O Canada! > Canadian > Canadian Broadband > Lawful Access articles - collection

reply to MaynardKrebs

Re: Lawful Access articles - collection

reply to Ott_Cable
EXPECT MORE GOVERNMENT/POLICE CORRUPTION WITH NO-WARRANT SEARCHES

The Canadian (Commons recent Bill C-30) would—give any Canadian police officer without a warrant—the power to request Internet service providers turn over customer information (see section 17 of C-30) cause the same loss of electronic privacy and civil liberties that British Government recently proposed—to spy on Brits’ electronic communications. Is it coincidence the British and Canadian proposals appear to mirror legislation U.S. Government said it wanted passed in 2011 to spy on U.S. Citizens?

Overlooked by mainstream media is that Britain and Canada signed with the U.S Government an array of (Asset Forfeiture Sharing Agreements) to share with Canadian and British Police/Governments assets seized from Brits, Canadians and Americans that resulted from e.g, evidence or information gleaned from electronic surveillance of Citizens’ communications, e.g., emails, faxes, Internet actively, phone records including GPS tracking.

Compare with U.S. Government’s proposal to electronically monitor, spy on Americans without a warrant—with Canada’s recent eavesdropping (Bill C-30) and British Government’s plan to spy on its Citizens’ electronic communications.

U.S. Government wants the power to (introduce as evidence) in criminal prosecutions and government civil trials, any phone call record, email or Internet activity. That would open the door for Police to take out of context any innocent—hastily written email, fax or phone call record to allege a crime or violation was committed to cause a person’s arrest, fines and or civil asset forfeiture of their property. There are more than 350 laws and violations that can subject property to government asset forfeiture. Government civil asset forfeiture requires only a civil preponderance of evidence for police to forfeit property, little more than hearsay.

If the U.S. Justice Department has its way, any information the FBI derives from circumventing the Fourth Amendment, i.e. (no warrant searches) of Web Server Records; a Citizen’s Internet Activity, personal emails; fax / phone calls may be used by the FBI for (fishing expeditions) to issue subpoenas in hopes of finding evidence or to prosecute Citizens for any alleged crime or violation. Consider that neither Congress nor the courts—determined what Bush II NSA electronic surveillance, perhaps illegal could be used by police or introduced into court by government to prosecute Americans criminally or civilly. If U.S. Justice Department is permitted (No-Warrant) surveillance of all electronic communications, it is problematic state and local law enforcement agencies and private government contractors will want access to prior Bush II NSA and other government illegally obtained electronic records not limited to—Americans’ Internet activity; private emails, faxes and phone calls to secure evidence to arrest Americans, assess fines and or civilly forfeit their homes, businesses and other assets under Title 18USC and other laws. Of obvious concern, what happens to fair justice in America if police become dependent on “Asset Forfeiture” to help pay their salaries and budget operating costs?

The “Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000” (effectively eliminated) the “five year statue of limitations” for Government Civil Asset Forfeiture: the statute now runs five years (from the date) police allege they “learned” an asset became subject to forfeiture. It is foreseeable should (no warrant) government electronic surveillance be approved; police will relentlessly sift through business and Citizen’s (government retained Internet data), emails and phone communications to discover possible crimes or civil violations. A corrupt despot U.S. Government can too easily use no-warrant—(seized emails, Internet data and phone call information) to blackmail Americans, corporations and others in the same manner Hitler utilized his police state passed laws to extort support for the Nazi fascist government, including getting parliament to pass Hitler’s 1933 Discriminatory Decrees that suspended the Constitutional Freedoms of German Citizens. A Nazi Government threat of “Property Seizure” Asset Forfeiture of an individual or corporation’s assets was usually sufficient to ensure Nazi support.

Under U.S. federal civil forfeiture laws, a person or business need not be charged with a crime for government to forfeit their property. Most U.S. Citizens, property and business owners that defend their assets against Government Civil Asset Forfeiture claim an “innocent owner defense.” This defense can become a criminal prosecution trap for both guilty and innocent property owners. Any fresh denial of guilt made to government when questioned about committing a crime “even when you did not do the crime” may (involuntarily waive) a defendant’s right to assert in their defense—the “Criminal Statute of Limitations” past for prosecution; any fresh denial of guilt even 30 years after a crime was committed may allow Government prosecutors to use old and new evidence, including information discovered during a Civil Asset Forfeiture Proceeding to launch a criminal prosecution. For that reason many innocent Americans, property and business owners are reluctant to defend their property and businesses against Government Civil Asset Forfeiture.

