I’m sitting around a boardroom table, talking with my fellow managers at my company. The staff of my department has drawn up a plan to help the company combat worker theft. I pitch this plan as a progressive and necessary way to deal with the very real threat of worker theft.
One of my colleagues pipes up.
“Look I have some concerns that this might be violating our workers privacy, it might be going to far, and might even be illegal.”
Standing up, I launch into defense of my plan, “We NEED this plan. Without this plan, our company will go bankrupt, and the people stealing from us, they’ll then use the items they stole to then come to our houses and steal from and victimize our children.”
My colleague, a little taken aback, “I think that’s an extreme response, I just have concerns your plan goes too far…”
“You’re either with us, or the child pornographers!” I reply heatedly.
Several days pass. My boss invites me into his office. He clears his throat.
“I can’t help but notice your plan involved installing cameras and microphones in the bathrooms, change rooms, and inside the seams of the uniforms of employees,” my boss says.
“What? Really? That’s the first I’ve heard of it,” I reply. “I’m pretty certain I’m not expanding the powers of our security department that much.”
“Did you read this thing?” he asks. “It pretty clearly defines the new powers, saying cameras are to be put everywhere. I can read you the relevant section if you like,” he responds.
“Well, I really only read the cliff notes. I didn’t really know about that,” I reply, only mildly apologetically.
***************************************
You know what would happen next?
My boss would fire me. Rightfully so. Because I didn’t know what my department was doing, I didn’t know what was in the plan I was backing, and because I completely embarrassed myself, my department, and if it ever went public, my company.
Will Vic Toews be removed from his portfolio. Unlikely. Should he? Yes, immediately. He should then resign his seat, and a by-election should be held in his riding, because there is no way any constituent in their right mind would still have confidence in Vic Toews, and that’s how our government works. The government works until it has lost the confidence of the people.
And Vic Toews, clearly demonstrated he’s not competent enough to be working for Canadians.
Section 34 of the recently introduced Online Surveillance bill allows government agents, (doesn’t have to be police), completely unfettered access to your online information through your internet service provider.
Don’t want to take my word for it? Then take Terry Milewski’s word for it. The longtime political reporter for the CBC has a great breakdown of the worst parts of the legislation here.
So what can you do? Without getting up and even leaving your computer, you can do the following:
All of these things will take less than five minutes of your time.
If you stick your head in the sand, then the government will get away without whatever they want. When freedoms are given away, they are not easy to get back. A message needs to be send.
Come on Canada, make some noise.
Internet Privacy is back on the table again. And as per usual, it’s being rushed through the House of Commons, since the Conservatives would rather not have the public pay too much attention to what they’re up to.
In fact, in announcing that they were introducing the new laws which would allow law enforcement to demand sensitive and identifying information from ISP’s without a warrant, the Conservatives launched the first salvo saying if you opposed the bill you’re on the side of child pornographers.
Really. So almost every provincial privacy commissioner, along with the federal privacy commissioner, whom have raised grave concerns over the looming legislation, are on the side of child pornographers. Every Canadian who thinks that the government shouldn’t be snooping through their internet packets without justifiable cause, is on the side of those who victimize and exploit the most vulnerable. Really. Wow. That’s a pretty big blanket statement.
Or maybe the Conservatives know full well that the majority of Canadians don’t want big brother watching them, so they have to go to extremes. It seems an awful lot like a certain southern neighbour tactic. You know, the ole, if you oppose the government, you’re unpatriotic crap that’s been spewed by partisans in the United States for the last couple of years. Are Canadians really getting so stupid that this sort of bullshit will work? You’re either with us, or with the child pornographers?
I don’t support child pornographers. I also don’t support this poorly thought out piece of expletive legislation.
In the new digital age, police need new investigative powers. I won’t argue that. They need to be able to track down sexual offenders, child pornographers and see that they face the justice system. In fact, the harsher sentences for these types of criminals is about the only part of the new crime bill already before the House that I support. Seriously, I’d be open to re-opening the debate on capital punishment in regards to these guys.
But giving police these new powers without oversight is asking for abuse. And mark my words, if they are allowed to collect the information that is listed in this bill without warrants, it WILL be abused eventually. It’s the nature of the beast, and of humanity. Why have a power if you’re not going to use it? Once you use it, you get used to using it, until the bar for using it becomes pretty low. That’s why we have a warrant system in place for phone taps. That’s why trials are held in public view, to keep everyone accountable. The police need to be held accountable and that’s what warrants do.
In Canada, there’s no constitutional right to privacy. People seem to think there is, but there isn’t. There is however this:
“Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.”
So the question is, if this passes, how long until the courts decide that warrantless information collection is going to be inadmissible as it breaches the right to unreasonable search and seizure? Hopefully not too long. If we’re really lucky, one of the big telecoms will show some guts, and refuse the first attempt by police to collect information without a warrant. I think the courts will defend the constitution.
Though I do think it could be pretty interesting to see what flimsy excuses come out when police start being forced to explain why they were breaching these rights with their warrantless data collection.
I think it would be better though if we amended this broken piece of legislation now. Give police the tools they need to track down those who victimize children using the internet. Money, training, and legislation together can help them get these criminals. Just include arms length oversight. You don’t even need to create a new system, we already have it. They’re called warrants, and, all the cool democracies already use ‘em.
