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The Disastrous Privacy Consequences of Canada's Anti-Terrorism Bill
An anonymous reader writes "Canada's proposed
anti-terrorism legislation is currently being debated in the
House of Commons, with the government already serving notice that it
plans to limit debate. Michael Geist argues that decision has enormous privacy consequences, since the bill
effectively creates a "total information awareness" approach that
represents a radical shift away from our traditional understanding
of public sector privacy protection. The bill permits information
sharing across government for an incredibly wide range of purposes,
most of which have nothing to do with terrorism and opens the door
to further disclosure "to any person, for any purpose." The
cumulative effect is to grant government near-total power to share
information for purposes that extend far beyond terrorism with few
safeguards or privacy protections."
...before Canada bent to the will of the US
What else do you expect bureaucrats and career-politicians to be after?
Serving the people? Ha Ha Ha Ha.
I guess I can't threaten to move there anymore as the US pot boils over.
All those corporations making millions of the exchange of private data has finally caught the eye of governments and they want a piece of the pie too. They will tout the justification as being for the greater good and security of all.
Welcome to the modern day fascist state. Privacy is a luxury no longer afforded to everyday citizens.
The wording is sufficiently vague to permit a Canadian Security Intelligence Service investigation of anyone who challenges the Conservatives' social, economic or environmental policies, the Opposition leader said during the daily question period.
"What's to stop this bill from being used to spy on the government's political enemies?"
Prime Minister Stephen Harper dismissed the suggestion, telling the House of Commons the NDP had entered the realm of conspiracy theory.
"That's what we've come to expect from the black helicopter fleet over there." - http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/poli...
They're quick to tell us how this is going to make us more secure, but they've utterly failed to demonstrate how existing laws are inadequate, or that these news laws would have helped at all in anything they've missed.
This is the drooling "we need to give the security people the tools to do their job", while ignoring the legal protections we're supposed to have, and failing to justify these new powers.
And, of course, the government spokesman said how this proposal was met well by the other people in the "five eyes" ... of course they're going to love it, they get a share of the fucking take.
We don't give a shit about what a foreign government thinks about our security and information sharing, because they greedily want this shit.
We give a shit about the fact that this is illegal, unnecessary, completely unjustified, and completely lacking in proper checks and balances.
This is a government operating on a "law and order" agenda who doesn't give a fuck about the law.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
It's amazing how one man can so completely destroy a country, both politically and culturally in under a decade. The CRA (the Canadian version of the IRS) is currently doing audits of non-profit organizations and revoking the non-profit status of organizations that have political ideologies that go against the Conservative agenda.
Dying with Dignity loses charitable status after political activity probe
7 Environmental Charities Face Canada Revenue Agency Audits
I can't wait for the next election and I sincerely hope the PC's are so savagaley beaten at the polls that they'll be laughed out of town on the oil wagon they rolled in on.
Peaceful civil disobedience will be labeled a national security threat.
"Security and police agencies have been increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organize petitions, protest and question government policies, said Jeffrey Monaghan of the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.
The RCMP, Canada's national police force, and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) view activist activities such as blocking access to roads or buildings as "forms of attack" and depict those involved as national security threats, according to the documents."
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2013/feb/14/canada-environmental-activism-threat
(Minaret was an NSA domestic spying program in the 1960's that targeted 1650 civil rights activists including US senators, MLK Jr. and Muhammad Ali)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_MINARET
So.. Uh.. Yeah. Its this letter.
I don't know how to say this, but you should get yourself tested.
Here in the US we've got a bad case of the conservative stupid and it looks like you've caught it to. If you're lucky you can stave off the stagnating wages, crumbling infrastructure, tyranny of the banking sector, and jingoistic warmongering.
Love, the USA
Are you really having such serious problems with terrorism? Nobody told me about it
People need to be more independent from central authorities and infrastructure, or this will only get worse. Can you send a file to all your neighbors without going through one of the ten biggest businesses in the country?
