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Canadian Bill C-416 to Require Wiretapping
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Mon Mar 26, 2007 09:54 PM
from the big-brother-to-the-north dept.
from the big-brother-to-the-north dept.
Matthew Skala writes "Bill C-416, recently introduced in the Canadian Parliament, would if passed require Internet providers to provide wiretapping facilities to law enforcement — without a warrant, and with 'confidentiality' requirements reminiscent of the secret-spying cases we've seen recently in the States. This new Act is a reprise of last Parliament's C-74, which failed when the Government's term ended. Coming back as a Liberal "private member's Bill" in a minority government, it will have little chance of success without cross-party support; but with the Conservatives in charge, all bets are off if they can find a way to claim it's about terrorism or child pornography."
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where (Score:5, Insightful)
Private-members' bills almost never pass (Score:3, Insightful)
This has no chance.
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This has no chance.
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France is much worse but at least they're realistic. France is basically a police state. It grants citizens rights on a piecemeal basis. That way, their version of the Patriot Act is just taking rights away from citizens that they were 'lucky' to have been 'granted' in the first place. People bitch less when their rights are taken when you convince them that they were only on loan beforehand.
Sad part is, I'm only lying about half of that. Can you guess which half? I think you'll be pleasant
Re:where (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Who can reach 1884 first? (Score:2, Insightful)
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What was wrong with 1884? Slavery was over, prohibition hadnt happened yet. Great scientific strides where being made.
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We're entitled to everything, we give up some things to ensure safety and equality. How much we give up is also up to us, or at least it is supposed to be. To say the opposite is to invite totalitarianism, which is the proper word for what most people mean by 'communism.' A society without freedom can happen no matter what you call your government or what the idiots in office preach.
Stopping the government from doing stupid things (in the absence of a
Editorial comments...bleh (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I know Conserviative-bashing has been "the cool thing to do" in Canada for a while, but at least look who introduced the bill: "Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Lachine)." Click on her name, and you'll see she's part of the LIBERAL party. Believe it or not, the liberals have been responsible for a lot of crap too- stop blaming the Conservatives for every little thing that goes wrong up here.
Re:Editorial comments...bleh (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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Regardless of what Harper was once a champion of (and I'd dispute your claims that he was ever much of a supporter of freedom and privacy given his opposition to same-sex marriage and his strong anti-drug, law'n'order stance) he has shown himself in power to be an extreme pragmatist. The GST rate reduction is a perfect example of wrong-headed economic policy that Harper with good academic credentials in economics und
you know ... (Score:5, Interesting)
but with the Conservatives in charge, all bets are off if they can find a way to claim it's about terrorism or child pornography
It's comments like this that I find really anti-productive -- why do you assume that just because the current government is conservative that it's *not* about terrorism or national security?? Believe it or not, we conservatives are not interested in invading your private space, go live your life and have fun -- but we DO care if you die in a terrorist bombing or if your kids get raped and photographed by some perv.
Believe me, I don't want to live in Nazi Germany, but I don't want to die in a subway bombing either. Let's stop the partisan stuff and find a balanced solution.
Re:you know ... (Score:4, Informative)
While I agree that the sick-in-the-head "Sociopathic Authoritarian" syndrome is by no means confined to the Conservative Party, there is no such thing as a "balanced solution" when an ability to conduct automated mass surveilance of citizens is concerned. And let's not kid ourselves here, this is precisely the Holy Grail of both police forces and the "intelligence" communities.
All of course in the effort to "protect" us from that hypothetical "ticking bomb" which blows few of us up every ... well .... a few decades or so. But it will certainly stop all those fat old geezers looking at their hand-drawn child-porn cartoons, otherwise they would go right out and abduct all of our children. Think of the children!!!
Parent
Re:you know ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
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You mean you will actually wait until the Liebenstandarte Richard Perle SS Division is marching down the 5th Avenue to concede the point? Because there is at least one formerly-democratic country wh
Re:you know ... (Score:5, Insightful)
No, you care if YOU or a loved one dies in a terrorist bombing, and you care if YOUR kid gets raped and photographed by some perv. Spare me the bleeding heart. And please, if you're so concerned, then make damned sure we make those people we PROVE to have commited those crimes as miserable as possible, so that other idiots might think twice about doing something like that.
But leave ME the fuck alone. Thank you.
Parent
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That was back in 1991. I have yet to see anything that has threatened Americans freedoms more than our own government.
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I sure hope you never let your kids get in a car or leave the house at all, given how man
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I care just as much as you do - in that vague, detached sort of way we care about stuff happening to other people. Aww isn't that tragic - hey look, the Simpsons are on!
