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.

Read more ›