Drew Wilson
October 29th, 2009, 08:15 PM
Earlier this week, I posted on the Liberals first reaction to Bill C-46, part one of the lawful access package. Rather than focusing on substantive issues, the immediate response was "what took you so long," an obvious effort to appear even tougher on crime. C-46 was sent to committee for further study on Tuesday. Immediately afterward, C-47, the other half of lawful access came up for second reading. This part of the bill is particularly problematic is it raises the prospect of mandatory disclosure of personal information without a warrant and requires ISPs to install new surveillance capabilities on their networks.
The warrantless access to information is incredibly troubling as it runs counter to a pledge from the previous Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, has only been supported a mischaracterized incident from earlier this year, and raises fundamental problems with the privacy vs. security balance. In fact, the bill goes even further than the Liberal version of the bill from years ago, by adopting an exceptionally broad definition of customer name and address information.
Once again, the reaction to the bill was telling.
The Liberals adopted the "what took you so long" position, with MPs Dan McTeague and Andrew Kania pledging their support and asking why it took so long to bring the bill to the House. Mark Holland did the same thing and only acknowledged the privacy concerns when asked about it by NDP MP Linda Duncan.
More... (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4496/125/)
It's frightening to see how easily passable such a dangerous law is at this point. We had two consultations and, overwhelmingly, Canadians rejected lawful access. Yet, somehow, lawmakers get the idea that they should adopt legislation that most Canadians disapprove of. Nothing short of alarming if you ask me.
The warrantless access to information is incredibly troubling as it runs counter to a pledge from the previous Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day, has only been supported a mischaracterized incident from earlier this year, and raises fundamental problems with the privacy vs. security balance. In fact, the bill goes even further than the Liberal version of the bill from years ago, by adopting an exceptionally broad definition of customer name and address information.
Once again, the reaction to the bill was telling.
The Liberals adopted the "what took you so long" position, with MPs Dan McTeague and Andrew Kania pledging their support and asking why it took so long to bring the bill to the House. Mark Holland did the same thing and only acknowledged the privacy concerns when asked about it by NDP MP Linda Duncan.
More... (http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4496/125/)
It's frightening to see how easily passable such a dangerous law is at this point. We had two consultations and, overwhelmingly, Canadians rejected lawful access. Yet, somehow, lawmakers get the idea that they should adopt legislation that most Canadians disapprove of. Nothing short of alarming if you ask me.