Canadian Govt To Introduce Massive Internet Surveillance Law 215
An anonymous reader writes "The Canadian government will introduce
new Internet surveillance legislation tomorrow that will mandate a
massive new surveillance infrastructure at all Canadian ISPs and remove
the need for court oversight of the disclosure of customer information.
Michael Geist has a detailed FAQ
on the history of the bill, the likely contents, the lack of government
evidence supporting the need for the invasive legislation, and what
Canadians can do about it."
To stop child pornographers and organized crime? (Score:5, Insightful)
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the law will give the tools to police to adequately deal with 21st-century technology, and said anyone opposing the laws favours "the rights of child pornographers and organized crime ahead of the rights of lawabiding citizens."
If that's true, why do you need to avoid court oversight? If you're going after real criminals, what exactly is stopping you from getting a *warrant* to track them and get their information? Are Canadian judges uniquely reluctant to sign warrants when actual criminal activity is involved, so much so that you need to bypass them?
Or are you REALLY looking to go after someone else, someone that a judge is NOT going to sign a warrant for?
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:5, Insightful)
What they want:
Step 1: assume all citizens are involved in organized crime
Step 2: observe until you can find a case
Step 3: issue fines
Step 4: revel in revenue increases due to above fines
It gets a lot harder when someone is asking "what probable cause do you have to watch this one?"
Is it time? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Won't somebody think of the children?
Typical slimeball politician - he'll probably come out with "nothing to hide, nothing to fear" next.
Don't forget - Canada doesn't have freedom of speech, so the police will be able to use this to harass thought criminals and other doubleplusungood types.
Re:Is it time? (Score:5, Insightful)
...for a change? I have another proposition: Lets pass a bill for a full massive surveillance infrastructure at all politicians, and here comes the important part, WITHOUT court order. Who is with me?
Why are you worried about getting a court order? I should think that being a politician would, in and of itself, be 'probable cause'.
Thin Veil (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Speed things up, Cut out the middle man (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a thinly veiled excuse.
Just like the misconception that free distribution of independent literature would:
1) turn the peasants into hedonists (Confucianism - moveable type press)
2) put "the beast" into people (Catholic church - Gutenberg printing press)
Well, the governments were "right" back then so they must be "right" now aswell.
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:5, Insightful)
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said the law will give the tools to police to adequately deal with 21st-century technology, and said anyone opposing the laws favours "the rights of child pornographers and organized crime ahead of the rights of lawabiding citizens."
That's quite right, actually, I do "favor" their rights. They have a right to due process of law. Any government official who says they do not favor the rights of any individual under the law is not fit for office, and should probably be impeached. One of those rights is to privacy from government surveillance without a warrant.
Not that that quote even makes sense, anyways: anyone who opposes the bill favors the rights of everyone.
Equal and Opposite... (Score:5, Insightful)
Save the children... or make their work easier. (Score:5, Insightful)
What this all boils down to is that they have all the tools they already need to nail organized crime as any judge will sign warrants for that. Where the judges are "uncooperative" is when it comes to trolling to see if protesters are planning on embarrassing the government or police.
What Canadians want is more protection of our rights and more exposure of what the police and government are hiding. This law proposes the exact opposite.
I can't imagine the surveillance they will now rain down on someone who say does a freedom of information request on the RCMP. A situation that no judge in a million years would agree to.
A good example of a law that most Canadians would want is that the police can't use a drone without a warrant. I don't want them peeking over my bushes.
Too Late. (Score:5, Insightful)
We have a myriad of technical solutions to this problem.
Tor and the .onion domains effectually neutralise the ability of a third party (The state or any other organisation) to perform survailance on internet traffic.
Freenet enables the disemenation of whatever material anybody cares to share, to anybody.
Bitcoin allows unregulated trade.
It should be our goal to spread these existing tools and develop new methods of ensuring information can be transferred between people without fear, censorship, or interferance of any other person.
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:5, Insightful)
We did this to ourselves, you know. Canada had three chances to toss the Harper government out, and the third time, we handed them a majority despite their myriad offences that would have toppled prior governments (butchering Statistics Canada, running endless attack ads, blowing a billion dollars turning Toronto into a police state for the G20, proroguing parliament to avoid answering difficult questions, complicity in torture of Afghan detainees, being found in contempt of parliament... And these are just the ones I can remember off the top of my head). As a nation, we deserve exactly what we're getting for not turfing that clown Harper at the first opportunity.
I don't understand (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't understand what it is with this recent(?) obsession with wanting to bypass warrants? It just outright baffles and frustrates me.
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:3, Insightful)
Only a moron would think that conservative or liberal has anything to do with it. You need to open your eyes to the fact that ALL politicians the world over are in it for their own benefit. Chances are, in this case, that these laws are motivated by the intellectual property lobby.
Re:Save the children... or make their work easier. (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you imagine if say Coca cola were able to make laws[?]
They'd classify Pepsi as a Class 1 controlled substance and have the DEA enforce its prohibition. Wait, didn't this happen with the timber industry?
Re:I don't understand (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand what it is with this recent(?) obsession with wanting to bypass warrants?
How can you build a police state if you need a warrant to spy on everyone?
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't vote a government out, you can only vote another government in... and they would probably be doing pretty much the same as this one.
And Canada was doing OK with a minority government until the left decided to commit suicide by forcing yet another election that no-one wanted. That has to be one of the worst 'shot myself in the ass' moments in political history.
Sign the petition (Score:5, Insightful)
This may be close to your last chance to be an anonymous coward, so sign the petition at openmedia,
http://openmedia.ca/StopSpying [openmedia.ca]
And don't forget to donate as well
Politicians will be the first ones caught no doubt (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:To stop child pornographers and organized crime (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes you can. We Americans did it a few hundred years ago at the tip of a bayonet.
And seem to have forgoten how since then.