Canadian Minister Lies On Net Surveillance Claims 155
An anonymous reader writes "As we discussed last month, the Canadian government has introduced Internet surveillance legislation that requires ISPs to disclose customer information without a warrant. Peter Van Loan, the Minister in charge, claims that a Vancouver kidnapping earlier this year shows the need for these powers. Michael Geist did some digging and revealed this as a lie — the Vancouver police acknowledge that the case did not involve an ISP request and the suspect is now in custody."
STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:3, Insightful)
A politician lied? Oh my God, this is the most unexpected thing in the history of the universe. Everybody! Stop whatever it is you're doing and pay attention to the one and only lying politician in the world!
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Or perhaps he was simply misinformed or mistaken.
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Distinctly unlikely. The guy got 3 times as many votes as the closest competition in the last election.
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Only proves that democracy is the dictatorship of the stupid.
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"Tyranny by the majority" is the phrase you're looking for. It's why Democracy does not work - it results in the minority being trampled underfoot. Just talk to an American citizen from the 1940s who was unfortunate enough to have a parent from Japan.
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You don't fire politicians, you hang and eviscerate them. Ask the Italians.
Firing them would require a whole dismantling of systematic corporatism/cronyism along with a wait for them to finish their term in office. And we all know that doesn't work at all.
I'm still way too happy to feel the need to take it that far. I think we all are, which would be a good explanation as to why 'we the people' haven't done anything about the atrocities of government for a century or more. Wouldn't you agree? I don't s
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the same concept as trying to boil a live frog. If you just throw it in boiling water it will immediately jump out, foiling your attempt to boil it. If, however, you throw it in cool water and slowly heat it, the frog won't jump out. It will stay comfortable while it cooks, up until the point at which it is cooked enough that it dies.
Had legislatures simply dumped all the laws, restrictions, etc. that we have now on the founding generation, there would have been a major revolt. It would never work. But if you change just a few things a year, over the course of decades and centuries the population will tolerate quite a lot, because no one issue is big enough to fight for. Space them out a bit and the tolerance threshold is never reached.
One day we'll just wake up dead. ;)
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http://www.snopes.com/critters/wild/frogboil.asp [snopes.com]
The anecdote is false, though that doesn't necessarily invalidate your point. But we should probably find a better way to convey it.
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If you ask the Irish whether they want to become a colony of Belgium and allow abortion, they'll vote no.
But then if you say "OK, you don't have to have abortions" you'll get killed in the stampede to vote yes.
How about that?
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
No, what happened to the Irish Lisbon Treaty vote was as follows:
Original question sounded like:
Do you want to be part of an unaccountable superstate which is ruled by Brussels, after fighting for your independence for dozens of years?
The second vote (just voted on) forced onto the people sounded like:
Do you want lots of free money from the other sucker 26 European countries to prop-up your now basket case economy, and so save lots more jobs? You'll still be in the unaccountable superstate, but look, we're
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Oh, come on. It's his JOB to know. The guy either lied or he's incompetent. Either way, fire the bum!
the guy actually represents my riding-Ontario's York Region area, which is at least 2 time zones away from Vancouver. Imagine a New Yorker commenting on a situation in Seattle. His understanding of the situation is not based on 1st hand knowledge, he heard it from a guy who's cousin's roommate had a friend who heard about it on the news....
I've tried to fire his ass the last 4 municipal elections, but the rest of the town is working against me.
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>>>The guy either lied or he's incompetent. Either way, fire the bum!
If we held fast to this theory, we'd have to fire the entire Parliament, since they don't even bother to read the legislation placed in front of them.
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I'm in! Saw that back during the NAFTA debate - went to Ottawa to argue against the mandatory natural resources sharing limits, couldn't find a single MP who had read ANY of the legislation. bunch of morons. They went by the title alone. Maybe we should push for a "Give the MPS double pay" bill, and in the text make it a 50% pay CUT - they'd never read i
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:5, Insightful)
Or perhaps he was simply misinformed or mistaken.
So you mean that rather than being a liar, he might just be ignorant and incompetent? It's the job of politicians to get their facts straight when formulating the laws of the land. Our politicians are always complaining that people don't trust them any more, and that young people are disillusioned with politics. Well perhaps if we could trust what they fecking said, then that wouldn't be the case. It doesn't matter one jot whether this guy flat out lied, or whether he somehow conveniently got his facts wrong, it's just yet another event to knock the credibility of politicians back into the gutter.
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And yes, some of them do lie, but I've come to the conclusion most just aren't that bright to begin with.
