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.'"
Sux to be Canad..... (Score:3)
.... earthling .... since this isn't new, nor the end of it. Eventually all of us will be under this sort draconian rule.
Freedom. It was fun while it lasted.
Don't worry (Score:5, Interesting)
Section 34 was introduced merely as negotiation fodder. It will be thrown out so that opponents will be more willing to accept the other terms of the bill, which are the ones actually desired.
Of course, over time this practice is repeated, and the net effect is the same. Frog in the kettle and all that. Eventually it gets too hot and people revolt and murder their leaders. But we probably have a while to go yet before that happens.
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Frog in the kettle and all that.
I don't like that game; no humans like that game, and we're not amphibians. We can't play that game.
Eventually it gets too hot and people revolt and murder their leaders.
"Eventually" is a pretty amorphous word. It might mean milennia, centuries, decades, or nanoseconds. Are we really going to roll those dice?
I can't believe this. Who hired these !@#$holes? :-( Sedition is the flavour of the day?
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Section 34 was introduced merely as negotiation fodder. It will be thrown out so that opponents will be more willing to accept the other terms of the bill, which are the ones actually desired.
Don't get the reasoning on this. Most people seem to be up in arms over the exigent circumstances part. But we already have that on the books, covering entry to a home, phone taps, mail, fire arms, etc. There's rules governing it if you do it. Serious penalties if you fail to follow the rules including long jail times. There's a reason why there's an exigent circumstances clause, the FLQ. [wikipedia.org] Canada has a pretty good, long history of home-grown terrorists who like doing nasty shit to pretty much anyone t
Re:Sux to be Canad..... (Score:5, Interesting)
SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith, under the guise of protecting childred from online pornographers, has proposed a new bill [businessinsider.com] that requires every Internet Service Provider to spy on every customer, logging every thing that they do online and keeping records for an entire year. Just in case. So... yeah. It's getting pretty bad.
And of course these records would be discoverable by his Big Media sponsors.
Re:under the guise of protecting children (Score:2)
"symbolset (646467) * Friend of a Friend on 03:29 PM February 19th, 2012 (#39094617) Homepage
SOPA sponsor Lamar Smith, under the guise of protecting childred from online pornographers, has proposed a new bill that requires every Internet Service Provider to spy on every customer, logging every thing that they do online and keeping records for an entire year. Just in case. So... yeah. It's getting pretty bad.
And of course these records would be discoverable by his Big Media sponsors."
THANK YOU!
Here it is, SO
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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 tha
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.
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Got any ready examples of "winnable" fights?
The Nazis thought they could just waltz into Stalingrad once they bombed the crap out of it. All that bombing did was provide cover for the defender's snipers.
Ha, ha, ha, ha, haaaa! Unintended consequences; gotta love 'em! :-|
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The sad part, is everyone is a slave - even the billionaires ...
No, that's not how it works. Push too far, expect the unreasonable, and even regular people will stand up and die for what they believe. They owe it to their children, or grandchildren. Besides, killing tyrants can be fun (or at least profitable).
"'Should'a taken the money, Toombs."
Or: "Do you know what your sin is Mal?"
"I'm a fan of all several, but right now, I'm going to go with wrath. I'm going to show you a world without sin."
Don't push me! Don't tread on me! You will be sorry.
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No, most of them will simply change their beliefs, and think you are foolish or evil for not changing yours to be in line with those in authority. And when you die, they'll cluck their tongues at your foolishness. That's the future: as Orwell said, a boot stomping on a human face, forever.
Mal's side had lost before the show even started.
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No, that's not how it works. Push too far, expect the unreasonable, and even regular people will stand up and die for what they believe.
No, most of them will simply change their beliefs, and think you are foolish or evil for not changing yours to be in line with those in authority.
"Most of them" don't matter in the long run.
"Do you know what your sin is Mal?"
Mal's side had lost before the show even started.
