Ottawa's Bill C-51 allows police to more easily view your web-surfing.

[blake 3:17]

Ottawa's Bill C-51 allows police to more easily view your web-surfing. What do you think?

Privacy advocates worry new law infringes on Canadians' liberties

BY JASON MAGDER, POSTMEDIA NEWSFEBRUARY 11, 2012




U.S. seamen surf the Web in an Internet cafe aboard the USS Milius February 16, 2003 in the North Arabian Gulf off the coast of Iraq. A new Canadian law could allow police to monitor people's web-surfing habits.
Photograph by: Spencer Platt, Getty Images
The Conservative government plans to introduce a law on Monday that will allow police to better monitor the web-surfing habits of Canadians.

Entitled “an Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and others Acts,” the law would require Internet service providers (ISPs) to install equipment that would allow them to monitor and preserve the Internet surfing activities of their customers. The providers could then be asked by police to collect and preserve surfing data of anyone suspected in engaging in criminal activity.

Known as the Lawful Access law, Bill C-51 also would make it easier for law enforcement authorities to activate tracking mechanisms within cellphones so they can know the whereabouts of suspected criminals. If they’re suspected of being international terrorists, the law would allow such tracking to go on for a year, rather than the current 60-day limit, according to a previous incarnation of the law introduced last year.

In recent months, open-Internet lobbyists and privacy advocates - including the privacy commissioner of Canada - have been warning the Conservative government not to adopt this bill, saying it is a serious infringement of civil liberties. An online petition against the law has been started by the net neutrality lobby group openmedia.ca.

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Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, and an outspoken critic of the law, said he’s worried about all the information police will have access to without a warrant.

“It could include anything from email addresses to IP addresses and cellphone-identified numbers,” Geist said. “The ability to use that kind of information in a highly sensitive way without any real oversight is very real.”

As an example of the new powers, Geist said authorities would be able to use equipment to isolate cellphone numbers of people attending a protest, and then be able to ask a cellphone company to disclose personal information of the people attached to those cellphone numbers.

Geist said Canadians also should be concerned that the information obtained by police here could be shared with their counterparts around the world.

While Canadians should be concerned about the invasion of privacy, Geist said this also could be a tremendous waste of money, because ISPs would be required to spend a lot to put in place advanced monitoring infrastructure.

“One thing (the government) has never provided is the evidence to show how the current set of laws has stymied investigations or created a significant barrier to ensure that we’re safe in Canada.”

The bill, however, is not as invasive as some of the lobbyists had feared. Similar laws adopted in other countries have required ISPs to monitor the electronic communications of all their customers.

Montreal Gazette

© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette

[blake 3:17]

Apologies for weird formatting: Might be easier to follow the link: http://stopspying.ca/


Stop Online Spying


En français »
The government is trying to push through a set of electronic surveillance laws that will invade your privacy and cost you money. The plan is to force every phone and Internet provider to allow "authorities" to collect the private information of any Canadian, at any time, without a warrant.

This bizarre legislation will create Internet surveillance that is:

Warrantless: A range of "authorities" will have the ability to access the private information of law-abiding Canadians and our families using wired Internet and mobile devices, without justification.
Invasive: The laws leave our personal and financial information less secure and more susceptible to cybercrime.
Costly: Internet services providers may be forced to install millions of dollars worth of spying technology and the cost will be passed down to YOU.
If enough of us speak out now the government will have no choice but to stop this mandatory online spying scheme. Sign the petition now, and forward it to everyone you know →

Please share this page with your friends and family:

[The Intransigent Faction]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1BAHc4Mr5M&feature=related
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A1BAHc4Mr5M&feature=related)
Despicable. "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists/child pornographers/xyz" Why don't right-wingers understand the concept of a false dilemma?

[blake 3:17]

Thanks! Hadn't seen the parliamentary clip. Scum bag.

[Le Rouge]

Oh god...SOPA/ACTA/PIPA are not that bad afterall. Lucky you americans.

[blake 3:17]

Oh god...SOPA/ACTA/PIPA are not that bad afterall. Lucky you americans.

Maybe, but SOPA would've extended over the border.

[blake 3:17]

This is so awesome -- fucking Vick Toews is having his nasty divorce proceedings tweeted

https://twitter.com/#!/vikileaks30

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/politics/article/1132153--minister-s-tawdry-divorce-details-published-to-protest-bill

[Die Neue Zeit]

For now the bill has been withdrawn.

[blake 3:17]

NDP Charlie Angus said he didn't need to know anything about Toews' personal life.

"I think his public life is problematic enough for Canadians," Angus said.

Source:
http://www.globalnews.ca/online+surveillance+bill+teaches+tories+tough+soci almedia+lesson/6442581979/story.html

See also http://donttoewsmebro.ca/

[blake 3:17]

For now the bill has been withdrawn.

Gone to committee.

From Maclean's


“Mr. Speaker,” he lamented, “what is clear is Canadians cannot trust the government with protecting their privacy rights.”

To justify this contention, Mr. Angus called his first witness. “Let us try out this quote, ‘What we’re seeing is only the tip of the iceberg. The real threat to Canadian privacy is coming from within, from our own federal government.’ Does anyone know who said that?” the New Democrat asked. “It was Ann Cavoukian, the privacy commissioner of Ontario.”

And with that much established, Mr. Angus rounded on the Public Safety Minister, his sad tone replaced with adamant indignation. “According to the minister, she is on the side of child pornographers,” he charged. “He is wrong. She is on the side of average, law-abiding Canadians who play by the rules. So why is he on the side of intrusion, snooping and treating Canadians like criminals?”

