As Public Safety Minister Vic Toews proclaims
in the House of Commons that you either support lawful access or stand
with child pornographers, Sarah Schmidt of Postmedia has a great
story this afternoon
on new lawful access revelations obtained under the Access to
Information Act. The documents show the internal struggle to justify
warrantless access to customer name and address information and call
into question Toews repeated assertions that there is no warrantless
access to private conversations. Those documents are consistent with
many of the points I raised in my FAQ on the
Internet surveillance legislation.
On the issue of warrantless access to subscriber information, a Public
Safety document demonstrates that the intention is to use this data for
purposes that
do not involve criminal or child pornography concerns. For example, it
notes that warrants would be problematic for "non-criminal, general
policing duties" such as returning stolen property. Is the
government
really proposing to drop key privacy protections for non-criminal
concerns?
Moreover, despite claims that court oversight would burden the court
system, previously undisclosed RCMP data shows 95% of requests for
subscriber information are already met on a voluntary basis. Claims
that court oversight would "literally collapse an already over-burdened
judicial system" is therefore entirely inconsistent with the data that
shows the overwhelming majority of cases are handled without court
oversight. The need for court oversight arises for the last five
percent, not 100% of the cases.
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Tens of thousands took to the streets over the weekend to protest
against ACTA. Notable video and photos include Sofia, Bulgaria, Dresden, Germany, and Dusseldorf, Germany.
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The Electronic Frontier Foundation has a pair of excellent posts on
Bill C-11 and the dangers of the digital lock rules. The first focuses specifically
on digital lock rules and the second on
U.S. pressure on Canadian copyright reform.
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The Canadian media has picked up on the mounting protests over part of
Bill C-11. Recent coverage includes the Vancouver
Sun, Straight.com,
and Radio-Canada.
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Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is expected to introduce lawful access legislation tomorrow in the House of Commons. An
Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic
Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and others Acts,
likely to be Bill C-30, will mark the return of lawful access in a
single legislative package. While it is certainly possible for a
surprise, the bill is expected to largely mirror the last lawful access
bills (C-50, 51, and 52) that died on the order paper with the election
last spring.
This long post tries to address many of the most common questions and
misconceptions about lawful access in Canada. The questions and answers
are:
- What is lawful access?
- What is Bill C-30 likely to contain?
- Isn't ISP customer name
and address information similar to phone book data that is readily
available to the public without privacy concerns? (first prong)
- Isn't the mandatory disclosure of ISP customer information
necessary for police investigations? (first prong)
- Didn't former Public
Safety Minister Stockwell Day pledge not to introduce mandatory
disclosure of ISP customer information without court oversight? (first
prong)
- Who pays for the surveillance infrastructure required by lawful
access? (second prong)
- Does lawful access create a new regulatory framework for the
Internet? (second prong)
- Does lawful access create new police powers? (third prong)
- Does opposing lawful access mean questioning the integrity of law
enforcement?
- Don't other countries have the same lawful access rules as those
found in Canada?
- What do Canada's privacy commissioners think about lawful access?
- Are these lawful access proposal constitutional?
- Does the government seem somewhat inconsistent on its crime and
privacy policies?
- Where can I learn more about lawful access and what can I do?
Update: Bill C-30 was introduced on February 14, 2012. One important change from the last bill to the current bill is that the list of data points subject to mandatory disclosure without court oversight has shrunk from 11 to six. The IMEI numbers, discussed further below, are no longer on the list. Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareMonday February 13, 2012 |
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