I think I'd still go with wrath. He lost a battle, not the war, and I don't give a damn what the Alliance thinks happened.
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I call rule 34 on section 34 (Score:3, Funny)
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I call rule 34 on rule 34 [wikipedia.org]
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There must be Big Brother porn somewhere...
featuring Hitler, no doubt
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That spread he did with the midgets and the giraffe was pretty funny.
Canada.... (Score:5, Interesting)
As an American, I honestly thought we lost our title of "Land of the Free" to you. Now we are watching you turn down the same dark road we fell down. Hopefully your people have more balls than the majority of the American people so they actually fight for it since you at least have us as an example to point to where that road leads.
If not, I guess the next Civil War just might end up turning into something beyond just civil. I honestly foresee an American civil war within my lifetime with how things are going. If our neighbors to the north are going the same route we do, they might actually use that opportunity to take back theirs as well if they fall like we have.
Now, time to mod me as troll or flamebait. Have at it.
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No civil war in our life time.
My reasoning is that the majority of the population doesn't understand/care/know about stuff like this. Just because WE ( 10% perhaps ) do, that isn't enough to do anything about it other than wave our flag as our rights and freedoms get flushed down the drain.
By the time the general pubic get to the point of wanting to take action, it will be too late.
Re:Canada.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Canada.... (Score:5, Interesting)
10% is enough to get things started, though. The American revolution was fought with fewer than 30% supporters at its peak, and most really didn't care.
Which suggests that the real number is far, far less than 10%. Indeed, when you talk to people about, say, the freedom-of-travel impediments (of, say, TSA et al), most will actually get upset that you're upset about it.
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There was a lot of money to be made by revolting and the media was on the side of that money.
It's the opposite now. The important thing now is the media is on the governments side.
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So don't sweat the fine details.
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There goes my plans for fleeing tyranny in the US. (Score:5, Interesting)
The list of countries I can go to that are neither 3rd world shit holes, police states, or both is becoming vanishingly small.
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That's because a great country is what you make of it.
You want your freedoms? You can pay for them in the sweat of your brow or the passion in your heart or the cash in your pocket like your ancestors did or you can settle for what you've got.
Now, I'm not saying this in a 'USA love it leave it' sense - Some countries are more ripe for the fostering of democratic progress than others - but moving to a place and looking to live off the benefits of its preÃstablished press and lifestyle freedoms is closin
Toews surprised by content of online surveillance (Score:5, Informative)
That's the CBC headline after interviewing Toews about his own bill: Toews surprised by content of online surveillance [www.cbc.ca].
It's worth listening to the interview that was aired on The House yesterday.
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: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.
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The Liberals wrote the bill, back in 2002. They called it Lawful Access, and then Modernization of Investigative Techniques.
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The Liberals may have started the ball rolling, but you can't tell me the Conservatives haven't made changes to it.
Otherwise, Vic Toews, the sponsoring Member of Parliament, has had TEN YEARS to read and understand this bill and still admits to not knowing what every single part of it contains.
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You have to understand that to the PCs, every bad thing was the Liberals' fault. I know it's been ten years since they were in power, but everything bad in the country was because of the Liberal Party.
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There are no more Progressive Conservatives, of course. I actually could have voted for them against the Liberals. But the PCs sold their souls for short-sighted political gain and got assimilated by the Reform/Canadian Alliance party. Otherwise I agree with your post.
Where previous governments were able to pass laws and do stuff with actual consequences, the current government and their supporters at least has some justification for claiming "we're cleaning up the mess" even if I don't agree with what they
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It's the same here in the UK with the BBC. The BBC has taken quite some hits this last few years in terms of reduced funding and artificial limitations placed on it's ability to compete.
The reason is that the Tories want the favour of Murdoch and Sky, who were all set to take 100% of Sky over until the phone hacking scandal upended the deal. By weakening the BBC, strengthening Sky, and strengthening Murdoch's grasp of Sky they were trying to ensure that TV became their own personal propaganda channel.
