For years, small-c conservatives have been arguing that the gun registry is a giant waste of money - not only because it went way over budget, but due to the fact that it serves to make criminals out of law-abiding firearms owners. Meanwhile, those intent on committing crimes easily escape its grip. To their credit, the federal Tories are in the process of scrapping the registry. But while the government restores some of our freedoms with one hand, it simultaneously takes them away with the other.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has placed the Conservatives' so-called "lawful access" legislation - which they've been trying to pass since 2009 - on the House of Commons Order Paper. If it becomes law, the bill will give the government unprecedented access to Canadians' online activities, by allowing police to collect the personal information of Internet users - including names, addresses and phone numbers - without having to go through the cumbersome process of obtaining a warrant beforehand.
In order to gain access to these intimate details, the government will force Internet service providers to install costly monitoring equipment on their networks. Taxpayers will likely be forced to foot part of the bill, but the rest of the cost will be borne by private industry. Smaller providers could be driven out of what is already an uncompetitive market. The law would also make it much easier for police to force telecommunication companies to retain information on their customers and to enable tracking devices on mobile phones.
This type of legislation brings us one step closer to George Orwell's dystopian vision of a totalitarian state that keeps its citizens under constant surveillance. Yet there is no evidence the new law will achieve its public policy objectives.
Law enforcement agencies have been unable to come up with a single investigation that has been hampered by the limits of the laws currently on the books. Even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police could not find a "sufficient quantity of credible examples" to support the additional powers the lawful access legislation would grant them, according to a series of internal e-mails obtained by the Vancouver-based group Open Media. Postmedia News has also obtained government documents, in which officials from within Public Safety Canada object to some of the key arguments the Minister has used to justify the bill.
The other problem with the legislation is that tech-savvy Internet users already have a whole host of technologies for evading censorship at their disposal. Software that encrypts and anonymizes Internet traffic - and allows people to gain access to hidden networks - is already in use by those living in authoritarian countries, such as China and Syria, as well as by individuals and groups engaging in criminal acts. If our government starts acting like an Orwellian police state, it will only drive more people into the dark alleys of the online world, where unsavoury material is more readily available.
What we have in the "lawful access" legislation is a bill that violates the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens, while leaving criminals easy ways to avoid it entirely - which sounds an awful lot like the gun registry.
We deserve better from our elected officials. The Conservatives have been intent on enacting laws that give more power to police and impose a heavy burden on society, despite a lack of evidence of the effectiveness of such measures. Should our government be vigorously combating such evils as terrorism and child pornography? Of course. But it must find a way to do so without sacrificing Canadians' basic civil liberties in the process.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has placed the Conservatives' so-called "lawful access" legislation - which they've been trying to pass since 2009 - on the House of Commons Order Paper. If it becomes law, the bill will give the government unprecedented access to Canadians' online activities, by allowing police to collect the personal information of Internet users - including names, addresses and phone numbers - without having to go through the cumbersome process of obtaining a warrant beforehand.
In order to gain access to these intimate details, the government will force Internet service providers to install costly monitoring equipment on their networks. Taxpayers will likely be forced to foot part of the bill, but the rest of the cost will be borne by private industry. Smaller providers could be driven out of what is already an uncompetitive market. The law would also make it much easier for police to force telecommunication companies to retain information on their customers and to enable tracking devices on mobile phones.
This type of legislation brings us one step closer to George Orwell's dystopian vision of a totalitarian state that keeps its citizens under constant surveillance. Yet there is no evidence the new law will achieve its public policy objectives.
Law enforcement agencies have been unable to come up with a single investigation that has been hampered by the limits of the laws currently on the books. Even the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police could not find a "sufficient quantity of credible examples" to support the additional powers the lawful access legislation would grant them, according to a series of internal e-mails obtained by the Vancouver-based group Open Media. Postmedia News has also obtained government documents, in which officials from within Public Safety Canada object to some of the key arguments the Minister has used to justify the bill.
The other problem with the legislation is that tech-savvy Internet users already have a whole host of technologies for evading censorship at their disposal. Software that encrypts and anonymizes Internet traffic - and allows people to gain access to hidden networks - is already in use by those living in authoritarian countries, such as China and Syria, as well as by individuals and groups engaging in criminal acts. If our government starts acting like an Orwellian police state, it will only drive more people into the dark alleys of the online world, where unsavoury material is more readily available.
What we have in the "lawful access" legislation is a bill that violates the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens, while leaving criminals easy ways to avoid it entirely - which sounds an awful lot like the gun registry.
We deserve better from our elected officials. The Conservatives have been intent on enacting laws that give more power to police and impose a heavy burden on society, despite a lack of evidence of the effectiveness of such measures. Should our government be vigorously combating such evils as terrorism and child pornography? Of course. But it must find a way to do so without sacrificing Canadians' basic civil liberties in the process.
Original Article
Source: national post
Author: editorial
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