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Fall Election Presents Three Internet Privacy Futures
Fall Election Presents Three Internet Privacy Futures
Here’s why Canadians should press candidates about warrantless data access.
Warranted concern: This election could determine the future path of Canadian law on access to internet subscriber information.
Pointing to its big implications for privacy and surveillance, the NDP sees political opportunity by emphasizing its opposition to the bill, while the Liberals have been forced to defend their decision to support it (but call for amendments if elected). The Conservatives unsurprisingly view the bill as evidence of their commitment to national security and have even floated the possibility of additional anti-terror measures.
While Bill C-51 now represents a legislative shorthand for the parties’ positions on privacy and surveillance, a potentially bigger privacy issue merits closer attention.
Last year, the government concluded more than a decade of debate over “lawful access” legislation by enacting a bill that provided new law enforcement powers for access to internet and telecom data. The bill came just as reports revealed that telecom providers faced more than a million requests for such information each year and the Supreme Court of Canada issued its landmark Spencer decision, which ruled that Canadians have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their basic subscriber information, including name, address, and IP address.
The upshot of the lawful access legislation and the court ruling is that Canada’s leading telecom and internet companies reversed longstanding policies that granted warrantless access to basic subscriber information. Police can now rely on several new warrants to gain access to some information (including “metadata” that can reveal extensive information about the who, when and where of internet and phone communications), but companies are typically refusing to disclose basic subscriber information without a warrant.
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Five Questions for Media Rights Defender Taking C-51 to Court
Five Questions for Media Rights Defender Taking C-51 to Court
Tom Henheffer and allies raised $25,000 to support their Charter challenge. So, what’s next?
We spoke with CJFE executive director Tom Henheffer about the challenge’s next steps.
J-Source: When did the discussions to get this Charter challenge underway start?
Tom Henheffer: Basically since C-51 was proposed legislation, we’ve been fighting it. In the form of protests, our social media campaign, a petition and largely being an education resource through our website. That’s a core of what we do in terms of advocacy, in terms of trying to educate the public. We did all of those things.
When it became law, we tried to figure out the best way to continue fighting it. The CCLA actually approached us and asked us to join them on the Charter challenge.
Has the CJFE ever launched a challenge like this before?
This is our first Charter challenge — certainly the first one since I joined — but we have intervened in other cases before. We’ve gone to court against the Ontario Provincial Police to decide whether or not they can impersonate journalists at protests. We intervened at the Mike Duffy trial. We intervened in the Omar Khadr case, although I believe he was released on bail before that case concluded. And we’re intervening currently on a case of media access to prisoners. It’s about a specific prisoner, but has larger implications.
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Senators Walloped with ‘Intense’ Amount of Anti-C-51 Email
Senators Walloped with ‘Intense’ Amount of Anti-C-51 Email
Words like ‘horrified’ and ‘terrified’ came up frequently, they report.
Many senators say they’ve been stunned by the overwhelming flood of email they’ve received over C-51, the highly controversial Harper government security bill that passed a Senate vote earlier in the month.
The vast majority of the messages expressed firm opposition to the legislation; words like “horrified” and “terrified” came up frequently.
Senator Percy Downe of P.E.I. reports having received 6,000 email messages on the bill, 150 from his home province.
“Normally on an issue of importance I might get 20 or 30 at the most from PEI, so this was a lot more,” he said.
Senator Joan Fraser received approximately 3,100 messages about C-51, while former RCMP officer Senator Larry Campbell only reported receiving a few hundred.
Senator Mobina Jaffer, an international activist for human and women’s rights, has received a whopping 10,000 email messages since May and they continue to trickle in, even though the bill is out of the Senate now.
“But not one letter I got was in favour of C-51 though, and that’s not normal,” she said.
Senator Grant Mitchell, deputy chair of the Senate committee on National Defence and Security, was the lead critic for the Liberal Senate caucus. He also was involved in the Senate’s pre-study of the bill at committee.
He compares his C-51 feedback to the response he got to the Kyoto bill and C-279, NDP MP Randall Garrison’s transgender bill of rights, which Mitchell is co-sponsoring through the Senate.
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Bill C-51 opposition tweeted by Margaret Atwood, Sarah Harmer
Liberals say they’ll vote in favour of Bill C-51, despite hoping for changes
Canadian author Margaret Atwood and singer-songwriter Sarah Harmer are voicing complaints about the Conservatives’ proposed anti-terrorism bill, asking Liberal MPs from their communities to vote against it.
In particular, Harmer and Atwood have got their backs up over the Liberals’ pledge to support the bill, despite saying they would change it if they win power in next fall’s election.
“[Prime Minister Stephen Harper] is attacking our rights & freedoms,” Atwood tweeted at Toronto MP Adam Vaughan, a Liberal.
“Please do the right thing and #voteagainstC51.”
Harmer retweeted Atwood’s message, tagging Kingston, Ont., Liberal MP Ted Hsu.
The NDP and the Green Party oppose C-51, which has gone through the committee stage in the House of Commons and is set to return to the floor of the House next week.
The legislation is a late-bloomer in this session, having been tabled less than a year before the 2015 election.
The NDP is using procedural tactics to delay the bill and has tabled 66 deletion motions which could, depending on how the votes are grouped, slow the House agenda. The party is also asking its supporters to go directly to Liberal MPs to tell them to vote against the bill.
Sweeping powers
Opponents argue the pendulum has swung too far toward security and away from civil liberties.