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:4, Interesting)
Nobody is an expert on everything. That's a fact. Funny though that we kinda expect that from politicians.
He got asked about it and instead of giving the honest answer (i.e. "I dunno, but I'll ask my experts and come back to you") he made up some answer. Why? Because for some odd reason people expect politicians to have an answer for everything.
Personally I'd prefer a politician who just admits that he doesn't have an answer for everything but at least is honest. I'm just fed up with BS answers to the tune of "Get offa my back and just shut up".
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:5, Insightful)
He got asked about it and instead of giving the honest answer (i.e. "I dunno, but I'll ask my experts and come back to you") he made up some answer. Why? Because for some odd reason people expect politicians to have an answer for everything.
I gotta call bullshit on this one. As stated earlier, it's specifically his job to know this. He is writing a law that he knows will erode personal rights of privacy, and also knows the backlash that is possible. If he is not fully aware that he has "enhanced" the story, then he has no business writing the law in the first place.
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I assume it works the same way in Canada as it does here in the UK. I know a few civil servants (as in, employees of government) who work directly with Members of Parliament, and whenever an MP has to do a press conference or similar they put together a brief. This brief could be long and detailed, but is more than likely to be a few pages of bullet points, pretty graphs, and very, very simple information.
The reason for this is that MPs have very little actual power and very little use for actual knowledge.
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People expect that a politician who is currently proposing to change the law of the land will have ALREADY consulted with domain experts and so will now know the answers, particularly when they are the ones that brought it up. If they claim we must do X so that Y will not happen again, they'd BETTER know at least enough about Y to conclude that X would help. If not, they're just spouting junk to back up their probably unsupportable initiative. That makes them either incompetent or liars.
In other words, it's
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with politicians is that they are people in a position where they can largely ignore the law.
I think anyone, no matter how honest he THINKS he is, will sooner or later succumb to tempation and abuse his power.
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:4, Insightful)
It's the job of politicians to get their facts straight when formulating the laws of the land.
A noble sentiment for an ideal world.
In the real world, regrettably, democracies tend to have constitutents (known in the world of software development and systems administration as "lusers"), who expect their elected leaders to deliver. Shortsighted and selfish, to be sure, but that's another subject. The salient point is most don't care how they deliver or what the facts really are, so long as they get what they want.
As for the correctness of facts, it's the job of the press to inform us, which means checking the facts as stated and reporting accordingly. For whatever reason, the press isn't doing their job, and the responsibility has fallen to an enterprising University professor and his blog.
Both the politican the press should be taken to task for their failings, but kudos to Michael Geist for his efforts.
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Nevertheless, if they are stuck in a situation where they must deliver SOMETHING, they could deliver the legal equivalent of a placebo rather than damaging the threads of society. Just title the law appropriately and make it a dense legal text that adds up to a no-op.
For example in this case, he could have written a law that says the police may ask for a voluntary disclosure of the information without a warrent so long as they make clear they have no warrant. Yes, that's been true forever anyway, but the id
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"So you mean that rather than being a liar, he might just be ignorant and incompetent?"
Perhaps yes. He has NOTHING to gain from being a liar. Especially with a possible election looming.
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Without reading anything else, it seems like it might be the case that he was thinking they could have apprehended the kidnapper even faster if this legislation had been in place. Not a lie, but definitely not a reason to put it in place either.
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:4, Informative)
From TFS:
"...the Vancouver police acknowledge that the case did not involve an ISP request and the suspect is now in custody."
So no, there was no reason that any legislation like this would have sped up the apprehension of the kidnapper because they weren't looking to the ISP for evidence in the first place. Unfortunately that means YES, it was definitely a lie. Even if it's only from a position of ignorance, the MINISTER OF PUBLIC SAFETY better get his facts straight before spewing forth on any topic, let alone one that impacts every online citizen in the country.
It's almost unheard of for Canadian politicians to be removed from office outside of an election but I'd say if the PM wants to keep any sort of respectability, he will need to remove Mr Van Loan from cabinet first thing on Monday morning.
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:4, Funny)
Ah, you must be a recent immigrant to this country...
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My mistake!
...If the office of the PM wants to keep any respectability...
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I've been looking at the top of the Google results for Peter Van Loan, and he seems to be the Canadian version of Don Rumsfeld. Honest mistake? YMMV.
