Canada Unveils Internet Surveillance Legislation

An anonymous reader writes "Michael Geist is reporting on his blog that the Canadian government today introduced new legislation that would require ISPs to establish new surveillance controls to monitor Internet activity. The bill will also require ISPs to disclose subscriber information without a warrant. The bill may not survive given the state of the government, but this is a sad indicator of things to come."

Like this'll pass

[YetAnotherDave]

Given the state of the minority gov't, I'd be stunned if anything of substance passed, let alone something this offensive...

Comparison with wiretap

[5, Troll]

The press releases are spinning this as an update of the wiretap law.

For those of us who are not legal experts, can someone clarify the procedure to obtain a wiretap?

With respect to this bill, the CBC report at
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/11/15 /surveillance051114.html?ref=rss [www.cbc.ca]
says:

"However, McLellan said that just like in the old wiretap days, police investigators will have to get the approval of a judge before they can have access."

This sounds different from the article.

No right to privacy

[aussie_a]

Does no-one have the right to privacy anymore? For probable cause before getting searched? (Note: I don't know if these things are protected in Canada's constitution, however I do know that for the most part, while America has been whittling away its citizen's rights, Canada hasn't). I guess New Zealand really is the only place left that can be considered the land of the free.

A new america

[roman_mir]

I wish there was an unknown land somewhere, where I could establish a country of my own.

I would have a Constitution that would guarantee the freedome of speech, freedome of thought and would require the citizens to be personally responsible for their lives. Drugs would be legal. There would be no speed limits. There would be no taxes. People could make personal charitable donations to the causes they support and observe their donations being used in a completely transparent way. Everyone would be guaranteed to carry weapons but murderers/rapists would be punished severely and publically.

And in my country, the Constitution would guarantee privacy of individuals and would completely forbid any government system to come to change that. No matter what the reasons for change are: more 'security', more 'protection' etc.

A man can dream.

And Now For An Election

[Foktip]

Seriously though, i've been reading and thinking about this for some time now (on my blog anways)... and, well, I dont think ANYBODY can afford this! The way things get massively over-priced when the government gets involved, and the sort of price for massive projects like this, the database for such info itself would dry up the allocated spending! Really - and no, they cant pass this onto consumers, because internet is a price sensitive market. People will switch to small carriers who dont have to comply yet... and thus, the other companies wil bitch and wine, and use their corperate power. And we all know that once a strong corperate interest wants something, they really push for it! The big telecoms will probably stop this out of competitive unfairness, and i doubt theyd just change it to be "fair" and force massive costs onto the small providers. Apart from that, the conservatives are bloodthirsty, and the NDP is relentless in their principles - this bill will be the end of the Liberals and the beginning of an election.

Heh, minority government...

[Goalie_Ca]

It's a minority government and we're about to head into an election. Then when things resume there will be "more important" issues.

Re:A new america

[Anonymous Coward]

But what can I say, most people don't ever stop to think about this.

Sure they do; people are happy to give away their freedom for a quick payoff, or to feel safe from some real/imagined threat. "Bread and circuses" didn't end with the Romans, not by a long shot. And as can be seen with any gun control, anti-drug, or hate speech legislation, the majority has no problem voting away rights that make them feel uncomfortable.

My conclusion? A democracy of more than a few million or so people is doomed to failure, and more generally any large government will begin to concentrate power and turn into an oligarchic bureaucracy.

Re:Comparison with wiretap

[linuxbert]

In Canada, Wiretap requires a warrent. You have to convince a judge that one is needed, and theri has to be a high level of confidence that one is required, and will provide needed information.

CSIS - essentally the Canadian version of the CIA can listen to what it wants - no warents or oversight needed. the catch is that information CSIS collects through its methods is not admisable in court, though they have in the past provieded information to the RCMP.

Your employer however can monitor your communications on their network at their pleasure, provided you do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. If you are presented with a logon banner, stating that you are subject to monitoring, and have a signed usage agreement, then you can be monitored. These logs can be turned over to law enforcement without a warrent - they a the companies propery and they can concent to search.

