Slashdot Mirror
Montreal Police Monitored iPhone of La Presse Journalist Patrick Lagace (www.cbc.ca)
Montreal police have reportedly spied on La Presse journalist Patrick Lagace, tracking his cellphone calls, texts, and locations. According to Legace, the police department "obtained the court-authorized search warrants because they believed the target of one of their investigations was feeding him information." However, he said "the story in question was actually first reported on by a competitor, leading him to believe the investigation was actually a thinly veiled attempt to learn the identity of the sources within the police department." CBC.ca reports: La Press reported Monday at least 24 surveillance warrants were issued for Patrick Lagace's iPhone this year at the request of the police special investigations unit. That section is responsible for looking into crime within the police force. The warrants were used to track Lagace's whereabouts using the GPS chip in his iPhone. The warrants also allowed police to obtain the identities of everyone he spoke to or exchanged text messages with during that time. It's part of a "culture shift" among law enforcement and judges that began with the passing of Bill C-51 under the previous Conservative government, he said. Henheffer pointed to other recent cases where law enforcement has been spying on journalists or fighting for them to turn over the names of anonymous sources in court. In September, the Surete du Quebec seized Journal de Montreal reporter Michael Nguyen's computer because they believed he illegally obtained information cited in a story he wrote. At the same time, the RCMP has been trying to get a reporter from Vice News to hand over background materials used for stories on a suspected terrorist. Last May, CBC News revealed that a rogue group of Mounties investigating the leak of a secret document spied on two Canadian journalists for more than a week without any authorization.
This is something of a big deal here. There always has been mistrust of police since the 1970's in Quebec.
When you start spying on journalist, you are are only one Putin away from dictatorship.
Pun intended.
I am not sure if your comment is aimed at minimizing the impact of police spying over journalists (business as usual?), but you should note that this snippet from the article is completely unrelated to the main case with the Montreal police.
About the main case with the Montreal police, it is currently considered a big enough thing that it is monopolizing the news in Quebec and all government levels are actively seeking answers and solutions to this unprecedented abuse of power against freedom of press.
It now appears that Montreal police has started mass spying over journalists last spring in order to find whistle-blowers inside their organization (http://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/montreal/201611/01/01-5036642-le-spvm-avait-lance-une-chasse-aux-sources-journalistiques-au-printemps.php).
Edward Snowden even twitted on the topic yesterday: https://twitter.com/Snowden/st...
And if you're in charge of enforcing the rules, the rules don't apply to you.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
I hope the press gets really indignant about this. They sure don't seem to care much when it is not a member of the press whose privacy is violated.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
What shocks me the most: the public reaction to the news. I'm from Quebec, saw the local news and everyone from mayors to prime ministers had their word about the incident.
It's mostly about the police's power and journalist's source protection. Almost no one mentions how the whole operation was sanctioned by law, and that *anyone* can easily be spied on the same way (that seems to involve way more than cell tower math), and almost nobody seems to question the fact that most phones are manufactured in a way where the consumer has no reasonable way to opt-out of surveillance.
Am I late to the party or is this dystopia something humanity wilfully agreed on?
Oh, right, convenience of a portable candy crush game trumps everything, don't make me think.