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As a Canadian, I can assure you that he most certainly is the Canadian version of Don Rumsfeld. And the Prime Minister is our very own Dick Cheney. (He's not Bush, he's much smarter than that, which makes him all the more dangerous)
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As another Canadian I can assure that some Canadians are just as biased and partisan as the worst Republicans masquerading as liberals. They do ANYTHING, call you any name, invoke the worst demons to try and persuade that they are somehow more righteous than all those Canadians don't agree with them.
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Apparently most Canadians who care disagree with you, which is why the Liberals are currently trailing the Tories by 6% in the polls. Even the leftist NDP is currently siding with the Tories to prevent an unwanted election that the careless Liberals are trying to force.
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The majority of Canadians oppose the Conservatives. It is an unfortunate bug in our system of government that the centre-left and left-wing parties that together represents well over 60% of Canadians are in opposition at the moment.
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A "bug" in the system? Mm ok.
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Harper appointed a creationist as science minister.
http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/17/canadas-science-mini.html [boingboing.net]
Harper and gang are moronic G W Bush wannabees.
The Conservatives think it's ok to sue a teenager for $20,000.00 per song for "illegally" torrenting a song that costs 99 cents on itunes,
so that the big media broadcasters can stay rich. Anyone actually vote for that issue? No? Gee, I wonder why the politicians think Canadian parents who voted for them might like this in place?
http://www.michaelgeis [michaelgeist.ca]
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:4, Insightful)
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And you accept it?
Why?
Re:STOP THE PRESSES! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yep, we should completely ignore it and let the lie stand unchallenged, so that a bad piece of legislation can become a law for the wrong reason.
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Actually, that is exactly what GP wants. Because else he would have to stop complaining and staying in a pathetic state of deliberate inaction. And that would be just terrible. Doing something about is? Bah. Not with him. Ever!
I wonder how he would have performed in 1933 in Germany...
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Wow, the line an the end of the page is really fitting this time: "Shannon's Observation: Nothing is so frustrating as a bad situation that is beginning to improve."
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The only thing this story proves is recall and referendum legislation is desperately needed. In fact we need to change the Canadian constitution to accomplish it.
Premature Aging (Score:2)
An interesting phenomena is the apparent aging of our presidents. After a few years in the office, they really start to look thrashed. Even G.W. with his water-off-a-ducks-back disregard for consequences got a little beat up there towards the end, when the shit started piling up around him.
Lips (Score:5, Insightful)
An old but all too often true observation:
How do you tell if a politician is lying?
His lips are moving.
Re:Lips (Score:5, Informative)
His lips are moving.
Sure. But that doesn't mean you shouldn't lynch them when you catch them at it.
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So you say only ventriloquists should enter politics?
Tory cabinet minister lies (Score:1, Insightful)
And in a related story, the sun rose this morning, in the East specifically.
Of course it is a lie... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Of course it is a lie... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's right - and we saw it again last week. Somehow it's OUR fault that Roman Polanski avoided justice all these decades. "We", the peons, don't "get it".
Fortunately, the power of the Internet [nationalpost.com] is able to route around the brain-damaged "celebrity types" who signed that stupid petition expressing outrage that a pedophile should actually be arrested [altfg.com]. counter-petition [breitbart.com]
Maybe we need to charge public officials with corruption or fraud when they try to lie so blatantly. "That statement is no longer operative" is just one more fuddle duddle.
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SURE He THOUGHT She Was 17 ... (Score:1)
Re:SURE He THOUGHT She Was 17 ... (Score:4, Informative)
So we have both the testmony from the perp, after waiving his right to avoid self-incrimination as part of the guilty plea bargain, and a second witness, that he knew she was 13. What more proof does ANYONE want?
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In the olden days, when I was 25 years old, I had a date with a girl I thought looked a bit young. Carl, the doorman at the Keystone Berkeley, was a friend of mine, so I asked him to check her ID when we got there (being with me would have probably gotten her in without a check otherwise). She was actually 25 so things worked out okay.
Re:Of course it is a lie... (Score:4, Insightful)
An out-and-out LIE. He admitted during the hearing for the plea bargain that he KNEW she was 13. The mother also testified under oath at the grand jury that she had told him she was 13, because she was surprised that he wanted a model that old - most kid models are younger.
He's a pedophile. Cunnilingus, vaginal, and anal sex, after doping her up. That's not just "a momentary weakness", as he's tried to argue. He was prescribed 150mg qualudes, but the one he gave her was 500mg, and he tried to dispose of another 500mg when he was arrested - probably part of his "date kit."
That his films aren't worth watching is just a bonus.