Look they have these bills pre-written (Score:2)
They are lobbyist porn. All they are looking for is a name to stick on it, the politicians are just puppets dancing in front of the crowd.
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It will be the media lobbies, they have been trying to chip away at Canadian law for years. They are making the same attempts at other countries and of course in the US. I am sure they own the Conservatives in the same way they seem to own or influence a lot of other governments.
This bill should be retitled "The Eliminate All Electronic Privacy Act" to reflect its real purpose.
Sounds nice (Score:3)
The warrant system works pretty well. It is not perfect but it was never meant to be. There are abuses and innocent people get affected but the justice system was designed like this. Only the naive think you can have a legal system that can at least be somewhat effective without ever inconveniencing anyone. You might get your entire house torn up because of a wrongly issued warrant and that bloody sucks and compensation may be way to low but it is the price for the legal system we got. Better hope that like most, you never notice how it is to be subject of a police investigation.
BUT why chance this? The warrant system WORKS. It is effective enough and has proven checks and balances. The only reason to change this is if you want to chance the way the legal system works. Now there are two reasons to do it. To make it better or to make it worse. Somehow I can't see how removing warrants and oversight and review from searches is going to make the legal system any better. More effective?
The legal system works because most of us have no real reason not to make it work. In holland a recent news story was that of a man in a car trying to abuct several kids and succeeding with one. The police investigate and during their investigation they encountered two men, one who refused to let the police into his house (had a hennep farm inside) and one who refused to show ID... this wasted police time if nothing else. Cops had to check out why these two men were refusing to cooperate rather then simply going on to the next house/person to search for the abductor.
It is safe to assume to police didn't just question these two men. The rest of the people investigated were innocent and had nothing to fear from the law, so could be easily eliminated.
If anything can be searched any time by anyone, encryption will become the norm, so even if the police get a warrant, they can't eliminate the innocent in a search and will have to spend a lot more time investigating. Make everyone a criminal and finding the serious criminal will become a lot harder.
I am not a privacy nutter, I think that the justice system having special powers is the correct way to go about them, but there must be check and balances and the process open to outside review to make sure abuses do not happen. This is not new, this is the current situation. I am VERY suspicious of anyone who claims this has to change. Extra ordinary powers require extra ordinary reasons. So far I have not heard any.
Drag.. (Score:3)
There goes my vote for Canada for US President!
Core issue (Score:5, Insightful)
If your encrypt your traffic, your a criminal.
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Vic Toews, the minister responsible for this, had a seven year affair with his baby sitter (then impregnated another young woman). He obviously thinks the rest of us has his morals.
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The article is about a government that is any thing but liberal. Probably closest to tea party as anything. They are cutting taxes but are still increasing spending. They pissed away the government surplus by cutting taxes and increasing spending and are increasing government size in the negative areas. Crime is at a 50 year low so they're building prisons like crazy, passing new laws to make previous legal things illegal and totally want to stop dissent no matter how much it costs.
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.
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.
Canada's new law... (Score:3)
Is (if the US is a model) going to do any damn thing they want, any time they damn want, regardless of any "law"!
Guess what, governments don't follow "laws", they make (almost) everybody else follow them!
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So Joe and Jane Public will have to begin doing what the crooks are already doing - encrypting their stuff. Which threatens Google's "everything should be a web app" and "store your documents, etc. on our servers" and Facebooks "stay in touch with everyone and we can keep in touch with everything you do and who you do it with and sell it to advertisers".
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Wacko judgements like Citizens United would never happen.
Why so worried? (Score:2)
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, who introduced the bill to Parliament, had absolutely no idea what was in it [www.cbc.ca] or why people would be so upset about it.
So, you see, everything is okay. You trust the Public Safety Minister, don't you?
It's not like he's lying through his teeth or anything. Or hopelessly incompentant.
Well, technically he would have to be one or the other, but you can still trust him, right?
