Questions for Canadians
p2p news / p2pnet: This Christmas will be painful for Canadian political support volunteers, and for Canadians.
The opposition NDP and Conservative parties decided they wanted the governing Liberals, beleaguered by a financial scandal, out, and right now. So they engineered a No Confidence vote which means on January 23, Canadians will be voting. Again. And in the winter.
"The demise of the 38th Parliament carries with it the demise of the copyright revision bill (C-60) and the proposed Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act (Bill C-74, the ‘lawful access’ bill)," said CIPPIC (Canadian Interest Policy and Public Interest Clinic) counsel David Fewer in p2pnet just after news of the election broke.
He went on, "Of course, the demise of these bills doesn’t mean the issues they addressed will go away. Regardless of the party forming the next government, the interests who lobby for more copyright will continue to do so.
"Big Media’s copyright lobby is a significant cottage industry itself. So long as users still have rights, someone will howl "Piracy!" and demand bigger, longer, stronger copyright. However, this break does give us a chance to address the weaknesses of the last bill."
This Christmas will have the party faithful knocking on doors and with that in mind, CIPPIC has come up with a number of questions you might want to put to them and the possibilities include:
Copyright Law and Technical Protection Measures
Do you agree that we need legislation to protect Canadians from harmful technologies like the Sony-BMG rootkit DRM?
Copyright Revision and Innovation
Do you support Canadian innovators’ rights to reverse engineer or otherwise deal with a work for the purposes of security or interoperability research?
Spyware
Do you agree that we need stronger laws and enforcement mechanisms to protect Canadians from unwanted behaviours associated with spyware?
Spam
What would your government, if elected, do to stop the flood of spam that continues to plague Internet users?
Lawful Access
Do you agree with civil liberties groups that:
1. There should be no increase in state surveillance without full justification, including clear evidence of the need for such new capacities and powers and of their likely effectiveness?
2. Searches and surveillance should require judicial authorization on a "reasonable and probable cause to believe" standard; and that exceptions to this rule must be narrowly limited, subject to strict conditions and safeguards, and should not be expanded to include subscriber data
3. All state search and surveillance activity should be subject to rigorous oversight by an independent body to guard against police abuse of these intrusive powers?
Go here for the full list and other information.
Also read:-
just after – Bill C-60 dies with Martin team, November 30, 2005
