Oh, man, the irony:
Today Canadian Public Safety Minister, Peter Van Loan, introduced legislation which will allow police to access personal information about the sender or receiver of any electronic message without a warrant.
Apparently, when the Stephen Harper Party of Canada campaigned on a platform of "transparency," they weren't talking for themselves. They could have made that a bit more obvious.
P.S. It should be fun to see how Canada's Blogging Cementheads spin this one. In particular, I'd dearly like to know what Wingnut Welfare Wonder Boy Stephen Taylor thinks of it. I'm sure his tenure over at the Manning Centre for Building Democracy has taught him all kinds of nifty things about, well, democracy. I'm sure he will be very eloquent in his defense of this legislation.
I'm sure I will get another blog post out of it. The word "douchebag" is likely to feature prominently.
9 comments:
Expect a lot of "we want to get the bad guys" and "think of the children" rhetoric...
What will be amusing, for me at least, is how the wingnuts will reconcile the "internet effect" in Iran, democracy and this new law...
They also want to allow police to randomly stop and administer breath tests without reasonable and probable grounds.
Uhm, no thanks, fascists drunk driving isn't that much of a problem...
As I understand it, evidence that is improperly obtained is still admissible in Canada. The bomb plot case revealed by a fishing expedition will not fail in court because of the lack of warrant or anything else.
The only problem is that if the cops are wrong, the warrant protects them from prosecution. No warrant and you are wrong, you are charged. The officers involved are held responsibility.
Why is Van Loan against personal responsibility?
"Why is Van Loan against personal responsibility?"
'Cause he doesn't want anyone to be able to hold him personally responsible?
But what's he gonna do if his warrantless searches (or even warranted searches for that matter) don't reveal any personal information about the sender of messages?
They sure whipped out the "CHILD PORNOGRAPHERS! CHIIIIILD PORNOGRAPHERS!" card pretty quick there, didn't they? 95% of child abuse happens in the bloody goddamned home, and it kind of seems to me that they are simply using something extremely shocking to justify getting all up in everybody's business.
Although I am not currently engaged in any illegal activity, I still have plenty of things that I don't particularly want Stephen Harper and the Harperettes knowing about me. I'd really prefer that the RCMP not be able to discover my obsession with Robert Pattinson fanfic or learn that I spend an inordinate amount of time abusing stupid fundamentalists on message boards, or that I used to run a brothel out of my basement. (Strictly high-end stuff, of course. Very classy. But still. None of their business.)
As always, they use these expanded powers to harass women's social clubs (Communists! They're all communists!) and intimidate teenagers into turning in their parents' grow-ups, take photos of large breasts (like they found the CCTV in London was spending a lot of time doing) and taking photographs of student protesters to keep tabs on their whereabouts at all times - even when they have Latitude turned off! - ...and basically remove the rights of every single Canadian to privacy and the enjoyment of their lives and endevours, just in case they might want to find one of us guilty of something some day.
Fucking fascists.
My general response: "If you have nothing to hide, then you won't mind me hanging out at your place and reading all your mail as it's delivered."
Suddenly, they're not so sure of their position anymore.
CC you've put your finger on something that has bothered me for a long time, why is there some kind of special status for paper documentation?
The mail example is just one, another is the whole paranoia about digitized medical records. My mom was sick off and on for 21 years before she died in 2005, so I've hung out at a lot of hospitals. Medical staff, especially when they are used to you being around, can get awfully relaxed about charts and the like.
Additionally, you'll often see carts with charts on them in hall ways as you walk around...
The idea that email or other digital communications are less important/yours/private than a letter in an envelope is as idiotic as suggesting that my medical history is safer in my Doc's filing cabinet.
It isn't even needed:)
http://xkcd.com/596/
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