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Here's what Samantha Gailey's testimony says:
That, a couple years before, she'd taken part of a Qaalude and that the pill Polanski had was a Rorer 714, broken into 3 pieces.
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskib2.html [thesmokinggun.com]
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/polanskib3.html [thesmokinggun.com]
According to the scant info I can find, a Rorer 714 is a 300mg pill not 500mg as you claim and she only took part of one.
She admitted to having taking Qaaludes once before, and having being drunk before although
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This would also not have dragged on if he hadn't fled the country. In doing so, he broke the plea bargain and should have to face trial on the original charges.
Yes, he consulted twice with his lawyer before admitting that he knew she was 13. This shows (1) that he knew what he was admitting was a serious crime, and (2) that he was informed of his legal rights.
Also, the fact that the victims' lawyer argued for the plea bargain is a sign of the times - his argument was that she would be forever stigmat
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"What could be more fair?" How about putting the interest of the victim first?
I find considerable irony in this case - it was the murder of Polanksi's wife and the efforts of his mother-in-law that led to the practice of the victim impact statement.
Now, the victim of Polanski's own crime is being ignored.
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We've learned that the best long-term interests of the victim don't necessarily coincide with what the victim wants.
Many times, the victim just wants everything dropped to "make it all go away."
Over time, this gets internalized. Then everything becomes a rationalization to continue to maintain that "don't have to deal with it".
We now know that the best thing for victims or abuse is for the perps to be dealt with openly. A few decades of this has led to the destigmatization of the victims in rapes,
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It wasn't being dropped and Samantha had already given testimony in a hearing but the object of the plea was to balance punishing Polanski and doing right by Samantha.
Even today, we don't deal completely openly with rape when a minor is involved. And yes, the "damaged goods" label still sticks, unfortunately, and this is especially true for many minorities.
The stigma attached to rape is far from dead.
Allowing cops to press charges without the victim's cooperation is largely is good thing but that really doe
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I don't know where you're from, but up here we're pretty open about it. The "damaged goods" label no longer exists, because the victims ignore the court protection of their identities and speak out against their aggressors. Look at Davie Hilton's daughters ... they went on TV to talk about how their father sexually
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I'm from "up here" too.
When Dave Hilton was first arrested, it was only said that it was on suspicion of child molestation - it was never stated that it was his daughters, even after he was sentenced.
That fact only came to light when the girls, in their twenties, decided to write a book about it.
At that point, Hilton had been back on the street for several years.
Going back to Judge Rittenbaud, it's not that he refused to accept the plea bargain, which as you rightly pointed out, he's not bound to.
It
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Correction - he was still in jail when his daughters published the book.
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Everyone in Quebec knew the same week he was arrested that it was his daughters. Anyone familiar with the laws, the courts' restrictions, and with the family situation, quickly put 2 and 2 together.
Some of the smaller french print media quickly published the fact that it was his daughters (without naming them) before the judge had a chance to issue the gag order - one of my co-workers had a copy of the article, and couldn't believe it - he was a big Hilton fan. The media get away with this from time to
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OT - so, what part of "up here" are you from, eh?
As you can guess, I'm in PoutineVille (actually, the West Island).
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I've lived in various parts of Montreal, incl Pierrefonds and N.D.G, over the years but now live in T.O.
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So yu moved to Canada, eh?
Back here, DDO is "almost" Toronto ... but with better food. Do the restaurants there still suck?
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They've made some decent progress, mostly for affordable Asian, especially Thai and sushi.
Seem to have made some big strides in the veg/organic/raw arena, if you like that sort of thing.
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This is somewhat OT, but I think Polansky came morally unglued Abu Ghraib style. He lived through more than one R-rated horror show, and somewhere along the way someone forgot to inform him about the greater moral code. I'm with Zimbardo about AG: most of the fault lies with those who created the environment. What Polansky did was done with enough deliberation that he certainly deserved some jail time, but not 100 years as the judge is reported to have commented. 100 years would be the appropriate sente
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Well, we've been in favour of balanced budgets for a couple of decades now, eve
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Oh all right (Score:3, Funny)
Fap Fap Fap... what this isn't 4chan?
Re:Of course it is a lie... (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd rather be responsible for the death of a single person than for the death of the liberty of everyone.
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Liberty can be reclaimed. Not so for a life.
The only problem with that idea is that reclaiming liberty costs many lives. So if you go down that path, you aren't being very efficient.