In the US we have a balance of power that few people understand. We have an executive, a legislative, a judicial, and the fourth equal power which is the public and all have a defined limit to their powers. That is an upward limit as well as a downward limit. So the public is restrained by the Constitution just like any other part of the balance of powers. Electronic communications are new and unforeseen in our founders' eyes. Yet there should be no assumption at all that the public must yield some of their share of powers at all simply because something new comes along. In essence if the executive, the legislative, or the judicial system are not wide open to communications then the public has the right to privacy just as much as any branch or even the military or CIA has any right to secured communications. Or the government has the option to make all communications and data acquisition open to all of us without exception. The practical aspects of such a thing should not be a factor in a court ruling. Essentially the constitution is what it is and that could even include it being a mutual suicide pact. If a practical solution type of society was our goal we would be tossing people in the ovens and slaughtering anyone who made ripples in the pond or was to weak to supply all of their own needs. If little Johny shows up at the emergency room with a broken spine we try to do the best we can for little Johny. In a practical society we would simply shoot Johny in the head and toss his body in the city dump or use his corpse to feed the pigs. In other words you really do not want to live in a practical society as you just might be Johny one day.
"disastrous privacy consequences"
The summary (and article) implies that destroying privacy is merely a consequence of the new law. But who's to say that destroying privacy isn't one of the objectives, or even the primary objective of the new law? After all, the actions of those in power would certainly suggest that destroying privacy is a major goal, since each and every year brings a new round of war on privacy.
At least they're being honest about it.
Do you have ESP?
Who do I need protection from?
There is a small group of people hell bent on bringing down western civilization, and they accomplish their goal by killing a few thousand people a year? Sure, that's terrible, but we kill ourselves with fried chicken and cheeseburgers at a faster rate. The threat of terrorism is minor compared to the threat of government corruption, the threat of poverty on the next generation, and the threat of economic policies that leads to instability and strife.
"The RCMP has labelled the “anti-petroleum” movement as a growing and violent threat to Canada’s security, raising fears among environmentalists that they face increased surveillance, and possibly worse, under the Harper government’s new terrorism legislation." http://www.theglobeandmail.com...
This is precisely why central government is a completely horrible idea. People who are for central government are traitors to liberty and freedom. Period. When the United States was a fledgling country a founding concept was very limited federal government, almost as if states were individual "mini countries" which kept the federal government from becoming tyrannical and oppressive; like the former British rule. Now in the U.S. we have a radically left administration and left leaning politicians who want to undo all the safeguards to keep the latter from happening. Scary times we live in.
America does want that, the fear mongering and bigotry runs rampant in just enough of America to allow this to continue.
May be one day enough America may not want it... might be too late by then.
I used to think Canadians - even those out in the forsaken, endless prairies - were far more wise and progressive than us USians, but no. How long has GOP-backed and advised Harper been in power now? What happened? Was it tar sand greed? Pure apathy? The assumption they were all as 'funny' as Laughable Bublefuck Rob Ford?
Quite sad; I thought the Canadians were better than, well, just about everybody, but now no different than the rest of the Right-Wing Police State, Might Makes Right, Western world. [le sigh]
Much more of a case of the squeaky wheel getting the grease.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
My favorite commentary on this subject so far has been written by Ralph Nader. Someone else may have already referred to this in the comments; I am far too lazy to search for the reference, and it's a good enough piece of writing to be mentioned more than once. https://t.co/i6wSYugqFy
The Canadian government has taken advantage of a good "crisis" to extend it's powers. When there's no crisis to take advantage of, government either inflates a minor problem, makes one or claims there is one in order to extend it's power. It's insatiable, and won't stop until those in power have complete control over everything.
"Everything not compulsory is forbidden."
-- T. H. White
Just exactly WHEN are you, you lazy fucking little sheep of a wussy man sitting on your couch reading this, going to GET UP OFF YOUR ASS, and call / write / visit your lawmaker and DEMAND that this shit be stopped?
WHEN?
Your enjoyment of a life of freedom from people watching and controlling your EVERY move is being taken away from you.
And from your friends, your family, your parents, your children, everyone.
WHEN ARE *YOU* GOING TO ACT TO FIGHT THIS?
We already seem to have support from the NDP, but a stronger support wouldn't hurt. If you are Canadian, please sign this: https://openmedia.org/SpyOnUs
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I dislike Harper as much as most of us, but to be fair it has always been the case that charitable organizations were not supposed to engage in significant amounts of political activities.
Yes, many of them (of all political stripes) have been doing just that for quite a while, but the law has been on the books for a long time (just not enforced very strictly).
Just exactly WHEN are you, you lazy fucking little sheep of a wussy man sitting on your couch reading this, going to GET UP OFF YOUR ASS, and call / write / visit your lawmaker and DEMAND that this shit be stopped?
