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

Re:yup!

[Dahamma]

No, not really. A more accurate description would be the courts tend to look at the Constitution (and its Amendments) as if those who created it were alive, sitting next to them, and completely aware of the last 240 years of history when they wrote it.

While in reality the invention of the assault rifle and the Internet has pretty much blown away anything they intended in the Second and First Amendments, respectively.