Gross misreading (Score:3)
This will probably end up downmoded amongst the fearmongering, but this "analysis" is based on a gross misreading. Surveillance under section 34 can't be used for legalized spying because:
1. Section 34 doesn't authorize it. It authorizes the use of those inspection powers only to check for ISP conformance with the rest of the act, and
2. C-30 amends, but does not derogate the Criminal Code, and section 34 powers aren't given an exemption to Section 184 of the Criminal Code. An inspector operating under section 34 is not considered to be authorized to intercept telecommunications for the purposes of 184. Doing so would be a criminal offence.
Rule of thumb: If you read anything online about Canadian law, it's probably wrong.
Governments are Learning (Score:2)
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I bloody swear, there are as many blokes complaining about whatever groupthink [x] is going on as the actua
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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.
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Stop making this about you. What about less technically inclide people? And how do you know you are not using Google? Google knows you home SSID, and correlates it to your iPhone's MAC address. And unless you use pretty agressive blockers they have a pretty good list of all websites yhou have visited, even if you never visit youtube/gmail/google.com
There's nothing preventing the Google AND the goverment from fucking you over, except the fact that you have never done anything important ever.
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There are laws that are supposed to stop Google from invading our (Canadians) privacy. While there are also laws to stop the government from invading our privacy, it is very easy to change them by passing a new Online Surveillance Bill. We also have way fewer checks and balances then the USA, basically the government is a dictatorship for up to 5 years when the ruling party has the majority of parliamentary seats.
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The counterargument to that would be that you can vote out politicians, but corporate monopolies last for generations.
You can't vote out politicians. You can only vote in another politician, and if they're not as corrupt as the one you threw out they probably will be after a few years.
We're STILL dealing with a Windows monopoly.
Thanks to copyright, patents and other monopolies granted to them by governments.
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If you don't like it run NoScript and blacklist Google Analytics. Easy.
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Google can be completely avoided easily...
Apple can also be completely avoided easily...
MS you have to go out of your way to avoid, and even then you will encounter files in proprietary formats and other nasties forcing you back towards ms.
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:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
^^this^^ (Score:2)
Underrated -- even if it gets to +5
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American elections: Beg, bribe, steal, kill, your way to getting elected; once there, fuck over EVERYONE for the big paycheck from those who bribe you.
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It's the same here, we just sprinkle enough perfume to cover up the bullshit.
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.
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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.
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if any lesson should be taken away from the Tea Party movement in the US, it's that...
...a small, obnoxious minority of people can be funded by two billionaires to do "grassroots" (racist, divisive, etc.) marketing for a movement designed to protect said billionaires. FTFY.
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.
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Ahh, but you are forgetting one thing. The people in Canada have one power the US doesn't have, they have the power to vote governments out (ie decimate the party). See Campbell/Mulroney or the recent Liberal defeat.
Yes they may jave 5 years to wreck the country, but at least you know you can get rid of them. In the US, with all the gerrymandering there are so many safe seats the equivalent could never happen.
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In the US, with all the gerrymandering there are so many safe seats the equivalent could never happen.
That's certainly what they're trying to do here in Wisconsin.
The newest district maps the Republican-controlled legislature designed are completely one-sided, which in itself is nothing new, but with all the recalls and shit going on, they're now trying to figure out ways to force the recalls to happen in the newly created districts. Never mind the fact that the districts do not legally go into effect until November 2012 by the bill they themselves ratified; now that they stand to actually lose control of
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.
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All a corporation has to do is maintain a good PR image while it screws customers and citizens to be able to survive.
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:5, Informative)
The Fine Article is about Canada, where it's unconstitutional to prevent people convicted of a crime from voting.
In fact, only two adult Canadian citizens are not eligible to vote - the Chief Electoral Officer, and the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer.
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Ha! Good point, and America, where we have more people in prison that the rest of the world combined and want to put more in.
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This Canadian government has plans to beat you at that game. Little harder with an order of less population to do it with but they're going to try.