Right after I finish shouting into the wind and shaking my fist at the sky.
Veterans Today on February 11, 2015
Why the United States Always Loses Its Wars
We are the global village bully that's hated by much of the world.
America loses all its wars because it seems we've always been on the wrong side of history. Morally nor legally should any nation have the right to invade and occupy another sovereign nation, much less believe it can achieve victory in long, protracted wars.
Yet in violation of all ethical precepts and all international laws, the sole global superpower citing its impunity through exceptionalism hypocritically insists it can maintain its moral high ground in its relentless pursuit of regime changes anywhere it so chooses on earth. We are the global village bully that's hated by much of the world.
And it's pure self-aggrandizing bullshit to perpetrate the myth that America is hated because of our "freedom," another rhetorical brainwashing lie. We now live in a fascist totalitarian police state run by a globalized crime syndicate of the central banking cabal. As of last April per a Princeton-Northwestern study the US has officially been designated an oligarchy.
Last year after a group of ethnic Russians living in Crimea voted to become part of Russia, the Russian military claimed control over its own naval base there that the US-NATO had been lusting to steal after the unlawful overthrow of Ukraine's democratically elected sovereign government.
Ever since it's been nonstop lies and propaganda propagated to demonize Putin as the aggressor when in fact all along it's the American Empire that's been recklessly pushing what could end up World War III against nuclear powered Russia. With US-NATO missiles installed on Russia's doorstep in virtually every former Soviet eastern bloc nation, hemming Russia in, who's really the aggressor here?
The WMD lie that was the repeated mantra used as prewar drum beating propaganda to launch a war against humanity in Iraq a dozen years earlier is now being replayed as deja vu all over again to amnesic, dumbed down Americans. Despite defeats in both Iraq and Afghanistan still being dragged out as America's longest running wars in its history, the US-NATO war machine is once again prepping for yet more war raging now in Eastern Ukraine.
The US government's rush to war hit a minor snag the other day when various European nations like France and Germany announced their opposition and refusal to send arms to the Ukraine government, wanting to give peace talks with Russia a chance. Today's headlines state that Obama has been forced to pause in his arms rush, not unlike the world turning against his rush a year and a half ago for air strikes in Syria after the false flag chemical weapons attack that was actually launched by US backed rebels.
So it may not be full speed ahead for US Empire to ship its heavy weaponry to the eastern warfront after all. It is being reported that mercenaries speaking American English, Polish, French and Flemish are fighting for the Kiev government in Eastern Ukraine against ethnic Russians who are fighting for their independence, their home and their very survival. And with their backs up against the wall, recently the eastern Ukrainians have beaten back the Ukrainian government forces. Again, the US has a knack for being on the wrong side of history.
No true victor can emerge from any war on either side. The incessant US aggressor boasting superior firepower as the most deadly, expensive military force on the planet (spending more than the next ten nations combined), America has little to show for itself as it has not won a single war in seventy years!
Neo-colonialism cloaked in imperialism, balkanization, economic exploitation, debtors' theft, indentured servitude and enslavement can never be justified as the spoils of war. It's a losing proposition in every imaginable way, not only for the aggressive American Empire that keeps starting and losing war aft
IMO, we need to address a specific activity. One far more relevant, and far less damaging to ordinary civilians.
Citizens are being radicalized and going off to war in various countries. Then they return home and with what purpose? Are they still zealots, looking to convert more naive or bizarre recruits to this tainted cause? Or did they get a taste of chaos and madness and decide it wasn't for them after all?
I'm saying we should have border controls for these people. Stop them at the border. Maybe turn them away, maybe implement mandatory monitoring of them. Citizens or not, terrorists should not be free to roam the country and do as they like, which is mayhem. It's targeted, it's relevant, and does not trample upon the rights of innocent civilians who pose no risk.
The conservative government is giving itself the right to force Apple to install backdoors to its OS and encryption while forbidding it to inform its customers that it has been compromised. Any objection to this from the U.S. will be met with a short, sharp full-on nuclear response. (signed) Stephen Harper
Nothing to worry about, I'm sure they will never use this power for anything other than it's stated purpose.
Your Hypothetical Gov and law just happened..
Many governments ago.
The Government promised Canadian Soldiers
That They would always be taken care of..
But it was never written into law...
Our current wannabe dictator Announced That the government has no obligation to wounded troops..
So would Harper Never abuse a law..
He Already has...
Does anyone really think he won't again?