However I don't pretend to be some altruistic image of perfect love and caring. I admit that I'm human, and I care a hell of a lot MORE if it happens to me or someone I love than if it happens to someone I hear about in the news. I
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What I want to know is, what Tory paid this Liberal to bring up this political-suicide bill so soon before an election? Or maybe Dion is trying to get her thrown out of the party so he can put a hand-picked candidate in Notre-Dame-de-Grâce-Lachine.
Partisanship = Problem! (Score:2)
2. Libs lose an election and the Cons take over.
3. A liberal reintroduces said bad bill as a private members bill.
4. We should fear the backwards conservatives?
One thing we've seen a lot of in american politics lately is unreasoning partisanship. If it's bad, stupid, evil, etc. it's something the "other party" would do, never yours. I really hope this sort of thinking doesn't become too prevalent in Canada. We certainly watch our Southern neighbors enough to
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no. it just means that i will be watching this bill very closely in case it gains conservative support, which i don't feel is completely out there.
there are few things i fear more than a bill like this gaining majority support.
if it does get the Tories support, my MP is gonna be getting a bag or two full of mail.
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Re:you know ... (Score:4, Insightful)
Sentiments like these are of course the wet dream of every would-be-fascist out there. Because there is really no way to tell if someone who expressed violent thoughts about some politician or business-feudal-lord actually means it or is just venting. Not until an act of violence is commited, which is the actual crime. Any attempts at "pre-emption" inevietably lead to persecutions of all of those who express "sufficiently extreme" thoughts against the ruling elites. Following which everyone becomes "careful" (read: terrorized) about what they say and write. Following which the rulers announce that they know that the "extremists" (who hide under every bed by now) are "secretly" communicating and thinking their "violent desires". And after that comes Gestapo, Stasi, KGB etc.
You see the problem with your thinking is that you missed the fact that "fictional works" are simply recordings of thought. And once they become subject to monitoring and abuse by the authorities (who after all only want to protect us poor sods from the evil terrorists who hide in every closet) so do the thoughts in your head. As Orwell predicted with frightening foresight.
Parent
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No. Works of fiction, fantasy, and straight reporting — in any medium, for any purpose — are not indicative of either "unhealthy behavior" or even an unhealthy tendency towards such behavior. Nor is the consumption / appreciation of such works. It is also worth noting that the production of such works may have an agenda that 10
Eh? (Score:3, Funny)
crypto (Score:5, Insightful)
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Then of course this dumb bitch or some other Psycho Authoritarian (at the urging of ever-power-hungry Socopathic Authoritarians who inhabit "police" and "intelligence" communities) will introduce bills outlawing encryption and steganography in possesion of those nasty, unruly peons, otherwise known as sheep-citizens. Or introduce some other brain dead scheme involving escrow keys or presumption-of-guil
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No. But history much. These regulations already exist in Britain and France.
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We can't get people in the US to care enough to vote against politicians who are interested in curtailing freedoms. Hell, these people WANT to be "protected". You think that we are going to get them to start learning to use software to protec
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I personally use GnuPG. [gnupg.org] However, how hard would it be for a government to outlaw any "non-approved" encryption implementation?
I am not trolling here. I am just trying to point out that if "we the people" come up
Liberal in USA vs. Liberal - Maybe OT? (Score:2)
Please, my non-American blokes, enlighten us Americans.
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Well, the main issue is that we have a political party in Canada called 'the Liberal Party', which is what was referred to in TFA. As that is their name, that is almost exclusively what is meant by the word "Liberal" in Canadian politics; when we must talk about a "liberal" political position independent of the party, we typically say "small-L liberal" (as opposed to "big-L Liberal", connected with the party).
So you need to make clear whethe
WTF?? (Score:5, Insightful)
The government is not allowed to listen in on my phone without a warrant.
Why the hell should they be allowed to read my internet packets without a warrant?
Re:WTF?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because the Internet is today the one truly democratic medium of choice of the citizenry. The Authoritarians' inability to read you mail comes from the fact that in the day where letters were the democratic medium of the citizenry, those citizens were willing to fight and die in the battle with the Psychopathic Authoritarians who have always desired to monitor and spy on everyone. This battle has to be re-fought each time the progress of technology changes our modes of communication just as each new generation of these Sociopaths will try again and again to enslave us.
Parent
A Liberal bill? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, duh...
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This story should be modded -1 Troll.
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The meta-point is that Liberal or Conservative, Democratic or Republican, Labor or Tory, the question of which party will claim the mantel of true liberty is wide open in the Anglo world. In the US, a large portion (by no means all) of the Republican Party has embraced government intr
How Convenient (Score:2)
It wont pass (Score:2, Informative)
You can tell it's a private members' bill because of its high number, in a majority parliament situation a double digit numbered bill (c-16 c-42 etc) will pass, PMB's rarely pass.
