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Privacy The Internet

Bill Would Let Police Monitor Email 439

Duuk2k2 writes "The Canadian federal cabinet will review new legislation this fall that would give police and security agencies vast powers to begin surveillance of the Internet without court authority. The new measures would allow law-enforcement agents to intercept personal e-mails, text messages and possibly even password-secure websites used for purchasing and financial transactions."
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Bill Would Let Police Monitor Email

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  • by Rei ( 128717 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:19PM (#13359008) Homepage
    Clearly, no abuse could come from this!
    • Offtopic? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by rewt66 ( 738525 )
      Of all the crazy things to moderate that post...

      It's not offtopic at all. It seems to me that the possibility of abuse is precisely the topic here.

    • by Anonymous Coward
      ...like all well thought through legislation.

      Canadians are lucky that their goverment has such a deep understanding of technologies like encryption otherwise this would just be a pointless intrusion into the privacy of citizens and non-citizens alike.

  • Bill? (Score:3, Funny)

    by le_jfs ( 627582 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:19PM (#13359011) Journal
    Him, again?
  • by bigwavejas ( 678602 ) * on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:19PM (#13359012) Journal
    Sometimes cops better judgment gets clouded because of the situation (relationship to the victim, gravity of the crime, etc), so the whole point of making it mandatory for a court order is you get an unbiased approval or denial for this type of surveillance. Turning this authority over to the police department would be a great disservice to sanctity of an individual's privacy.
    • Cops have no "better judgment". They are poorly educated, trained to obey without question; thence their intellect is seriously challenged, especially that they are trained to view civilians (that is, those poor fuckers who are not blessed with the anointment of policedom) with the utmost contempt.

      They would only be happy if they could jail everybody "for our protection", of course.

    • Judges are biased (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:49PM (#13359190)
      And sometimes had out warrants when they shouldn't. The lack of bias isn't important, the fact that there's a record is. If an officer has to come and present a reason for a warrant (the reason gets recorded) then there's a record. The warrant and related information is kept in the court record, and can be later reviewed to determine if the search was improper.

      With something like this the police could just keep it all hush-hush and then make shit up at a later date to justif it. Since there's no record to compare it to see if it's the truth. Far too easy for someone to say "Well we had all this evidence so we started monitoring him and look! We were right" when the actuality was they had no evidence at all.
      • Re:Judges are biased (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Belial6 ( 794905 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @08:02PM (#13359519)
        Given that I have had police threaten me because I took photos of a hit and run that they were trying to cover up at the mayor's direction, I fear these kinds of laws. This one doesn't affect me because I am in the U.S., but I suspect that the police in Canada are similar to ours.
  • Not a chance. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Pig Hogger ( 10379 ) <pig@hogger.gmail@com> on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:20PM (#13359015) Journal
    Not a chance of this happenning. The minority government would not dare to this, especially that there is an election looming within the next 9 months.
  • Easy... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by avalys ( 221114 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:21PM (#13359022)
    Hello, PGP.
    • Re:Easy... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:25PM (#13359055)
      > Hello, PGP.

      Hello, RIP [wikipedia.org]

      Simply demand passphrases - under penalty of law - from anybody whose packetstream, when decoded, contains the string "BEGIN PGP KEY BLOCK".

      And RIP, privacy.

      • contains the string "BEGIN PGP KEY BLOCK".

        Which makes it too easy for them. Compress it with gz then rename the file porn.bmp. Base64 encode and send. How can they prove that you used encryption?

