In Canada, No Expectation of Privacy On the Net 206
The_AV8R writes "In a recent interview, Peter Van Loan, the new Canadian Public Safety minister, says ISPs should be able to provide private user information without a warrant. (The only example he gave was cases of child pornography; the interviewer pointed out that in these cases ISPs are already at liberty to divulge customer information without a warrant, but that the proposed rules would make that mandatory whenever the police ask.) He was adamant that in regard to IP addresses, names, cell phone numbers, and email addresses: '...that is not the kind of information about which Canadians have a legitimate expectation of privacy.' The minister denied — even when presented with an audio clip proving otherwise — that his predecessor had promised never to allow the police to wiretap the Internet without a warrant."
Dumb Canadians (Score:3, Interesting)
I wonder how many die hard right wing nuts are going to point at this and blather about socialist governments and loss of freedom while completely ignoring that it was their very own Donald Kerr that said that Americans should understand that privacy shouldn't mean keeping information away from businesses and government...
Re:correct (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, you're kinda missing the point. Just because you sign your name up as 'Little Johnny McGillicuddy' doesn't mean that they don't know its YOU operating the keyboard. You have contracted services with your real name, through your provider, and they can create a hash list of your name to your various online profiles, if you have any.
Its a bitch, I believe in freedom of information. I try before I buy. Yeah, I'll download a game, if its good, I buy it, if it doesn't install properly, or is buggy as heck, I uninstall it. I'm religious in this capacity. Dare I say, socialist.
I've been burned too many times in the past by sub-sub-sub-par online goods. But I'd be a fool if I said there wasn't any way for the "them" to track my internet usage, with ISP permission.
Minority (Score:5, Interesting)
But its for the childern! (Score:2, Interesting)
Reality injection (Score:5, Interesting)
The purpose of the new legislation is to clearly define what information is and is not covered by the need for a warrant. Done right, this is a Good Thing.
As the Minister pointed out, the police already have access to lots of information about you without the need for a warrant. This includes things like your phone number and address. Because this information is considered to be publicly available, the police can do reverse phone number lookups without a warrant. This does not allow them to tape your conversations, however.
The proposed law is identical in nature, allowing the police to find your name from the IP address. AND NOTHING ELSE. They cannot read your mail, they cannot look at your search patterns, they cannot sniff your traffic. Those require a warrant.
The situation seems perfectly analogous to the phone system, with the exception that we don't normally make big lists of IP addresses.
You don't own your phone number, the phone company does. They are free to sell it to anyone they want - including the people you don't want them to, like telemarketers. So if Bell owns your phone number and is free to do what they want with it, how is it that someone connecting using Bell Internet expects them not to do the same with the IP they gave you? They own it too.
And that's what the courts have decided, that the IP address you happen to be using is a routing code internal to the company that provides access, you have no control over it, and they can change it or give it away at any time. That being the case, they see no difference between IP's and telephone numbers, and applied the same expectation of privacy to both.
Maury
Re:Minority (Score:1, Interesting)
When the former Conservative Minister for Public Safety, Stockwell Day, got caught with a draft for a similar bill he claimed the Liberal party had left it lying around. While the claim looks a lot less believable now, it is quite possible that the Liberals were working on a similar bill.
I'm not defending Van Loan, or Day, or Harper; I think they're lying bastards. The problem is that they're lying bastards, just like the guys they replaced.
Re:correct (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:correct (Score:1, Interesting)
here is what i wrote to his office:
I have been following, thru varius news outlets, a story about privacy. Appearantly Mr. Peter Van Loan`s position on wiretapping is that police should have the right to wiretap private citizens without a warrent.
Due process is there for a reason. Those who fail to learn from the mistakes of the past are doomed to re-live them.
As an employee for an ISP, i have had to, in the past, divulge private information about customers at the request of the rcmp. I had requested a warrent be granted before i did, and so and they did. due process did not get in the way of investigation and nobody`s right to due process was violated.
The minister should be ashamed. This country Has enjoyed it`s many freedoms due to the countless sacrafices of our for-fathers. Eroding those freedoms directly thru legislation or indirectly by comments made in the media makes him look like a fascist.
Look no further than to our neihbors to the south to see the kind of political backlash that occurs when you attempt warrentless wiretapping on citizens.
Regards,
Re:Fortunately.... (Score:2, Interesting)
The only problem is, it doesn't matter what's in the constitution, they can just use section 33 (the Notwithstanding clause) to override it. The only down side for them is that they have to renew it every once in a while.
http://www.parl.gc.ca/information/library/PRBpubs/bp194-e.htm [parl.gc.ca]
It's not so much a constitution in practice. It is more like a set of recommendations.
Re:correct (Score:1, Interesting)
In Michigan if you own a computer, or router, you are breaking the law. Obfuscation of the source or destination of a communication is illegal; as well as owning, operating, or distributing the means to do so. All modern routers, switches, and operating systems have an ability to do network address translation. I was up in arms about this when it passed. No one cared at the time. Its just another law that everyone is breaking, so if they don't like you and can't peg you for whatever they were going after, there is still this:
Sec. 540c.
(1) A person shall not assemble, develop, manufacture, possess, deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise an unlawful telecommunications access device or assemble, develop, manufacture, possess, deliver, offer to deliver, or advertise a telecommunications device intending to use those devices or to allow the devices to be used to do any of the following or knowing or having reason to know that the devices are intended to be used to do any of the following:
[...]
(b) Conceal the existence or place of origin or destination of any telecommunications service.
(c) To receive, disrupt, decrypt, transmit, retransmit, acquire, intercept, or facilitate the receipt, disruption, decryption, transmission, retransmission, acquisition, or interception of any telecommunications service without the express authority or actual consent of the telecommunications service provider.
oh and just so I'm not breaking copyright law(im serious they actually did it) :
© 2003 Legislative Council, State of michigan
Here's An Idea (Score:1, Interesting)
Give them data. So much so that they'll learn absolutely nothing from what they find. Set up a tool that feeds random traffic information through your line at a constant pace. Combine that with encryption if you like, just to make it even more frustrating.
1984 (Score:2, Interesting)