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NEW CANADIAN COUNTERTERRORISM LAW THREATENS ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS
NEW CANADIAN COUNTERTERRORISM LAW THREATENS ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS
Geraldine Thomas-Flurer, who campaigns for environmental protection on behalf of indigenous First Nations in Canada, wasn’t surprised when, in 2012, she found out that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been keeping tabs on her. The Toronto Star that year obtained documents showing that federal police had monitored private meetings held between her coalition and local environmental groups.
Now she just laughs when asked whether she’s comforted by assurances from government officials that new surveillance and policing powers outlined under a proposed Canadian Anti-Terror Law wouldn’t be aimed at peaceful protesters.
The passage of the terrorism bill would represent a new “open season on First Nations who are speaking out,” she says.
Across Canada, police surveillance and intervention have long been a reality for groups working to stop development of fossil fuel extraction, including pipeline construction and fracking. The sense that somebody’s watching is part of the price Thomas-Flurer, of the Saik’uz nation, has paid for coordinating the Yinka Dene Alliance, a coalition of six First Nations in British Columbia that have banned the passage of the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline through their territory.
The coalition is part of a movement that has slowed the development of the pipeline, which would carry more than 500,000 barrels per day of crude from landlocked Alberta’s oil sands to a port on Canada’s west coast, so much so that a recent CBC News article questioned whether the project was “being quietly shelved.”
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What You’ll Have to Do to Stay Under the Radar if Bill C-51 Becomes Law
What You’ll Have to Do to Stay Under the Radar if Bill C-51 Becomes Law
Bill C-51 is an omnibus anti-terrorism bill that grants CSIS new information sharing powers and converts CSIS from a covertintelligence gathering organization to acovert enforcement agency.
No wonder Canadians don’t know what the heck is going on!
Ms. Soapbox is here to offer four simple suggestions to keep you out of trouble when Stephen Harper’s majority government finally passes this monstrous piece of legislation.
Get off the grid: Communicate by pencil and paper. Buy a manual typewriter. Stop posting snarky things about Harper on Facebook and Twitter. You don’t want to be identified as a troublemaker and your life will become a nightmare if you’re caught in a CSIS “disruption” operation (see below).
No more rallies, demonstrations, protests or sit-ins: Avoid any form of protest or civil disobedience, especially those organized by environmental or Aboriginal groups.
Why? Because unless you know for certain that the demo organizers got the municipal permits they need to congregate, wave signs or chain themselves to inanimate objects, the protest is not “lawful advocacy, protest or artistic expression” and as such is not immune from CSIS scrutiny (subject to Craig Forcese’s comments below).
If you’re hellbent on camping out with Occupy, waving a placard in the freezing cold outside the Legislature, staging a sit-in at your MP’s constituency office, or going on a wildcat strike, be warned that that your information may be shared with up to 17 government agencies and “any person, for any purpose” (Putin?) if CSIS thinks such activity “undermines the security of Canada” because unlawful protests are not exempt from the information sharing provision.
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Bill C-51 ‘Day of Action’ protests denounce new policing powers
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May join protests in Montreal, Toronto
Protests are underway across Canada against the government’s proposed anti-terrorism legislation, which would give police much broader powers and allow them to detain terror suspects and give new powers to Canada’s spy agency.
NDP leader Tom Mulcair joined hundreds In Montreal in a march through the city. One protester held up a poster saying “C-51 is an act of terror,” while others carried red “Stop Harper” signs.
The protest was expected to end in front of the riding office ofLiberal Leader Justin Trudeau. Trudeau has said his caucus will vote in favour of the bill.
- Bill C-51 hearings: Diane Ablonczy’s questions to Muslim group ‘McCarthyesque’
- Anti-terror bill committee hears monologues, but few questions
- Privacy watchdog blocked from witness list
- Proposed CSIS powers a ‘constitutional mess,’ says ex-watchdog
NDP MPs Craig Scott and Linda Duncan were part of the crowd gathered outside Canada Place in downtown Edmonton. Some placards called the bill “criminalization of dissent” and warned “big brother is watching you.”
Protesters said they are worried the bill will be used to harass or silence critics of government’s environmental and aboriginal policies.
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Let’s Not Sacrifice Freedom Out Of Fear
Let’s Not Sacrifice Freedom Out Of Fear
A scientist, or any knowledgeable person, will tell you climate change is a serious threat for Canada and the world. But theRCMP has a different take. A secret report by the national police force, obtained by Greenpeace, both minimizes the threat of global warming and conjures a spectre of threats posed by people who rightly call for sanity in dealing with problems caused by burning fossil fuels.
The RCMP report has come to light as federal politicians debate the “anti-terrorism” Bill C-51. Although the act wouldn’t apply to “lawful advocacy, protest, dissent and artistic expression,” its language echoes the tone of the RCMPreport. It would give massive new powers to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service to prevent any person or group from “undermining the security of Canada,” including “interference with critical infrastructure” and the “economic or financial stability of Canada.” And it would seriously infringe on freedom of speech and expression. The new CSIS powers would lack necessary public oversight.
The RCMP report specifically names Greenpeace, Tides Canada and the Sierra Club as part of “a growing, highly organized and well-financed anti-Canada petroleum movement that consists of peaceful activists, militants and violent extremists who are opposed to society’s reliance on fossil fuels.” The report downplays climate change, calling it a “perceived environmental threat” and saying members of the “international anti-Canadian petroleum movement … claim that climate change is now the most serious global environmental threat and that climate change is a direct consequence of elevated anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions which, reportedly, are directly linked to the continued use of fossil fuels.” It also makes numerous references to anti-petroleum and indigenous “extremists”.
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