      • Why not use an encryptor where you don't know the passphrase: one where the key is generated via biometrics? I guess they could force you to give up your finger, but then again, scratch your finger or bite it and they don't have a chance in hell of decrypting.
    • Re:Easy... (Score:3, Insightful)

      That easy, are you sure? If the police can intercept your e-mail, then most likely it will become forbidden to encrypt it - or the allowed encryption level will be far too weak to be usable. Or... if they happen to intercept your e-mail and they can't figure out the encryption, they may hold it against you and send you to court. And so on. The possibilities (of awful stuff happening) are endless. And once again, the whole mass of citizens will suffer in order to get protected. Meanwhile, crime and terrorism
  • That'll work (Score:5, Insightful)

    by barc0001 ( 173002 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:21PM (#13359026)
    Because the bad guys would NEVER use encryption or even just offhand references to something in their planning that they transmit over an open, public medium, right?
    • Maybe it's just me, but it seems that they don't. I laugh everytime I hear about criminals getting caught because of emails or stuff that was found on their hard drives. Have these people never heard of encryption?
    • Re:That'll work (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Stonehand ( 71085 )
      Your argument is the equivalent of saying that police shouldn't bother carrying handguns, because criminals would be wearing body armor. That's bogus rhetoric. Fact is, many "bad guys" get caught in various ways because they're NOT methodical masterminds.

      You'd be better off arguing not along the lines that "if it isn't perfect, it shouldn't be done" -- which would suggest that you shouldn't bother investigating homicides, because SOME killers are smart and lucky enough to get away -- but about the net eff
      • Its a very rare case when the police actually catch someone who has really committed a homicide. Usually, they just bring someone in for questioning and beat a confession out of them.

        From the standpoint of society being better off, we probably would be better off not "investigating" homicides. We should just jail people that we know 100% did it (i.e. caught on camera, or some other real proof.)

        Also, getting someone in jail to testify against someone for a more lienient sentance should be outlawed. It leads
  • Aw, Canada (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:23PM (#13359041) Homepage Journal
    Of course Canada needs these invasions of our freedom. After those terrorists crashed those planes into the CN Tower in Toronto, how can we possibly go back to that pre-9/11 thinking? If only the RCMP had intercepted their emails, we would have nabbed them on their commute from Pickering. Then there would have been no more terrorists, and we could get our freedom back from the nice Progressive Conservatives tirelessly toiling to protect us.

    After all, it's not like military lawyers stopped intelligence agencies from intercepting Mohammed Atta and his fellow planebombers [cnn.com] a year before they did any damage. You're thinking of that third-world failed regime to the South.
    • Re:Aw, Canada (Score:2, Informative)

      by daspriest ( 904701 )
      "You're thinking of that third-world failed regime to the South."

      You mean the budding police state [washingtonpost.com] to the south?

  • by agent dero ( 680753 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:24PM (#13359044) Homepage
    It's frustrating, in the U.S. and in Canada, that the same people suggesting intrusive nonsense like this are still in office.

    Then again, it seems like all the important issues come up during election season...

    <rant> ...no I didn't mean our freedoms, or things that matter; I meant illogical tax cuts and questions of marriage....

    This is just like the Guilded Age of 19th century America, where politicians used the silver vs. gold debate to hide the real issues of economy, etc.... </rant>
    • Re:Frustrating (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Pig Hogger ( 10379 )

      It's frustrating, in the U.S. and in Canada, that the same people suggesting intrusive nonsense like this are still in office.

      It's the police. The police always want maximum powers, because their twisted brains see criminals everywhere. For those sick fucks, all what matters in their poor existence is the ferreting out of criminals, real or imagined (when there is an absence of crime, such as in Canada).

      Whenever you interact with a cop, the pig is on the lookout for whatever reason to haul you in. Hen

      • "It's the police. The police always want maximum powers,"

        Try not to stereotype. Just because there are a few bad apples doesn't mean that the other 2% are rotten.
  • Just BCC: all your illegal/embarrassing emails to important government officials. Then during your trial you can quote all these emails to that person out of context.

    Fun for the whole family.

  • by crazyphilman ( 609923 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:25PM (#13359059) Journal
    Almost everyone integrating GNUPG with their email solution so that all email is encrypted point to point. If the cops figured out a way around that, like, say, trying to make encryption illegal, then people will just switch to Steganography and send all their email using Goatse pictures.