Here is a list of the current PMB's:
http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HouseBills/BillsPrivate.asp x?Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=39&Ses=1/ [parl.gc.ca]
As you can see there are hundreds of them to be considered with this o
Canadian History Lesson... (Score:2)
Pierre Trudeau invoked the War Measures Act, sent in military troops to occupy Canadian territory, rounded up and detained hundreds of people without pressing charges, banned a political party, and the RCMP carried out hundreds of illegal searches and wiretaps.
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/in [thecanadia...opedia.com]
Re:Canadian History Lesson... (Score:5, Insightful)
"(in which only about 6 people were killed in terrorist attacks)."
ONLY 6 people? Would invoking the War Measures Act have been more acceptable to you if there had been a hundred or a thousand killed by terrorists?
"sent in military troops to occupy Canadian territory"
You make it sound as the Canadian Forces are a foreign entity in their own land.
"the RCMP carried out hundreds of illegal searches and wiretaps."
Technically the searches and wiretaps were NOT illegal, because essentially martial law was in effect.
"allowing U.S. draftees to escape to Canada during the Vietnam war"
They did no such thing as allow them to "escape." They weren't prisoners.
"There was full-on military style domestic counter-insurgency operations being conducted on a huge scale in Canada in most people's lifetime."
It was NOT Iraq. There was no street-to-street fighting, no sieges of holy shrines, no massive numbers of casualties. True there were tanks in the neighbourhoods and soldiers on street corners, but they were relatively few and far between compared to the image your statement invokes (I know because I was there). This was not a massive military presence, and it was limited to Québec. The military was nowhere to be seen in the rest of Canada. You make it sound as if the entire country was "occupied" as you put it. It was not a "huge scale".
"Far crazier stuff has gone down in Canada's recent past!"
The October Crises was 36 years ago. MANY things have changed since then, and much of that change was because of the invocation of that draconian law, which was one of the only counter-insurgency tools available at the time. Smashing a fly with a sledgehammer? Certainly, but it worked. There have been no real terrorist threats since. Thankfully.
You could have simply been informative in your post, but instead you chose to editorialize, while seemingly ignoring the context of the time. This does a disservice to people, who are perfectly capable of deciding for themselves, after studying the links you provided, if the government of the time (not just Pierre Trudeau) acted improperly or excessively. You and I may agree that the War Measures Act was an outdated and overreaching Act, but if we choose to say that there were alternatives to invoking it, it should be our responsibility to show what those alternative were, and that they were would have been effective in ending the crisis of murder, kidnapping and terrorism.
Parent
Not a chance. (Score:2)
As an ISP owner... (Score:5, Informative)
Access to up to 10% of the ISP's membership at any time with their own GigE (or 10GigE) port which mirrors all data flow that crosses the ISP's network. Yeah, that sounds easy.
Up to seven enforcement agencies including Interpol would have access to that 10% of the membership at any time, all at once if necessary. The ISP would be required to provide that access from remote, possibly meaning that a separate Internet transit grouping faster than the primary ones customers utilize would be required just to ship the data.
Physical access to the ISP's server rooms and network gear at any time by any of the seven agencies.
Full 24/7/365 co-operation and possibly dedicated employees for these tasks, again at the ISP's expense.
And there's more. I asked about 30 questions and in fact was by far the most vocal of the group when it came to the discussion, much to my chagrin. The big players at the table (Bell Canada, Rogers) simply said "this is ridiculous and we'll oppose it to the end," whereas I asked them pointed questions about the whole deal and gave examples of how burdensome the bill could be, especially to a relatively small player. They don't care. Adapt or die.
The cops, as usual, were rubbing their hands in glee. More budget! More cops! Less liberties! Less privacy! Lower quality of life! It's all for the good!
I would have expected better... (Score:3, Informative)
"Ms. Jennings is the Liberal critic for Justice and a member of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights"
"Ms. Jennings has been Vice-Chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology,"
"She was a member of the Joint House of Commons-Senate Standing Committee on Scrutiny of Regulations, of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics"
She seems to have the makings of a good, upstanding netizen, who would be protecting our rights
I have sent her a note, and am still reading the bill. I would encourage all Canadians to do the same:
Parliamentary Office:
416 West Block
Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
(613) 995-2251
jennim@parl.gc.ca
Constituency Office:
6332 Sherbrooke St W
Suite 204
Montreal QC H4B 1M7
(514) 489-8703
Time to exercise your democratic muscles and express displeasure at such things, no matte which party this comes from.
And, while I am no fan of conservative politics in Canada, or anywhere else, editorial comments such as the one on this article are unnecessary. Keep comments like that to your myspace page.