Vic Toews, perhaps tired from the last 48 hours of dancing around and away from that thing he said, seemed unwilling to engage this provocation.

“Mr. Speaker, that member is a member who has never said anything accurate about the bill in the House or outside the House,” he sighed. And on that note he changed the subject. “In fact, the issue is where that members will stand tonight,” he ventured. “He has told his constituents that he will be voting against the long gun registry. I trust that he will in fact carry out his word to his constituents.”

Mr. Angus was apparently happy to debate personal courage. “Mr. Speaker, here is a minister who today hides behind guns. Yesterday he hid behind children,” Mr. Angus shot back. “At 10 a.m. yesterday the name of the bill that he was bringing in was called Lawful Access. By 11 a.m. he was being hammered in the media, so by 11:17 a.m. he changed the name of the bill to Protecting Children from Internet Predators. It is about using child victims as political cover so the minister can treat average Canadians like criminals. Why this abuse of public trust and why this abuse of our child victims?”

Various New Democrats stood to applaud.

“Mr. Speaker, that is rich coming from a party that never stands up for victims,” Mr. Toews replied weakly.

The Public Safety Minister turned to his script, finishing with a concession of sorts. “We will send this legislation directly to committee,” he said, “for a full and wide-ranging examination of the best way to do what is right for our children.”

Standing next, Bob Rae pressed the advantage. “Mr. Speaker, I am sure that the people who come forward with amendments will not be called Adolf Hitler,” he scolded from the far end of the room, “will not be called terrorists and will not be called friends of pedophilia by the minister when they come forward with reasoned amendments.”

Then Ralph Goodale stood to make clear the extent of the retreat. “The Prime Minister implied a few moments ago that he will entertain amendments to Bill C-30,” he lectured. “Do we have his guarantee that amendments will in fact be welcomed in the parliamentary committee?”

Mr. Toews stood and admitted that where once his critics stood with child pornographers—those critics having apparently turned up on his own side—now he welcomed their advice. The government would, he said, “entertain amendments.” The minister managed some criticism of the Liberal corner, but it seemed relatively futile by this point.

http://www2.macleans.ca/2012/02/15/the-commons-vic-toews-teaches-us-a-valuable-lesson/

[blake 3:17]

TellVicEverything an Internet sensation
By: Melissa Martin
Posted: 02/17/2012 1:00 AM | Comments: 0 (including replies)g

SEAN KILPATRICK/ THE CANADIAN PRESS Enlarge Image

Vic Toews
If Public Safety Minister Vic Toews wants information from the Internet, he now has far more than he bargained for.
In the midst of a brewing firestorm over Toews' proposed online surveillance legislation, thousands of Canadian Twitter users paused Thursday to poke fun at Bill C-30, which Toews introduced to the House of Commons on Tuesday.
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Investigation launched into Twitter campaign targeting public safety minister
The bill, otherwise dubbed the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act, would give police access to Internet subscribers' private information without a warrant, among other increased powers. The ensuing controversy has already seen protests, petitions and, Wednesday, the arrival of a pseudonymous Twitter foe, dumping details of the minister's divorce file online.

An Ottawa Citizen investigation determined Thursday the IP address linked with the Twitter account originates from within the Commons.
Now, faced with the chance Ottawa could dig a little into Canadians' private lives, the bill's opponents decided that they may as well just tell the cabinet minister from Manitoba everything.
No really, everything.
"This milk is two days past its expiration date, but I'm going to risk it," Winnipegger Matthew Woodbridge announced, punctuating the sentiment with the tag #TellVicEverything.
Winnipeg hockey fan Janice Labossiere also had urgent personal information to share with the minister. "I'm parked a little closer to one line than the other in the parkade today," she admitted on Twitter. "#TellVicEverything."

On Thursday afternoon, the man who opened the floodgates watched in wonder as Twitter exploded with Toews-related tweets.
Robert Jensen, a Prince Edward Island man and regular critic of the Harper government, came up with the idea on Thursday morning and urged his followers to spam Toews' official Twitter account with useless personal trivia.

Jensen later faxed his grocery list to Toews' Ottawa office; but by then, the Tell Vic Everything movement had become a bona fide sensation. Only eight hours after Jensen's original Tweet, there were thousands of messages in the Tell Vic Everything pile -- and the momentum was still picking up. "I'm killing myself laughing," Jensen wrote on his account. "Now this is what we call peaceful, democratic protest, Canuck-style."
Some missives were funny, others deliberately dull. A few were aggressively political but most, pointedly irreverent: One man pledged to copy Toews' office on all of his outgoing email, "to save time and taxpayers money."
Needless to say, the common theme was resistance. "As I understand it, law enforcement agencies can't open my mail, tap my phone, access my phone or bank records or enter my home without a warrant," said Winnipeg's Shaun Wheeler, who told Toews (on Twitter) about how he likes to avoid the lines at MLCC outlets. "Why should it be any different for my Internet history?"

Most of all, the movement was affixed with a certain mischevious joy, a spark of unity that, supporters said, made telling Toews everything an exercise in unity. "(I was) happy to see the involvement of Canadians on Twitter," said Winnipeg's Eric Reder, who described himself as "grimly angry" with Bill C-30 and the Conservative government's direction in general.

Full article: http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/local/tell-vic-everything-an-internet-sensation-139501528.html