    Take THAT, Mr. Pig-man. It's GOATSE time!
  • P G P

    Pretty Good Privacy. [pgpi.org] Get it and use it.

  • by Saiyine ( 689367 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:26PM (#13359069) Homepage

    With news like these, at first we all think of encrypting our mail with PGP/GPG but... how do we know that it will make a difference?

    Maybe governments know how to decode it but it's kept in secret in order to create a false sense of security :?

    Quick, the tinfoil hat!

    --
    Dreamhost [dreamhost.com] superb hosting.
    Kunowalls!!! [kunowalls.host.sk] Random sexy wallpapers.
    • by crazyphilman ( 609923 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:34PM (#13359112) Journal
      The answer is simple: encrypt your email, then embed it via Steganography in a Goatse photo.

      Na, na na na... na na... na na
      Can't touch this!
      Na, na na na... na na... na na
      Can't TOUCH this!

      Looking online! It's a cop! Reading my email cuz he just can't stop from STICKING! His nose in, where it don't belong so he GOES in

      But HELLO! What the hell is this? The cop's found a picture, something's amiss and blammo! Thanks to Goatse, "Oh my EYES!" he yells and the piglet can't see!

      Na, na na na... Na na... na na
      Can't touch this!
      Na, na na na... Na na... Na na
      Can't touch this!
    • It'd be slightly odd for a government to hide a decryption method for a system important to its own citizens -- after all, a government that figured out how to decode RSA-based methods should consider the risk that hostile governments might also know. If their nation's banking systems and so forth are using a protocol that isn't secure, that's a national security risk.

      However, if there's somebody who a government suspects might be a person of interest, and that somebody starts using encryption after such p
  • by Manip ( 656104 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:27PM (#13359075)
    Back when the telephone tapping legislation was first created, some wise law maker decided a judge should look at the evidence and allow or deny the police the ability to monitor people.

    Now what would happen if that same legislation (on phone tapping) was created today? Would the police and 'security services' be able to listen to anyone they wanted without any kind of oversight?

    Where did our legal right to privacy go? And why do governments have no respect for people's right to communicate over the internet? Like it is some second class method of communication.
    • "Where did our legal right to privacy go?"

      Technically, we never really had one, it's not in the canadian constitution
    • by kcbrown ( 7426 ) <slashdot@sysexperts.com> on Friday August 19, 2005 @08:23PM (#13359604)
      Where did our legal right to privacy go? And why do governments have no respect for people's right to communicate over the internet? Like it is some second class method of communication.

      Governments have no respect for people's right to communicate over the internet because they have no respect for people's right to communicate at all.

      The only reason the wiretap laws for more traditional forms of communication have judicial protections built-in is that they were formulated and passed during a period of time when the members of the government generally cared about people's rights, at least a little.

      Today governments don't give a crap about anybody's rights, because the people who are running them today don't care about anything but power and control. And they can get away with it, too, because they control all the guns of any consequence (the pathetic peashooters the civilians are allowed to have are no match for the real guns controlled by the military).

      Governments across the world are figuring out that civilians have no real power anymore. It won't be long now until the world's transition to the kind of dystopia depicted in so many science fiction books is complete.

      It appears the Soviet Union died because it was a bit ahead of its time, not because governments want to avoid becoming like it.

    • I also thought that bill gates will be allowing the police to read people's emails... I was like, wtf??
  • by chriswaclawik ( 859112 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:30PM (#13359086)
    Did anyone else think that the headline said that Bill Gates would personally allow the police to read his email?

    Even I thought that was too incredible to believe.

  • by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:31PM (#13359090)
    At the postal museum in Washington, D.C. there is a sign that reads:
    At the beginning of the new America, nearly all the news came by mail. When the Constitution was signed, it was rushed by post riders to every town that had a printing press. And that's how the newspapers were able to bring the resounding news of how we were to govern ourselves. The newspapers knew of it first by mail.

