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Canadian and European officials traded public barbs
yesterday over the inability to finalize the Canada - EU Trade
Agreement. EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht said unless Canada
makes some additional steps, there will be no deal. Canadian officials
responded that Europe has yet to meet Canada's core concerns. The
comments come after a ministerial meeting this month was unable to yield an
agreement. De Gucht and Canadian International Trade Minister Ed Fast
met in Brussels in November 2012, but those talks failed to solve the outstanding issues. The two ministers met again in Ottawa two weeks ago with a similar result.
While officials continue to put a brave face on the
talks, the latest comments suggest mounting frustration at the
unwillingness of either side to cave on key issues in order to strike a
deal. The major remaining issues
have been the same for months: agriculture, patent protection for
pharmaceutical companies, investor access and protection, public
procurement, automotive issues, and cultural protections. Indeed, these
issues were identified years ago as the major areas of disagreement
(copyright was initially on this list but the defeat of ACTA removed it
as an issue).
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In a surprising and troubling decision, the Ontario Court of Appeal has permitted
a police search of a cellphone that was not password protected or
locked during the course of an arrest. The court found that the police
had a reasonable belief that the phone might contain relevant evidence
and it was acceptable to undertake a "cursory" examination of the
contents of the phone. The court noted that "if the cell phone had been
password protected or otherwise 'locked' to users other than the
appellant, it would not have been appropriate to take steps to open the
cell phone and examine its contents without first obtaining a search
warrant."
The decision raises serious concerns given the increasingly
blurry line between smartphones and personal computers (the court found
that this particular phone was not a "mini-computer") and the suggestion
that the contents on a phone without password protection is "readily
available to others." Canadians are surely entitled to expect that the
contents on a private cellphone - whether locked or unlocked - are
private and that police access to the content should require a warrant. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareFriday February 22, 2013 |
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