Canadian Government Backs Down On Airport Recording 36
New submitter ryanakca writes "In a followup to a story we discussed on Sunday, Canadian Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has ordered a halt to the installation of eavesdropping equipment at Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport until a privacy review could be completed. Although 'similar audio-video equipment has been operating at other Canadian airports and ports of entry for "many years,"' the Canadian Border Safety Agency failed to complete the Privacy Commissioner's required 'privacy impact assessment' before the Ottawa airport installation."
Wait for report... THEN install! (Score:5, Insightful)
Hurray! So instead of putting them in now, the government will get a report done, spin it so it benefits them, THEN get them installed anyway but this time with some publicity of being "good for security and for the country"! Give me a break.
so who's accountable? (Score:3, Insightful)
The summary says "the Canadian Border Safety Agency failed to complete the Privacy Commissioner's required 'privacy impact assessment'". Note the use of the word "required". So if it was required and nobody did it, somebody broke a rule. Who's going to be accountable for that and what will their punishment be?
Surely it wouldn't be no punishment since that would just be sending a message that rules can be ignored and nobody will be held accountable.
This gov't doesn't care about (our) privacy (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the government that wanted anyone authorized by the Minister (Minister Vic "You-support-this-spying-bill-(which-I-Haven't-Read)-or-you-support-child-pornographers" Toews), someone such as Pierre Poutine, to scour telecommunication records of anyone they deem worthy (watch out opposition MPs - the old election fraud scams need updating).
They're just worried about Conservative MPs using the airport on a weekly basis. After all, their privacy is paramount, such as the same Minister being so upset and the gov't going on a witch hunt when public court records were posted to VikiLeaks that showed this minister knocked up his baby sitter, left his wife & children, and didn't pay proper support payments.
Worst government in Canada's history; an illegitimate regime aquiring majority status through lies & election fraud: a coup in other words. A silent one. Like Quebec's Quiet Revolution but on a national scale, and malevolent.
They've had this since 1989... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm almost certain they've listened in on lineups using microphones or parabolic microphones for a very long time. The change now is probably due to automation of the process. A computer can only be so accurate and the audio needs to be recorded for review by an officer. Maybe I'm wrong but they were legal to use listening devices - just not record?
My experience:
I was heading out on a student trip from Edmonton to Japan in 1988 or so. I whispered under my breath to my friend in the security line that "I hoped my baby brother hadn't put his squirt gun in my luggage". I was at least 50 feet back from the nearest security agent. As I got closer to the front of the line a female officer approached me and warned me not to talk about guns in the security line and that I was almost removed from the student trip. The only explanation that made sense to me at the time was that they had installed microphones in the ceiling or were using a parabolic microphone.
There are other possible explanations ( like someone tattling on me.. and it was my classmates in line). I pondered it for quite a while at the time and the most plausible explanation to me at the time were microphones. 9/11 wasn't an issue but the Air India bombing had just occurred a few years earlier.