    In England, for centuries, the mail was frequently scrutinized by agents of the Crown or of the Parliament. It could be worth your life to write a letter that might be seen as having the seeds of treason. This did not happen here. From the beginning, by and large, the U.S. mails have been free of eyes other than our own and those of the sender.

    To the framers of the Constitution, the mail made the engine of democracy run--along with the newspapers. And newspapers then printed a good deal of correspondence. Rufus Putnam, a key military figure in the Revolutionary War, said, "The knowledge diffused among the people by newspapers, by correspondence between friends" was crucial to the future of the nation. "Nothing can be more fatal to a republican government than ignorance among its citizens."

    As a journalist, I have sometimes been asked where my leads for stores come from. Much of the time, they come from opening the mail. Readers from all over the country send personal stories, newspaper clippings, local court decisions, and student newspaper editorials arguing for the First Amendment rights of students. There is no other way I would have known about these stories except through the mail. It is through letters that I often receive highly confidential stories about unfairness in the justice system from people who would not trust any other form of communication.

    The framers of the Constitution knew how vital the mail would be when Article I was written to protect privacy of communication through the mail.

    Nat Hentoff is a columnist for the Washington Post and the Village Voice, and the author of Free Speech for Me, but Not for Thee. How the Left and Right Relentlessly Censor Each Other.

  • by Tackhead ( 54550 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:32PM (#13359099)
    OK, so, umm, good day, eh? I'm Bob McKenzie, and the guy with the mouse in the beer bottle stuck to his face is my brother Doug. (*muffled* Where's my free case, eh? You cheap bastards!)

    So, anyway, the telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously. Any sound that Bob or Doug made, above the level of a very low blowing of wind across the mouth of an open beer bottle, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as they remained within the field of vision which the map of Canada commanded, they could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the CRTC plugged in on any individual channel was guesswork. It was conceivable that they watched the CBC all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live--did live, from habit that became instinct--in the assumption that every beer you drank was overheard, and, except in darkness, every attempt to take off was, like, looked at real close-like, eh?"

    - Some guy named George, Eh? He, like, wrote the functional spec for it. And he horked our beer.

  • Here's the case for using strong encryption for emails.
  • Don't pretend this bill will give police and related investigatory services adaquete skills to prosecute more internet related crime! IT WON'T!! The only thing this bill will do, will be to allow police officers the right to violate our privacy without due cause!

    The reason they (law enforcement) aren't able to prosecute child pornographers and other cyber-criminals better and faster has nothing to due with the fact that they can't get at data/communications quickly because they have to get warrants.

    The
  • Suppose a terrorist simply types phony emails simply to lead authorities into "dead ends" thus wasting time and resources?

    Suppose another terrorist, knowing that an email is likely to be intercepted, decides to write false information using "stolen" identity?

    Let this be known: Terrorists are not stupid. Heck, they even managed to smuggle or manufacture weapons under our noses in Iraq! Remember that we have more than 100,000 eyes over there. This month's loss of 14 marines in just one blast was a real shoc


    • Suppose a terrorist simply types phony emails simply to lead authorities into "dead ends" thus wasting time and resources?

      Suppose another terrorist, knowing that an email is likely to be intercepted, decides to write false information using "stolen" identity?


      Then he's potentially tipping his hand as a person of interest. A large part of the problem is identifying who's possibly interesting enough to investigate further; doing stupid stunts like that would set off some flags.


      Let this be known: Terrorists a
  • This is a surprise? (Score:4, Informative)

    by renehollan ( 138013 ) <<ten.eriwraelc> <ta> <nallohr>> on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:43PM (#13359155) Homepage Journal
    You're talkking about a country where the Provincial Psychiatrist (yes, there is such a government office) can "deem" you unfit [canoe.ca], and sieze all your assets so that they can be administered "in your best interests".

    No hearing, no trial, no independent psychiatric evaluation, no appeal, nada.

    I wonder how much one has to criticize the government(s) before the Provincial Psychiatrist serves your bank with an order to turn over your money.

