Feds get ready to revive surveillance powers
An open letter to federal public safety minister Vic Toews from Canada’s privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart has expressed “deep concerns” about the resurrection of three Harper government bills to beef up surveillance powers.
A “growing number of questions are being raised – in Parliament, in legal circles and in the media – about potential lawful access legislation”, says Stoddart, going on, “My provincial and territorial privacy colleagues have also been seized by this issue and together we have called upon the federal government in 20091 and in 20112 to take a cautious approach to legislative proposals to create an expanded surveillance regime that would have serious repercussions for privacy rights”, she declares, continuing,”As your government prepares to bring forward legislation, I believe I have an obligation to outline my concerns about the potential impact on the privacy of Canadians.
“Read together, the provisions of the lawful access bills from the last session of Parliament (C-50, C-51, and C-52) would have had a significant impact on our privacy rights. By expanding the legal tools of the state to conduct surveillance and access private information, and by reducing the depth of judicial scrutiny, the previous bills would have allowed government to subject more individuals to surveillance and scrutiny. In brief, these bills went far beyond simply maintaining investigative capacity or modernizing search powers. Rather, they added significant new capabilities for investigators to track, and search and seize digital information about individuals.
“Canadians expect their government to respect their fundamental rights and freedoms. Your government has made firm and repeated commitments to the importance of privacy. Consequently, when new surveillance powers are proposed in law, the burden of proof is with government to demonstrate the necessity, legal proportionality and practical effectiveness of these new powers. The government must also be prepared to demonstrate how the model it is proposing is the least privacy-invasive alternative possible.
“Despite repeated calls, no systematic case has yet been made to justify the extent of the new investigative capabilities that would have been created by the bills. Canadian authorities have yet to provide the public with evidence to suggest that CSIS or Canadian police cannot perform their duties under the current regime. One-off cases and isolated incidents should not prove the rule, nor should exigent or emergency circumstances, for which there are already Criminal Code provisions.
“As well, if the concern of law enforcement agencies is that it is difficult to obtain warrants or judicial authorization in a timely way, these administrative challenges should be addressed by administrative solutions rather than by weakening long-standing legal principles that uphold Canadians’ fundamental freedoms.
Stoddart says she’s also worried also about the “adoption of lower thresholds for obtaining personal information from commercial enterprises,” adding,
“The new powers envisaged are not limited to specific, serious offences or urgent or exceptional situations. In the case of access to subscriber data, there is not even a requirement for the commission of a crime to justify access to personal information – real names, home address, unlisted numbers, email addresses, IP addresses and much more – without a warrant. Only prior court authorization provides the rigorous privacy protection Canadians expect.
“In my view, the government has not convincingly demonstrated that there are no less privacy-invasive alternatives available to achieve its stated purpose.
“Should Parliament ultimately opt to allow law enforcement and national security authorities to circumvent the courts to obtain personal information, we believe the oversight and reporting safeguards must be significantly strengthened.
“The true importance of privacy protection is that it underpins our democratic freedoms. It allows us to exercise these freedoms openly, without fear, mistrust or censorship. This is why caution is so critical, to avoid the possible erosion of our free, open society.
“To date, Canadians have not been given sufficient justification for the new powers when other, less intrusive alternatives could be explored. A focussed, tailored approach is vital.
“As the government considers the reintroduction of the lawful access legislation I would respectfully ask that you take these comments into consideration,” she states.
October 27th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
Unfortunately, the Conservatives are not listening to Canadians. They’re building up a police state and nothing short of booting them out of Ottawa will stop them.
October 28th, 2011 at 3:34 am
Jean Chicoine is right — nothing short of booting the Conservatives out of Ottawa will stop them. Unfortunately, we have no recall mechanism.
The problem, as I see it, is that once the surveillance hardware is built-into the telecom infrastructure, there will be no going back. I can’t imagine any government, once the apparatus is installed, ripping it out again. What they’ll do is to use it themselves, against their political opponents. Maybe this is why Harper seems to think that there will be a permanent Conservative majority.
October 30th, 2011 at 2:32 pm
In my opinion this new legislation would give the government the ability to control political opposition. In this day and age the Internet provides activists an opportunity to interact and share concerns as to the direction of government and other matters of interest. Allowing government and police the ability to infiltrate and control our means of communication through breaches of privacy is unacceptable. Case in point here in British Columbia we had an HST referendum initiative and ran across problems in communicating through the Internet. In many cases while sending out e-mails with subject matter HST the e-mails never reached their destination. When I contacted Shaw cable to inquire as to the phenomena they dismissed it by saying it was probably their spam filter that blocks the communication. We are currently fighting the provincial government on this so-called smart meter initiative and I certainly do not want government legally intercepting every confidential email outlining our strategy so they can stop us before we get going. This could apply to so many other legitimate initiatives challenging the direction of the government or even private corporations. It is imperative we voice our concerns and maintain our privacy that is nothing wrong with the current system. The delays in obtaining warrants for wiretapping and search warrants are separate issue that can be administratively resolved as pointed out in the above letter by Jennifer Stoddart. I could not agree more with your concerns.
February 20th, 2012 at 10:26 am
this law should not be passed for the same reason that you don’t want doors ripped open from our homes we don’t want unwelcome guest in our private homes peeking in anytime they want how do we know they wont use our webcams to look at our daughters/sons? bedrooms anytime they please.A bunch of control freaks cannot represent the interest of each and every individual because each person is different this law cannot protect all of us any better in the streets in real life any more that they currently can, people we don’t want these freaks to become our conscience if we do that we give up freedom.!!