Re: waiving Criminal Statute of Limitations: see USC18, Sec.1001, James Brogan V. United States. N0.96-1579. U.S. See paragraph (6) at:
»www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/9···ZC1.html

reply to jfmezei
The way the law should have been written would to have included this as its first two operative statements after the definitions/preamble section......

1) No provider of telecommunications shall provide any personalized customer information to any person, company, body, agency, or any level of government - domestic or foreign - without first being presented a warrant duly executed by a judge of competent jurisdiction under this Act.

2) It is incumbent upon the provider of telecommunications to verify the warrant has been lawfully issued by contacting the jurisdiction under which it has been issued within 2 hours of receipt of the warrant. Absent confirmation within 72 hours of receipt of the warrant, the telecommunications provider must not release any information to the requesting party.

Or:

someone calls, pretends to be a cop. ISP sends replies to a centralised body who then verifies the cop's identity, logs the request and then transmits info to the cop if the cop has been identified and confirmed as a cop.

Yeah.....Paul Blart, Mall Cop.

reply to jfmezei

reply to MaynardKrebs
Everyone should take a moment and read the biography of Herr Toews. And I apply the correct term in this case. He's German.

»en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Toews

He's an extremist right wing bible thumping break the law if it's good for me, but don't you do it or we'll throw you in jail nut bag. He's already abused his powers in the past by spying on judges and elected officials who've disagreed with him. And he's poised to do it again. On a national scale. He and Goebbels would have made a good pair.

But Toews didn't write C-30. He admitted not knowing about important sections of it (how convenient !)

Is this the new variation of the lame excuse "The dog wrote my homework"?

reply to jfmezei

Rick Mercer's rant on the lawful access law.

reply to MaynardKrebs
Toews Blasts Opponents Of Internet Surveillance Bill
»www.liquidmatrix.org/blog/2012/0···ce-bill/

But senior departmental officials also criticized Toews, who previously served as attorney general of Canada and Manitoba, for failing to state in his public response to Cavoukian that there are provisions of the Criminal Code that allow police to read emails without a warrant in special cases.

In a letter to the editor, he wrote in part: “Let me be clear. No legislation proposed in the past, present or future by a Conservative government will create powers for police to read emails without a warrant.”

“This is problematic because Section 184.4 of the Criminal Code currently provides for that,” the director of national security technologies at Public Safety wrote to colleagues after reading the letter.

reply to MaynardKrebs
Add this to Bill C-30 and nobody in this country will ever fly again.

What is Your Kafka Plan Frequent Flyer Number?
»www.huffingtonpost.ca/shahid-mah···653.html

reply to MaynardKrebs
Poor Vic.
His skin must be as delicate as that of a peach.

I don't get it - plenty of people have degraded him to his face

Toews says short-lived Vikileaks an attempt to 'anonymously degrade' him
»www.hilltimes.com/news/legislati···ws/29672

Mr. Comartin, NDP House leader and a member of the secretive Commons Board of Internal Economy that also could be in charge of any investigation, said even if Commons employees flooded Mr. Toews’ email accounts, they would have a right to express their views on the surveillance bill.

“The fact that people on the Hill would send him emails critical of legislation would just be part of their job,” Mr. Comartin said. “On the other hand, threatening emails or crossing the line into criminality of course it’s a valid complaint. But if it’s that, that should be going to the police, to the RCMP, not the Speaker.”

.....

“People have the right working on the Hill, and I included myself in that, I have a right, using my email on the Hill to send a note to Vic and say, ‘This is really bad legislation and I am opposed to it, I urge you to withdraw it,’” Mr. Comartin said. “Emails of that kind coming through House offices are entirely appropriate.”

Mr. Comartin took issue with what appeared to be a suggestion in the Ottawa Citizen report that someone from the NDP was behind the Vikileaks operation.