    • Thank you for sharing that information.

      When Bush got elected, and then again when he got RE-elected, I seriously considered moving to Canada to get away from the nuttiness of my government. I postponed the move because of my job, which was going well.

      I now have no desire whatsoever to move out of the U.S.A. As crazy as we are down here, we don't have that whole "nanny state" thing going on. OUR government takes a "let 'em fend for themselves" point of view.

      I used to think it was a little cold, but now... I
  • (type, type, type)

    "... Oh, yah, Jenny, remember last night? Between the hours of 12 and 4AM? When we were drinking under that overpass, eh? And, we got a little frisky because you know, we were MILES away from downtown and nobody could see us, eh? Yah, that was great, eh. Yah, we were nowhere near that apartment building they're yelling about, I think somebody's trying to put one over on those nice police detectives, I hope they don't get embarassed by that evil serial killer, eh?"

    (At police H.Q.)

    "Oh, Capta
  • by second class skygod ( 242575 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @06:44PM (#13359167)
    ... so let's get rid of it.

    - scsg
  • I know it's been said by a few people already, but it's really time to start signing and encrypting all email. I get emails all the time, from phishing sites. They could be legit. I don't know. I have no way of verifying. I ignore a lot of email because I can't verify who it's from. If the average joe knew how easily an email could be intercepted or forged, they would cry out for a better solution. Well, I guess everyone is happier being left in the dark.
  • ...how many months until a RCMP identity-theft ring gets uncovered?
    • Oh, it wouldn't be too shocking if there already were one -- if the technological means exists.

      One aspect I wouldn't mind seeing in legislation that expand information-gathering powers would be extremely steep penalties for either the deliberate abuse of such, or significant negligence that endangers the privacy of it. The more we're forced to trust authorities, the harsher the penalties should be for violating that trust.
  • Bill Would Let Police Monitor Email

    I assume we're talking about Gates, right?
  • 1. Hard drive hardware encryption
    2. Hard drive boot loader software encryption
    3. OS software encryption
    4. Container software encryption
    5. File software encryption
    6. Nym and Mixmaster remailing
    7. Chained proxies

    People have for years scoffed that these were only for terrorists, kiddie pr0n posters, and trolls. Then they said that you could just move to Canada. Well, what are you going to do when the draft dodger paradise forgets what civil rights like speech, privacy, and so on are all about?

    Of cour
  • I'm telling you, the entire world's heading into the shitter.

    Seriously. Can you name one place in the entire world where the freedom of the people is significantly improving? Iraq may be the only place where that's true, and I think most of us would agree that the "freedom" the people have there is more a matter of appearances than reality. I'm not here to debate about Iraq, though, so feel free to count it as an example of improving freedom in the world if you wish.

    But I can name many more place

  • Canada's got a couple of things working against this proposed bill. First off, we're in a minority Government right now, and I can name two political parties which are used to hold the balance on a regular basis who would have nothing to do with such a horrid bill. Also, the bill wouldn't pass the House of Commons for a long while, considering how much stalling would happen in comittee. This is probably how all these horrid bills you see will be forgotten, we're on the verge of a federal election the mom
  • by x0dus ( 163280 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @07:19PM (#13359317)
    According to what I read a court order would be necessary. This article [globetechnology.com] claims the following:
    Police groups say they are not asking for any new powers but rather the ability to continue their regular investigative activities in the digital age.

    Clayton Pecknold of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police said police are working with laws originally written in 1974, a time when wiretapping involved climbing telephone poles.

    "The laws were written for a wired world as opposed to the wireless world," he said. "We are not asking that we be given any powers without a court order."
    • by Kwikymart ( 90332 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @07:48PM (#13359461)
      Good point, but one flaw: You're quoting the media. I've read some articles today from a different source that conflicts with your position, that says they are indeed asking for the elimination of court orders.

      So who's right? Don't trust the media. Go right to the source. So who where do we find the text of the bill?