-30-
… and yet it took the Conservatives only months to justify billions for new prisons, and create the need for them by removing judicial discretion in sentencing for crimes that used to be dealt with through treatment and rehabilitation.
Yes, it took nearly a decade to OK 3.6 billion, probably millions of hours of study and discussion, but the Conservatives introduced legislation, then limited discussion over the course of a few months to spend what has been estimated to be at least $8 billion on new super prisons.
The difference is one was a practical decision on something we needed versus a decision that was made purely for ideological reasons with no basis on facts. More proof it’s easy to make a decision when you don’t care about information and live in an ideological bubble.
-sigh-
So the Harper government broke the law, and went ahead and disbanded the Canadian Wheat Board in a brutal over reach of authority. The legislation of the Canadian Wheat Board specifically required consultation with the farmers, so that no one government could quickly kill the wheat board in a rash act.
The Harper government knowing it did not necessarily have the support of farmers went ahead and dissolved the 70 year old Wheat Board and ignored the legislation. Their rationale is in a nutshell, that no legislation can stop the government from making legislation, so it doesn’t matter if they’r breaking the law, because they’re above the law.
WOW. So basically they’re saying there are no restrictions on legislation. None. Does this include the Charter of Rights & Freedoms? It certainly prevents the government from passing legislation, so I’m going to go ahead and say yes.
Anyone else feel a cold chill?
I would say, it’s about time, but in reality it’s probably too late.
Facebook has finally, after many grievous and brutal breaches of users trust and their own published policies, settled with the American Federal Trade Commission. It had faced charges that it had deceived consumers to share more personal information than they had originally agreed.
I don’t think anyone can argue that point. They added new features then turned on the sharing features without our consent, and shared plenty of information that we did not explicitly agree to with people we had not approved.
But the new changes, meaning that facebook actually has to get users explicit permission before changing their settings on them, is a little late for most of the long term users, since it’s the internet. Once the information is out and leaked, it’s not put back in. It’s not like the settlement means that advertisers who have collected your information are going to give it back.
This really is a matter of closing the barn door once the horses have fled. This cat can’t be put back in the bag, or any other number of clichés that fit quite nicely here.
Nope, the damage for most of us is done. The only thing this does is make it look like it won’t happen again.
And with face book’s track record, I wouldn’t count on it.
BC Liberal MLA Moira Stilwell is making an attempt at further developing a nanny state in BC with the introduction of new legislation that she says would prevent concussions in young athletes.
The private members bill would require a young athlete to be removed from play if a concussion is suspected.
Now, how removing someone from play after a concussion has occurred is supposed to prevent a concussion, I’m not too sure. The only thing it can prevent is the escalation of the severity of a concussion, which is wise, but I think common sense is probably better for dictating that sort of decision rather than a police officer.
I mean really, we just started laying charges in connection to the Vancouver riots, in which we had plenty of photo and video evidence. We have a huge new crime bill about to be shoved down the provinces throats, and our justice system is already so backed up drunk drivers who kill people are getting off scott free. You think the police are going to have time to investigate when little Timmy bumped his head, and got back into the game? The rhetorical answer for those of you who don’t understand sarcasm is no.
Not to mention that introducing a law is probably the dumbest way to try and manage something of this nature, especially when concussions are still a difficult injury to understand and measure.
I agree with the NDP’s Peggy Nash that Canada is moving in the wrong direction, becoming more combative. I also agree sales taxes shouldn’t be raised. That’s where my agreement ends. Her views on exploring the Bank of Canada’s monetary policy are uninformed, and even changing the expectation of their policy can actually impact the economics pressures on inflation. Thankfully, she’s leadership hopeful, not a front runner, so we probably don’t have to worry too much. If ever she gets in power, hopefully someone smarter than her will tell her to shut the hell up.
… that there aren’t more opposition MP’s cracking and swearing up a storm. How many times have the Conservatives limited time so far? Actually, a better question, with a much shorter answer would be, “How many bills haven’t had their time debate time limited?”
I would love to know the answer to that. Just because it’s a majority doesn’t mean they have the right to ignore the parliamentary process. It’s a democracy, and in another three and a half years, you face another election. Keep this up, and Canada might be fortunate enough to see another conservative party die.
The Liberals are proposing redistributing the existing MP’s in the House of Commons to make up for the underreprenstation by region instead of bringing in a slew of new seats.
CBC has a nice chart showing the change in representation using the plan comparing it to the Conservatives. The NDP used the opportunity to say if the Liberals were really about saving money they’d support abolishing the Senate. The Conservatives blasted it, I imagine, without evening looking at it, because it’s not their idea.
Leave it to the NDP to bring up something not even remotely related, and the Conservatives to blast the plan and give brilliant quotes that show a complete lack of thought.
The plan is brilliant. I think it’s a creative approach to addressing the issue of under presentation during a period where the government should be cutting costs, not increasing them. I don’t recall there being any real public outcry asking for more seats or representation in the public, and the Conservatives complete objection to the plan without even discussing it just shows the entire thing is a manufactured issue.
I wish the Conservatives would just pretend to think about good ideas before outright rejecting them.