“The best knowledge we have at this point is that in fact it is either difficult or impossible to trace that back to a specific computer,” he said. “We have canvassed as many of our employees as possible, none of them have indicated that they did that, the Viki leaks.”

reply to MaynardKrebs
#TellVicEverything: The Government Getting What it Deserves
»www.huffingtonpost.ca/mark-crowl···politics

The Census was scrapped against an overwhelming storm of anger from opposition parties, citizens, social groups, religious groups, and scientists in and outside of Canada.

The Tories wondered why the government should care how many bedrooms you have.

The gun registry was supported by the national chiefs of police and criminal experts around the country as well as the provincial governments of Canada's largest provinces as an incredibly positive system that allowed police to know the whereabouts of guns that might be used against them or others.

But the Tories said long guns are an important way of life for many Canadians, a useful tool and perfectly legal. So why should the police want to have extra tracking of them and make those law abiding Canadians feel like criminals?

So now the majority Conservative government is pushing through another law as quickly as it can: the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act put forward by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews. This law would give the police power to gather information about the activities of Canadians on the Internet from their service providers without a warrant.

So let me get this straight: You can't trust the police to sensibly deal with an official registry of guns which are legally owned by people. You also can't trust the government to track detailed information about a random sample of the population no matter how staggeringly useful it is. However, you can trust the police to ask for access to the activities of anyone on the Internet, anytime, without going to a judge to justify it based on a criminal investigation? These beliefs are conflicting. [ Unless the real intent of the C-30 is to dig dirt out on your political 'enemies' and people not doing what Hollywood wants them to do ]

reply to MaynardKrebs
And the Privacy Gaps Just Keep On Coming
»bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/1···chnology

Christopher N. Olsen, assistant director in the division of privacy and identity protection at the Federal Trade Commission, expects that as the privacy violations pile up, Congress could enact laws to protect consumers. “Industry should redouble its efforts to focus on privacy issues, or they may face additional pressure in form of legislation from Congress,” he said.

“Companies Governments need to look at privacy issues in terms of consumer needs, baking in privacy by design when building apps, so you’re not trying to do it afterwards,” she said. “They should think about it every step of the way, and really consider privacy at every stage of product law development.”

If companies governments start to do this, they could avoid the fate of Google and Facebook, which are now operating, however loosely, under government Anonymous scrutiny after abusing customers’ citizens' privacy.

Not a brief per say but ....

»www.parl.gc.ca/About/House/Witne···ef-e.htm

how to submit a brief to a house of commons commitee.

UPDATE: According to Kady O'Malley, C-30 will go to Public Safety Committee, not Justice. »www.parl.gc.ca/SECU-e is the URL for the public safety and national security committee.

The Bill's "home" page showing status etc at parl.gc.ca:

»www.parl.gc.ca/LEGISInfo/BillDet···=5375610

reply to Ott_Cable
This story shows how they follow a phone call trace the long way during the election.

"Fraudulent election calls traced to Edmonton firm with Tory links" »news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/22···-traced/

>Elections Canada traced the number on the call display to a disposable cellphone in the 450 area code of Joliette, Quebec, about 50 kilometres from Montreal.

>An Elections Canada investigator issued a subpoena to the cellphone provider that produced a list of outgoing calls from the same number. One of the calls was to the toll-free number used by customers of Edmonton voice-broadcaster Racknine to phone in and record their outgoing messages.
>The investigator also issued a series of subpoenas to phone companies for billing records that tracked the calls received by Guelph voters back to their originating phone carriers. The trail of IP addresses also led to Racknine’s servers in Edmonton.

Who would think the CallerID wasn't bogus!

reply to MaynardKrebs
Online surveillance bill setup costs estimated at $80M
»www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/201···sts.html

A spokesperson for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews wouldn't provide any more information about the costs. It's not clear if those are the only costs associated with the legislation.

reply to MaynardKrebs
Vic Toews' predecessor opposed extra power for police
»www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2···day.html

A former Conservative public safety minister says he was against giving the police more power when he was in charge of the department that's now pushing the government's lawful access legislation.

Stockwell Day, who was public safety minister from 2006 until 2008, says he thought anything police did should be accompanied by a warrant.

--- As one commenter on the CBC site wrote:
"By sending the bill to committee for amendment, they create the illusion of openness when in fact all they have done is to change the subject. We have been duped into a debate about the form of the bill rather then the vastly more important discussion about whether the bill should ever have been drafted in the first place."

Kill this Bill, dead.