  • What if I send an e-mail, and some of the packets are routed through a Canadian server? Does that give them authority to monitor MY email?

    I hope we will come up with a memorandum to cabinet that can protect human security in the sense that we will put law enforcement people on the same level playing field as criminals and terrorists in the matter of using technology and accessing that technology

    So that law enforcement can become criminals and terrorists themselves?
  • by Biomechanical ( 829805 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @07:39PM (#13359412) Homepage

    To use codes and cyphers.

    "Could you pick up some steaks on the way home? I was thinking about cooking steak and veges with gravy." becomes "Cows in the paddock, soylent green grocer tap-dances on water."

    Then you GPG encrypt it at anything above 4096 bit. :)

    Fun for the whole police department.

  • Bill Would Let Police Monitor Email

    Who is Bill?
  • If it weren't for the WOMD / war on terrorism bullshit, all these outrageous attacks on our civil liberties and 'way of life' wouldn't be happening.

    Just what type of 'way of life' are they trying to protect anyway? Seems to me that on the one hand, they say the 'terrorists' hate our 'freedom'. Then on the other hand, they destroy destroy our freedom and implement a regime that's fast approaching the most model they're claiming to protect us from.

    Of course the statement that terrorists hate our 'way of life'
  • Why isn't there an easy way for people to contact their MPs online. I don't even know who's representing me, let alone how to get ahold of them.

    Stuff like this will be unopposed because the people who can stop it can't respond.
  • by cdn-programmer ( 468978 ) <terr@terraIIIlogic.net minus threevowels> on Friday August 19, 2005 @08:06PM (#13359543)
    The Americans use the NSA to monitor mon american communications because under their laws, foreigners have no rights. The Canadians use CISIS to monitor american communications for the same reasons. Then they trade data.

    I once sent and email to Australia when the net was young and in it I used some words that could be interpreted in isolation as suspicious. Then I put a note in the email to the effect I knew it was going to be read by the NSA and I made a comment that if they were worried about what I was "really up to" they should check out www.blah.com.

    Within 12 hours the server picked up hits from the NSA. Then they were dumb enough to be using windows machines. For anyone wanting to penetrate their security - its pretty trivia. A simple honeypot is a good start.

    There seems to be just no limit to the depths of depravity that paranoia will drive these people. Then they think they are being righteous. Meanwhile as they go off chasing ghosts they are perfectly willing to ignore huge white collar crimes in the way of frauds that are being perpetrated via stock market and other swindles on an almost daily basis. Enron is just one example.
  • The frog is dead (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Catbeller ( 118204 ) on Friday August 19, 2005 @08:28PM (#13359617) Homepage
    So many times I've used the metaphor...

    A frog, some people swear, is incapable of noticing subtle rises in the temperature of the water it occupies. These same folk say that if you put a frog in a pot of cold water, and slowly let the water come to a boil, the frog will happily do froggy things in the water until it boils to death.

    The frog is now dead. The US and its clients have boiled away all the water in the pot.

    Go back to your reality TV shows, citizens, nothing to fear unless you are doing something criminal or unpatriotic or that which undermines the President's authority in wartime (which by defining the war's purpose as eliminating a common noun, will be eternal)...

    You aren't a criminal, are you? Or anti-party-in-power, which will be equivalent?

    Are you sure?

    They'll be watching.

    Forever.
  • by darkonc ( 47285 ) <stephen_samuel&bcgreen,com> on Friday August 19, 2005 @09:59PM (#13359943) Homepage Journal
    "I'm sorry. Our answering machine is broken -- but that's OK because our line is being tapped, so speak clearly and we'll get the transcripts from our lawyers."

    The message didn't last too long, though, because a couple of people took it too seriously.

  • by tchdab1 ( 164848 ) on Saturday August 20, 2005 @12:19AM (#13360414) Homepage
    We're an Outlook shop.
    Bill already lets anyone monitor our email.

    (Thank you! I'll be here all week!)

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