IANAL - i just had a lecture on this.

Scared C-60 won't pass?

[saskboy]

The Copyright Act ammendments in C-60 include wiretap rules for ISPs I thought? Maybe Heritage Canada is getting antsy that they can't slip it through, and want to shove it in with a quicky bill before parliament collapses in a couple weeks? It seems unlikely that they could do it what with 3 readings being required, but the real danger is that when the Liberals or Conservatives get back into power after the election, it will just go through then. I've seen nothing from the Conservatives that they'd work against these bad bills, and they are the only realistic governing alternative if the Greens or NDP don't get swing seats.

what are the real reasons behind this?

[bzipitidoo]

TFA nicely dissects the given reasons as wrongheaded thinking to outright b.s. What organizations sponsored this horror? MPAA/RIAA? The Security Industrial Complex? Could be revealing to learn which lawmakers sponsored this and who their biggest political donors are.

Re:So the comparison is not a wiretap but phone#

[skreeech]

Here in Canada, my friend was borrowing my cellphone and was robbed. Police had to phone and ask me the number. Then had to call back and ask what numbers the phone had called that night because they couldn't get this information themselves. Of course the phone company was dumb and couldn't even get me this information for two weeks.

Re:A new america

[RexRhino]

How much do you want to bet that no matter how many coke heads are driving real fast on the highway, they won't kill anywhere near as many people as the 170 million killed by governments in the 20th century (not including wars).

Check out:
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM [hawaii.edu]

Given the history of genocide, warefare, and mass-murder commited all around the world by governments, I would say I would rather err on the side of caution when it comes to police states.

This can all be resisted

[Sloppy]

People, the powers that be want this stuff. It doesn't matter if you live in UK or USA or Canada or whatever. There will be haggles about whether it's legal or not, there will be haggles about whose responsibility it is to spend the money to provide intercept capability, and different jurisdictions will end up with different rules.

But in the end, none of it will ever work without your consent. All people have to do, is Just Say No, and the powers that be will be totally fucked, unless they crack down so hard (pretty much outlaw all encryption) that the side-effects will be unacceptable to everyone -- and thus it won't be doable. We can stop this shit forever (assuming lack of certain breakthroughs) if we can just get non-nerds interested enough to create the network effects and critical mass.

Tap my communications, and maybe you can learn a bit from traffic analysis, but you won't know what I'm saying if you can't crack the ciphers. And maybe you can compromise me if you focus on me, just as you can compromise a criminal when you're willing to get a warrant and break into his home and install a bug. But they can't do that to all 5 or 6 billion of us. With encryption, we can deny them the capacity to install a massive driftnet to fish for dirt on everybody.

And the way to do this, is to decentralize control and encrypt. Your telecom provider is required to install a backdoor and let people spy on you without your knowledge? Well, that doesn't work if you are your own telecom provider -- what are they going to say: "don't tell yourself"? Anything over a public net has to be encrypted. Make the endpoints be the only viable intercept points.

It will impede organized criminals, it will impede nosey sysops, it will impede crackers who compromise the in-between systems that you currently blindly trust, it will impede the unethical marketing division of your communication providers, and yes, it will impede law enforcement. But even if you're a diehard statist and insist that Big Brother has the right to watch us, do we not still have a right to be protected against all the Little Brothers? You can't have it both ways -- you can't give the good guys this power and keep it away from the bad guys. That is not possible. So pick your poison: a free society where Bad Guys have privacy too, or one where we always feel like maybe we're being watched, not by one benevolent eye, but many who unlike government, don't even operate under the pretense of serving our interests.

Re:Silly Canadians

[whereiswaldo]

Need a law to create "intercept legislation".

No kidding. It's pretty bad when the first I hear of stuff like this is on Slashdot.

Why is it so hard to have public input on these issues? American Idol/Canadian Idol can have these massive phone-ins where people vote on a singer of their choice. Why not have some sort of phone-based voting system that lets Canadians have a say on important issues like this? Oh wait, because these sorts of laws would never get passed that way.