingly sharing all of our data with the US. I don't doubt it for a minute. And its likely been doing it since Echelon was first built, now just more efficiently than before. I have zero faith in Steven Harper's credibility or integrity at any rate.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
He'll bring you the "Hope and Change" Americans now enjoy. You certainly deserve it.
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
....of copying whatever the Americans do when it's stupid. In those rare moments when Americans get it right, they refuse to imitate because the difference is part of what makes Canadian identity distinctive.
Curieusement, les Canadien français sourvent font la même chose à l'égard des Canadiens anglais.
I don't think Canadians who travel to the US or abroad through the US would be happy to trade the 'security' of not having their data shared with the DoHS for the extreme amount of inconvenience that would result.
I'm a Canadian living in Australia, and when I travel through LAX, US Customs and Immigration doesn't bat an eyelid, but my Australian partner has to typically get fingerprinted, scanned, searched and grunted at for several minutes just to transit.
I'm not sure too many Canadians would be up for similar treatment given these same officers weren't able to vet them as easily as they do now.
We have to protect our children. All of it is justified.
If you read European laws, this kind of spying on citizens by governments has been permitted for a long time, and appears to be widely practiced. Countries like Germany even have state security services spy on parliamentarians regularly and infiltrate political parties.
They will protect you from all the usual bogeymen, just like they protect us in the US.
Plus, free stuff !! (Do you really want upper-class white Georgetown students to have to pay for their own birth control? What is this? Somalia?)
We're no US citizens, we already knew we were under surveillance by the US gov't because we're a foreign country.
This is the first time smug US citizens find out what the rest of the world feels like.
Good on ya eh!
It's the 5 Eyes problem.
The USA, UK, Aus, NZ and CAN have reciprocal intelligence agreements.
Canada spies on US citizens, gives the intelligence to the US. And vice-versa.
It's been going on for years.
Get the correct perspective: computation combined with signals analysis is a military technology plain and simple. This is a widespread use of military technology in the civilian domain and it has wide reaching effects on society similar to the contact of any other form of weaponized / military technology with civilians. There are various international agreements respecting the separation of the civilian domain from the military domain. The lack of these agreements with respect to computation and surveillance is a huge (and perhaps intentional) oversight.
The problems with laws that provide "just in case" excessive power to government after a horrific event is that they will always abuse it and that the precedent has been set. New-found power to a government are freedoms lost forever.
Of course Canada is doing it; of course the United States is doing it; Every country that can figure out how is probably doing it. It's like sex. Everyone is doing it or trying to do it.
Echelon is old, we've progressed to admission and some disclosure - for decades you were a conspiracy nutcase they would dismiss if you even mentioned "Echelon". Then a few nations admitted it's existence on record and how they planned to quit, all while the USA denied the whole thing and still dismissed you as a conspiracy nut.
Bush did the 1st "non-Echelon" spying, illegally and we somehow ignored all that and passed a law to allow it and then passed one to prevent suing the conspirators (that part during Obama I believe. ATnT gave the Dems a lot of money.)
The change is that they are not denying it anymore and are welcoming debate; but long after it was legalized. Hope was always just a marketing word, all the way back to when Clinton used it.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
The Conservative Government in Canada doesn't listen to what Canadians are saying to them directly, why would they listen when they aren't being spoken too?
Why bother about surveillance? Canadians have always has this deference to government under the rubric of POGG (peace, order, good government).
==//==
At least some of us have rather extensive government records compiled that have tons of information that could not be gathered by simple electronic eves dropping and it goes back at least into the 1960 era. And I am talking about people who have never been arrested or who would arouse suspicions in other ways. Political opinions or even educational courses or simply having a high IQ may well be all it takes to cause the US to compile an exhaustive, long term, ongoing, study of a person. Certain employers can gain access to those materials. Unfortunately certain employers also have internal problems and private information can get spread all over a company. I have even had people high up in the system tell me about this ongoing problem.
Maybe this doesn't matter to others, for some reason; but -
The call metadata they're collecting also includes the location the call originated from and the location of the person receiving the call. I think that's a much bigger deal, since it means they are effectively tracking everyone who uses a cell phone.
#DeleteChrome
> "it is very likely that Canadians have been caught up by these surveillance activities."
RC Secret MP: "Turn it up, what are they saying?"
(turns up volume)
Person 1: "MMmmmm. That's some good backbacon, eh?"
Person 2: "Ya, eh. Put some more maple syrup on it, eh."
(sound of crunching crash in background)
Person 2: "What was that, eh?"
(some footsteps)
Person 1: "Looks like another beaver cut down a tree and it almost hit the cabin, eh."
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Write your MP, MPP, city councillor, mayor, the PMO, everyone. Call them. Complain. Make them hear your voice.
Online complaining and petitions are great for raising public awareness, but until you actually send those messages to those in power, it does nothing.
Keep on knockin'
https://robbiecrash.me
Speaking from the inside, this isn't the case. When I have to wait a week for information on an e-mail address and I get nothing back (in other words, I can't even find the user name -- fake or otherwise -- of a Gmail address) there is no way the Canadian agencies are getting this data. The Americans just don't share or don't have the amount of information you think they have (I'm leading towards the latter). That's not to say that governments shouldn't be asked the hard questions since privacy and human rights are absolutely important.
(Obviously posting anonymously... captcha: trapped)
Do you want some concrete examples?
The labour party got into power and INCREASED CCTV cameras in London rather than decreasing them.
The NDP in British Columbia arrested environmentalist protestors and then tried them in a mass trial back in the 90's denying them a fair and speedy trial.
Obama increase surveillance programs, increase troops in Iraq and expanded the powers of Homeland Security to go beyond airports to include trains and buses.
Many of us warned you that Obama would trample on your civil liberties based on what happened with the Labour party in the UK but you did not listen. You were all too much in love with Barrack.
I have to post anonymously for obvious reasons. I warned people on numerous occasions on the expanding surveillance but it just fell on deaf ears.
If the U.S.A. is Nazi Germany 1936 then Canada is the U.S.S.R. 1952.
USA data captured on everyone with FISA warrants.
Captured data is put into databases.
Once its in the database it can be accessed at will, it's now evidence of a crime (suspected terrorism, the reason for the FISA warrant) with no search warrant protection.
If you want to access it to help put friendly politicians in power, and drive out unfriendly ones with scandals, there's nothing stopping you.
Harper is a USA puppy dog. I bet they did anything they could to get him in power.
No matter what illegal laws or treaties that PM Harper signed, Canadians have a specific right of privacy spelled out in the Canadian Constitution.
Which makes these actions illegal no matter what justifications were given.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --