Proposed Canadian Law Would Allow Warrantless Searches 195
An anonymous reader writes "A bill introduced by Canada's Minister of Public Safety will allow police to (warrantlessly) force ISPs to provide access to any requested digital traffic records, reports News 1130. Police lobbied for the bill as means of 'combatting gangsters, pedophiles, or terrorists,' but apparently they find the legal principles of judicial review and probable cause, as well as a constitutional provision against 'unreasonable search or seizure', to be too much of a hassle, and would rather be able to search anyone's web or e-mail traffic at their own discretion and without any oversight. All in the name of public safety, of course."
Re:Children (Score:1, Informative)
That sounds a bit terroristic.
Write to the minister! (Score:5, Informative)
This is ridiculous. If this passes, I'm never voting Conservative again (leaving me with no other options!)
Write to Van Loan:
The Honourable Peter Van Loan
Minister of Public Safety
Parliament Hill Office
Room 157
East Block
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0A6
T 613-996-7752
F 613-992-8351
E vanloan.p@parl.gc.ca
Constituency Office ... in the Grist Mill Plaza,
45 Grist Mill Road, Unit 10
Holland Landing, Ontario
L9N 1M7
Mount Albert Road between Old Yonge Street and 2nd Concession
T 905-898-1600 or
1-877-738-3748
F 905-898-4600
E vanlop1@parl.gc.ca
Michael Geist was there first (;-)) (Score:3, Informative)
Michael Geist has it, at Government Introduces Bill To Require Surveillance Capabilities, Mandated Subscriber Disclosure [google.com]
a bit more complicated then that.... (Score:5, Informative)
As is usual, the summary is inflammatory. As described at http://www.privacylawyer.ca/blog/labels/lawful%20access.html/ [privacylawyer.ca] a warrant would still be required for eavesdropping, but "basic subscriber information" (name, address, telephone number and Internet Protocol (IP) address, e-mail address, service provider identification and certain cell phone identifiers) would be available without a warrant.
I'll be writing to my MP in any case.
Re:That's it, I'm moving to ... (Score:4, Informative)
Well you know, from my perspective up here being more "Liberal" is a *GOOD THING* not a bad thing. Liberal seems to be a swearword down there in the US, whereas up here its the name of one of our political parties, and has no negative connotations whatsoever, unless you are a very conservative Conservative. Again from my perspective up here (no doubt distorted by the media and cultural differences), the US seems extremely Right-Wing on average (even your Liberals would be seen as Conservatives up here in many cases), extremely violent (how many people do you know who own a gun? I know my uncle has a rifle for use on the farm, and I had one when I was a kid. I have a friend who owns one for safety and one who owned one for use as protection against bears out in the woods, but other than that I know hundreds of other Canadians who to the best of my knowledge do not own one. Every American I meet seems to take it for granted that a house would have one), extremely nationalistic (to the point of viewing non-americans as some kind of subhuman species, deserving of scorn), and extremely ignorant of anything outside of the continental US.
I am not sure how much better we Canadians are on some of those scores but I would like to think we are less extreme in every measure.
However this law *has* to fail, I can't ever see it going into effect, although as a long term /.er I haven't RTFA yet :P
Re:Despicable. (Score:5, Informative)
I've sent an email to my MP. I hope all other Canadian /.ers do likewise. Here is what I wrote. Be sure to add your name and full address to yours, and cc the Honorable Peter Van Loan (vanlop@parl.gc.ca) as well. Feel free to modify to suit your own political beliefs. (Not that you need my permission for that, just being honest and transparent.) If you don't have their email address, you might want to look that up [parl.gc.ca].
In regards to a proposed new bill:
http://www.news1130.com/more.jsp?content=20090617_213536_8084
The point of laws regarding privacy, and court-sanctioned warrants overriding privacy, is not to make it easier for the police to solve crimes, but to weigh carefully the right to privacy on one hand and the reasonable evidence pointing to a particular suspect requiring further information on the other. The police, being human beings, can easily get emotionally attached to the pursuit of an individual, and invade what could easily turn out to be an innocent person's privacy. The whole point of a warrant being issued by a judge is for oversight to ensure that the police aren't cutting corners prior to actually invading someone's privacy.
By removing this level of oversight, I feel we are going in the wrong direction on personal liberties and freedoms, and are sliding towards a police state.
It's not that I have an issue with ISPs keeping logs, the same way corporations are supposed to keep account of their transactions in case of an audit. But it requires some oversight to keep the police from accessing just anyone's account without reasonable evidence otherwise. As long as the logs are protected by similar privacy laws that any other aspect of citizens' private lives, and only released under proper court warrants, the police continue to have the tools they need to pursue internet crimes while continuing to protect citizens' privacy, thereby protecting liberties and freedoms we all enjoy.
I hope you will incorporate proper privacy protections in this bill, requiring the police to act the same as they do with any other aspect of our private lives.
Re:a bit more complicated then that.... (Score:3, Informative)
[A} warrant would still be required for eavesdropping, but "basic subscriber information" (name, address, telephone number and Internet Protocol (IP) address, e-mail address, service provider identification and certain cell phone identifiers) would be available without a warrant.
It will be interesting how this all plays out. First, given that this is a minority government, at least one of the opposition parties must support the bill. Not likely if there is a chance they can score political points by voting against. Second, if the bill is eventually made law it will inevitably face a constitutional challenge. Given current privacy concerns it is by no means a slam dunk that the law will survive unscathed.
Most likely, however, is that the government will fall shortly after parliament resumes after the summer break, killing the bill.
Re:Despicable. (Score:3, Informative)
You think so?
Then please join the protest! [digitalprivacy.ca]