Canada's Online Surveillance Bill: Section 34 "Opens Door To Big Brother" 178
Saint Aardvark writes "Canada's proposed online surveillance bill looked bad enough when it was introduced, but it gets worse: Section 34 allows access to any telco place or equipment, and to any information contained there — with no restrictions, no warrants, and no review. From the article: 'Note that such all-encompassing searches require no warrant, and don't even have to be in the context of a criminal investigation. Ostensibly, the purpose is to ensure that the ISP is complying with the requirements of the act — but nothing in the section restricts the inspector to examining or seizing only information bearing upon that issue. It's still "any" information whatsoever.'"
Re:Slashdot's silly double standard (Score:5, Insightful)
No the difference is - i don't have to use Google. And I don't even have to leave for another country to opt-out, unlike in the case of the goverment.
Re:Sux to be Canad..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Freedom can only be taken away from you if you allow it. In fact you can take freedom _back_ if you so choose. The question is, do you care about your freedom enough to actually bring about some change, or are you so consigned to failure and apathetic that you're just not going to bother and let things go even further down the toilet?
Always keep this in mind, because it's what every dictator, faux-democracy elected official and Gestapo wannabe wants you to forget -- there are a hell of a lot more of you than there are them. People are starting to forget about the value of "strength in numbers," they're afraid to speak the word "revolution" aloud. These people are only in power because no one is doing anything to stop them.
Are you willing to step up and defend your freedom, even if it means defending it from the government that's trying to take it away from you? Or are you just going to sit on your thumbs and let it happen? People like Bradley Manning, they're willing to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to bring about the end of these oil-sucking politicians, at their own expense. Are you willing to do the same? Or is your "we'll never win" attitude a self-fulfilling prophecy stoked with cowardice?
Re:Slashdot's silly double standard (Score:1, Insightful)
Google can't throw you in jail forever.
Doing waht is needed (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, I will be there when the time comes, but there is no sense being a martyr at this point as the act will just go unnoticed.
Pick winnable battles, in their proper time and place.
Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:5, Insightful)
The net effect isn't the same.
A corporation has to ask you for your data, and you can say no -- at which point the corporation is SOL, regardless of your perceived goodness or badness of that corporate use. In addition, the corporation has at least some stake in your continued good will, and so they are likely to give you something back in return if in fact you choose to opt in. But if what they do makes people opt out... without customers, the corporation will cease to exist.
A government can -- and in the case of the US government, already will, the Canadians are well behind us -- take your data. Once it has it, it can, and will, jail you, take your life, and so on. They don't have to give you anything back, and typically, they won't. They have no significant investment in your good will. You can bitch all you want, but you can't opt out and they won't stop existing because they're annoying some of the citizens. Nor is there any hope of them annoying enough of the citizens for such a thing to happen.
You're been taught that corporations that do not know right from wrong are bad, thoughtless entities, and they certainly are, but they are nothing compared to a government that does not know right from wrong.
Also, in the final analysis, it is the government that enables or prevents any particular corporate behavior. If you get control of the government (good luck, too late in the USA.. but Canada... perhaps not) then you get control of the corporations.
Re:Toews surprised by content of online surveillan (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question, the one the CBC didn't hammer on, was:
"Then who wrote the bill, Minister? Who put that in there?"
Re:Canada.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Core issue (Score:5, Insightful)
If your encrypt your traffic, your a criminal.
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:5, Insightful)
This is Canada not the Soviet Union (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Canadian who's a swing voter I think not only should such an absurd bill be killed but the sanity of whichever MP backs it seriously put into question. Any MP that backs such totalitarian surveillance bill is no longer qualified to hold office and should automatically have their re-election campaign targeted.
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:4, Insightful)
Added bonus, whats the worst that can do either of them?
Google could send you (or help others to do so) spam not so easy to ignore.
Government will find a joke you did, meant to be a joke, understood by all the involved parts of the conversation as joke, and still punish you [coupmedia.org] for that.
Now put that to really private conversations. Or any try to warn others about corruption/abuses/mass killings or whatever of people or companies somewhat related with your government. And that the one doing that with your private conversations could not be your government, but US one if you happen to be citizen of any other country.
Re:Toews surprised by content of online surveillan (Score:5, Insightful)
The real question, the one the CBC didn't hammer on, was:
"Then who wrote the bill, Minister? Who put that in there?"
Good point. I hope that the NDP will be raising that question in the House of Commons this week.
On the CBC, I sometimes wonder if they are a little hesitant to go after the Conservatives too much for fear of appearing partisan in the eyes of the government. I can remember the supporters' shouts of "Shut down the CBC!" during the election when CBC reporters asked Harper tough questions. My guess is that the CBC knows it is treading a thin line under the current government.
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Politicians only keep their jobs if we let them.
If by "we", you mean a few hundred people who donate 80%+ of the politician's budgets, then I agree with you. Running for election has gotten way, way too expensive (it was never cheap, but costs apparently are rising exponentially). As I understand it, currently about 96% of the politicians who had more money than their opponent win the election.
A number of things that have very broad support of population majority on both Republican and Democrat side clearly have no chance of passing. How's _that_ for democracy?
Harper's true colours (Score:5, Insightful)
Where Joe Nobody will get nailed is that their communications will be run through filters and false positives will be generated. Then when you do things like board airplanes or cross borders you will be interrogated about the sales chearleading you did when you said to your team, "Go knock'em dead. Totally destroy them. Our product will be like a bomb stuck up their asses." Poof you find your computer's seized, your accounts frozen, and any attempts to clarify and correct meeting a wall of "national security".
Can you imagine what would have happened though before the G20 in Toronto. I suspect an email with "The police suck" might have gotten you arrested.
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Google etc I can stop using any time without much effort, at that I've already got extensions installed to stop much of their data gathering.
The Canadian government or as they like to now call themselves, Harper's Government, with a majority, has up to 5 years in which they have a dictatorship. They have way more power then the American government has. They can even invoke the not withstanding clause of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and take away most basic civil rights.
The Supreme court rules against this invasion of privacy, well they can override (for 5 years) our right not to be unreasonably searched, which our Supreme Court has interpreted as a Right to Privacy.
They're also appointing new Supreme Court Justices who are more friendly to their right wing views.
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:4, Insightful)
America is the product of decades of brainwashing and a shitty education system. Corporations at the start of them were never intended to develop like this. They were initially kept in check, but time has proven that our system fails to protect itself from monetary corruption, and money has corrupted our hold on corporations. It's all went bad.
Our population is very brainwashed and ignorant, dangerously so. I have come to understand why people hate us. We by our ignorance, and lack of participation, let very evil people screw with the world. As long as we have our cheeseburger and get to look at Facebook, we don't care.
What we should be doing is blatantly obvious, but frankly I'm afraid to say it, lest I end up in Gitmo.
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's food for thought: A government of the people, by the people, for the people...
What if the "people" are a big collective of ignorant arrogant assholes?
It reminds me of our jury system: Judged by 12 people too stupid to get out of jury duty.
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:3, Insightful)
Although I don't subscribe to the ideology, if any lesson should be taken away from the Tea Party movement in the US, it's that the people here still have the ability to control government through fair, democratic elections. The problem is complacency, not the system as a whole. The citizenry has more power than it believes, it just doesnt bother to come together to force change often enough.