Days After Shooting, Canada Proposes New Restrictions On and Offline

New submitter o_ferguson writes As Slashdot reported earlier this week, a lone shooter attacked the war memorial and parliament buildings in Ottawa, Canada on Wednesday. As many comments predicted, the national government has seized this as an opportunity to roll out considerable new regressive legislation, including measures designed to* increase data access for domestic intelligence services, institute a new form of extra-judicial detention, and, perhaps most troubling, criminalize some forms of religious and political speech online. As an example of the type of speech that could, in future, be grounds for prosecution, the article mentions that the killer's website featured "a black ISIS flag and rejoiced that 'disbelievers' will be consigned to the fires of Hell for eternity." A government MP offers the scant assurance that this legislation is not "trauma tainted," as it was drafted well prior to this week's instigating incidents. Needless to say, some internet observes remain, as always, highly skeptical of the manner in which events are being portrayed. (Please note that some articles may be partially paywalled unless opened in a private/incognito browser window.)

Comments

Won'd past constitutional challenge

[Anonymous Coward]

Honestly there's no way that this legislation passes the Oakes test. Section 1 allows for limitations, but not like this.

Re:Won'd past constitutional challenge

[JMJimmy]

Yup, but the conservatives keep trying. Harper is what, 0-4 with constitutional challenges?

Re:Won'd past constitutional challenge

[davester666]

"A government MP offers the scant assurance that this legislation is not "trauma tainted," as it was drafted well prior to this week's instigating incidents"

Of course it was drafted some time ago. Harper was just waiting for something like this to get a way to quickly get it passed into legislation without all that pesky complaining that he got last time he tried doing it.

Unfortunately, the opposition and the press are busy deifying the couple of soldiers [well, two soldiers and a glorified security guard at a cemetary] and Harper for being so courageous, for standing up to this terrorist, and not giving into fear, while fighting for Canadian freedoms.

Of course, Harper is wallowing in fear, greatly increasing security around himself, and leaping at the chance to be able to spy on more and more citizens, I mean, terrorists. Nevermind also giving up Canadian freedoms so that Harper can really give it to his wife tonight.

Our supreme court MIGHT overturn this legislation, but who's going to fund the couple million dollars in legal fee's challenging it?

Re:Formatting.

[o_ferguson]

Thanks for the kind words. I realize now that I forgot to mention it in the submission, but as a Canadian I was surprised to find that the very best analysis of this current situation came from Russel Brand, who I'd honestly never watched before, but was overwhelmingly prescient in his analysis (even if he does bounce about like a caffeinated meth head) https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Ugh!

[misexistentialist]

And the soldier killed was forced to to carry an unloaded gun

Re:Shot in the back

[amiga3D]

Shotguns are great for close in work. They are also better for someone who's not all that much of a marksman. If you don't practice with a pistol a lot, and I mean a lot, then you'd be lucky to hit someone at 25 feet in a firefight. I saw a video of a gunfight in a pool hall with a bunch of gang members emptying semi-auto pistols at each other at close range. One guy got hit in the arm out of hundreds of rounds fired. Trigger control on a pistol is everything. If you jerk it you missed unless you stuck it in the guy's belly. The retired Mountie that put him down used a pistol but he was a very experienced pro. I didn't see how many times the shooter got plugged but I bet it wasn't that many times and security fired a lot of shots.