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I swear to God, Shiva, The Flying Spaghetti Monster and all the other silly things, that I missed the first 'y' in that post. It was funny, but made not sense. Judge for yourself:
Impossible! (Score:2)
PVL (Score:2)
Check out his webpage petervanloan.com He's an environmentalist! (He got funding for water meters) He's gotten funding for Recreation! (I think they're paving the parking lot) Yep, I better quit picking on this guy.
back-door downloader lawsuits for mafiaa. (Score:3, Insightful)
Customer information without a warrant.. why does that sound familiar?
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If you thought the mafiaa was scary, just imagine what the government can do with this.
Well, what do you know (Score:2)
Michael Geist did some digging and revealed this as a lie...
Canada has a conservative government after all.
Re:Well, what do you know (Score:5, Funny)
> Canada has a conservative government after all.
It must, because no liberal has ever told a lie in the entire history of the world (and, of course, everyone everywhere is either a liberal or a (spit) conservative. There are no other possibilities).
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> Canada has a conservative government after all.
It must, because no liberal has ever told a lie in the entire history of the world
There is other evidence that the government is conservative, we don't need to rely on the fact that they lie to know that.
Re:Well, what do you know (Score:4, Interesting)
Most governments tend to lean "liberal" economically and "conservative" socially so authoritarian all around.
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when I speak of "liberal" and "conservative" I mean it in relative terms for each country- a government that becomes more economically authoritarian is economically "liberal" and one that becomes more authoritarian on social issues is socially "conservative." Since Canada is tending toward more control over economic and some social matters, it too follows the trend.
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you misspelled shit; it is typically used with the prefix "little", as in "little shits". This is the semi-official moniker of a group of back-room schemers and front room puppets of the canadian neo-con group. It really is the "same old con" - transfer all the public assets to your buddies then sneak out the back door.
Their first major success was hoisting a notoriously drunken jerk to the position of Premier. There are lots of things said of politicians, but Canada does follow the British tradition o
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It must, because no liberal has ever told a lie in the entire history of the world (and, of course, everyone everywhere is either a liberal or a (spit) conservative. There are no other possibilities).
Well, in Australia, the Liberals [wikipedia.org] _are_ the conservatives...
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and, of course, everyone everywhere is either a liberal or a (spit) conservative
Note for those unaware: It's not just a random label thrown about in canada to polarize issues, the current government is headed by the Progressive Conservative party [conservative.ca]. And the current opposition are the Liberals [liberal.ca].
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Progressive Conservative party
Wait, what?
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Not quite: a few years ago, the Progessive Conservative Party merged with the Reform Party to form the Consersative Party.
For Canadians (Score:4, Informative)
put down the cardiac poutine and fire a few e-mails off, guys.
here are email links to Federal Minister for Public Safety Peter Van Loan [mailto] Opposition critics to : Federal Liberal Critic Mark Holland [mailto] Public Safety and National Security NDP Don Davies [mailto]
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Internet Town Hall meeting Oct. 26 Halifax (Score:5, Informative)
Concerns over this and other issues such as copyright laws, digital rights management issues, the Digital Divide, and privacy have prompted the Chebucto Community Net and the Dalhousie Student Union to hold a public Internet Town Hall meeting in Halifax, Nova Scotia on Monday, October 26th at 7 pm in the McInnes Room of the Dalhousie Student Union Building. I saw the notice on their website here: http://www.chebucto.ns.ca/Current/CourtesyCCN.shtml [chebucto.ns.ca]
Their main speaker is Laura Murray, co-author of Canadian Copyright: A Citizenâ(TM)s Guide, and they've got speakers on the other issues too. They're calling it "Who's Shaping Your Digital Future?" and it's noteworthy for being the only meeting of its kind in the Atlantic Provinces. I don't know why they're not promoting this better, maybe they don't have the money or something, but I know I'll be going to it.
I wonder if anyone from the government or the mainstream media will be showing up.
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I'm Shocked, Shocked... (Score:2)
To find out that someone thinks a politician lying is newsworthy.
Now a politician being open and honest about something, that would be news!
Canadian Conservatives (Score:2)
Well its seems obvious that survelance is needed. (Score:3, Insightful)
over some government officials....
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What, lying on surveillance claims?
What should he lie on? Is it more comfortable than a latex-based memory-foam?
Re:Lessons from the Bush Administration. (Score:5, Informative)
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More like the Hindenburg Administration, but that's another story.
Re:Troll? (Score:3, Funny)
Yeah, but dig how I invoked Godwin on a first post. Woot!
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^_^ Indeed! But then, what's a good slashdot thread without a Hitler reference?
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