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Wednesday May 23, 2012 |
My post
yesterday on a secret government - telecom lawful access working group
attracted considerable attention with many understandably focused on
the revelations that virtually all major Canadian telecom companies
(with the notable exception of Shaw) actively worked with the
government for months on lawful access legislation. Yet perhaps the
most important document is a lawful
access regulations
policy document
that offered guidance on plans for the extensive
regulations that will ultimately accompany the Internet surveillance
legislation. The specific document obtained under Access to Information
is dated October 2010 and was created to support an earlier version of
the lawful access bill. However, the same government documents
indicate that the policy document was provided to telecom providers
last fall, including disclosure to the Canadian
Network Operators Consortium
in December 2011 after CNOC was at an event a month earlier with Public
Safety Minister Vic Toews and expressed support for the lawful access
bill.
The regulations policy document are not the regulations per se, but
rather a clear indication of planned regulations under the guise of a
policy document. The document contains several key sections:
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Wednesday May 16, 2012 |
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The Globe's John Ibbitson has a column
that confirms much of the private speculation about lawful access,
namely that the bill is going nowhere so long as Vic Toews remains
public safety minister. This is consistent with the prevailing view
that Toews is so closely associated with the worst of the bill -
warrantless disclosure of subscriber information, new surveillance
technologies, and divisive us vs. them framing - that a change will be
needed for the bill to come back. Ibbitson focuses on the likelihood of
Parliament proroging before the bill is revamped and returns, yet
speculating on those issues is always difficult. What is certain
is
that lawful access will return at some point, meaning Canadians will
need to remain vigilant to ensure that any future bill addresses the myriad of
concerns associated with Bill C-30.
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Tuesday May 08, 2012 |
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The Alberta Court of Appeal has ruled that portions of the provincial
privacy statute are unconstitutional. The decision, United Food and Commercial Workers,
Local 401 v Alberta (Attorney General), is online. Discussion here,
here,
and here.
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Wednesday April 25, 2012 |
Industry Minister Christian Paradis spoke at the Canada 3.0 conference
in Stratford yesterday, providing an update
on the government's digital economy plans. Paradis trumpeted some of
the measures in the budget as well as the trio of related laws -
privacy reform, copyright reform, and anti-spam legislation (which he
indicated he expects to take effect next year). He also noted the
urban-rural divide on broadband access, which he
seems to think can be addressed through rural deployment obligations in
the forthcoming the spectrum auction (the final consult to be released
today).
Paradis unsurprisingly did not mention that the privacy reform, Bill
C-12, has stagnated for months in the House and is increasingly viewed
as inadequate, nor that the anti-spam bill became law in 2010 but has
been delayed by his own department's failure to finalize the necessary
regulations. Nor did he mention lawful access (Bill C-30), which will
lead to increased Internet costs, or the budget cuts to the Community
Access Program (which will mean a loss of access for low income
Canadians), or reduced funding to CANARIE, which runs Canada's
high-speed research network.
Paradis concluded by saying the work is not done and that now the plan
is to release a digital economy strategy later this year (the IIC annual
conference would be a good bet). Given that the government launched
its digital
economy strategy consultation in May 2010, Industry Minister
Clement promised the strategy by the spring of 2011 as part of an interim
update in November 2010, and Paradis himself spoke
about the strategy nearly a year ago, the digital economy strategy is
still seemingly ensconced as the government's
Penske File.
canarie, cap, digital economy, paradis, privacy, spam Slashdot, Digg, Del.icio.us, Newsfeeder, Reddit, StumbleUpon, TwitterTagsShareWednesday April 25, 2012 |
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