Lawful Access: the kinder, gentler patriot act (tm)

[Hoser McRhizzy]

A lot of surveillance-related laws and practices were in place in Canada prior to the U.S. SPAI ON YUO act, and quite a bit was put in place through free trade 'other countries are doing it' arguments, but this is a first.  If all continues as it has been, warantless wiretapping will be mandated, cause the conservatives won our last election. 

Not a sealed deal as of yet - TPTB have been trying to pass this beast at least as far back as 2002 and it's been struck down every time so far - but the outlook isn't good.

More here - http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2011/06/23/technology-internet-intercept-lawful-petition.html

The new "Stop Spying" petition opposes three bills that were introduced by Stephen Harper's Conservative government in the last session of Parliament, saying they will invade privacy, leave personal information less secure and boost the cost of internet service.

The Conservatives promised as part of their election platform to reintroduce legislation tabled before the May 2 election that would "give law enforcement and national security agencies up-to-date tools to fight crime in today's high-tech telecommunications environment." They committed to passing the legislation within their first 100 sitting days in office.

The bills from the last session included:

    * C-50, Access to Investigative Tools for Serious Crimes Act, which would give police the power to intercept private communications without a warrant under certain circumstances.
    * C-51, Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act, which would allow police to get a) warrants to obtain information transmitted over the internet and data related to its transmission, including locations of individuals and transactions; b) orders that would compel other parties to preserve electronic evidence.
    * C-52, Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act, which would require internet service providers to a) have infrastructure that will allow law enforcement agents to intercept internet communications of their customers; b) provide basic information about their subscribers to law enforcement.

Deputized ISPs.  Because what could possibly go wrong?

[Jenne]

ONE OF US!  ONE OF US!  ONE OF US!

Welcome to the ranks of the "overprotected" and "underfreedomed."

[Doktor Howl]

While I was in Hamilton to bury The Terrible Old Man (days before the election), I had to put up with all of my asswipe relatives talking about how much Canada "needed" this.  Bear in mind, they're all standing in the same room as the corpse of a man who spent his whole life telling anyone and everyone in authority to STFU & GTFO.

That's pretty much when I gave up on humanity.  If Canada can get infected with this shit, there's no hope.

[Hoser McRhizzy]

Terrible Old Man sounds like a good guy.  We need more like him.  Sucks that you had to be in a room of gloaters... like they were waiting til he passed on to say the dirt they wanted to say.  Classless.  You have my condolences.

To be fair, Canada's been infected with variants of this shit since inception (damn that movie!) -- just not so blatantly directed toward Law Abiding Citizens, which is why internet-folks are getting pancy about it now.  But it's a matter of scale, right?  There has to be a difference between getting your baby feet inked and the govt knowing what bad word I said on youtube or which lipstick I like on makeupalley, doesn't there?   

ONE OF US!  ONE OF US!  ONE OF US!

Welcome to the ranks of the "overprotected" and "underfreedomed."

WHRER'S MAH SCOOTER!?  I WAS PROMISED A SCOOTER!?