Re:Corporations doing evil vs Govt doing evil (Score:5, Informative)
This story isn't going away - it was on the national news again tonight ... Vic Toews is now the laughingstock of the country. He's admitted he didn't even know what was in the bill he sponsored.
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I haven't heard anything about the omnibus crime bill not going through which is more what I was talking about. Unluckily this is taking attention from the other horrible laws that are on the table. The crime laws and the copyright laws for example.
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It can also mean that we still have some archaic laws on the books that people rarely, or never reevaluate. Shit, the sodomy laws were only repealed in Georgia a few years ago. Until then, people were getting 10 year sentences for admitting that they had oral sex.
For that matter, the laws surrounding driving privileges and insurance are ludicrous. 2 people that I know have both been arrested for driving on a suspended license only because they changed insurance companies and the insurance companies failed t
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It's a police state. We aren't free, we are surfs sucking the dicks of our corporate masters.
Crimes? If we had our 2nd Amendment RIGHTS which have been fucked out of us, we wouldn't have hardly any crime? Why? Because when idiots come robbing or murdering, or car jacking, we shoot them dead. Bullets are cheaper than prisons.
Drugs? This one is quite the scam. They don't give two fucks about you and your health. This is the perfect vehicle for crushing civil rights and creating a police state. They create the
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The Fine Article is about Canada, where it's unconstitutional to prevent people convicted of a crime from voting.
In fact, only two adult Canadian citizens are not eligible to vote - the Chief Electoral Officer, and the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer.
Actually I am an adult Canadian citizen I am not eligible to vote. I have lived outside of Canada for five consecutive years and therefore have had that right stripped away in accordance with Canadian electoral law.
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And even the 5-year rule has exceptions, depending on, for example, your employer.
Then again, if you've been gone for more than 5 years, it's probable that you're now considered a resident of the other country anyway for such things as taxes.
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That's the last straw. America, You are no longer allowed to lecture anyone about Democracy or Liberty because you understand neither anymore.
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.
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Here's another example to add to your list:
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20100923/01464111127/more-stories-of-people-arrested-for-making-joke-threats-on-social-networks.shtml [techdirt.com]
The "This American Life" episode featuring comedian Joe Lipari linked in the article is well worth listening to. What happened was that he had a bad customer service experience at an Apple store, got home and was watching Fight Club, and made a joke on Facebook obviously derived from one of the most famous quotes in the movie. An
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Companies don't care about your well-being. They just care about your money. Tobacco companies make money by killing people -- and they spent decades and millions of dollars on 'scientific' studies that questioned the conclusion of other sc
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I've never smoked simply because I've chosen not to. I have however been subject to the laws my city, state, and federal government despite the fact that I disagree with a good number of those laws. Corporations easy to avoid, advertising or no.
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It is hardly as simple as you're stating, but I won't cut you for that because walls of text are time-consuming and most people don't actually read them.
It is important to recognize that there is no distinction between corporations and the actions of the US Federal Government, most state governments, and even county/city governments in many cases. Corporations are, in nearly all cases, the beneficiary to US policy in one form or another -- one only needs to be paying attention to the motivations for bills,
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But you don't have to use Google. Government has the power to aggregate *everything* - tax records, banking records, property records, health records, insurance records, travel records, along with whatever they can glean from Google. Living without Google is relatively easy. Try functioning in modern society without a bank account, paying taxes, or using health services.
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The government can charge you with something disgusting like raping babies, then drop the charges. What will that do to your reputation?
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Not true. [nytimes.com] Not even remotely true. [wikipedia.org]
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I swear lobbyists put stuff like "section 34" in as a lighting rod for activists.
Later on they can drop this provision as a "compromise" to appease the opponents.
While we're arguing about this, they're passing the crime bill that even the right wing Texans told them is stupid. The new copyright bill, implementing ACTA and Sopa and who knows what else. Overwhelm us at the beginning of their mandate, make a small compromise, improve things slightly at the end of their mandate.