Canadian Broadband → A clear example of 'unreported crime'

Ontario judge to examine Telus-Rogers’ Charter of Rights challenge
»www.thestar.com/news/can ··· nge.html

An Ontario judge has agreed to hear a Charter of Rights challenge brought by Telus and Rogers after they were asked by police in April to release cellphone information about 40,000 to 50,000 customers as part of an investigation.

...

Each of the production orders presented to Telus and Rogers required the name and address of every subscriber making or attempting a communication through the specified towers and, in cases where the connection is between two customers, the orders also required billing information that could include bank and credit card information.

Telus told the court that the order would require it to disclose the information of at least 9,000 individuals. Rogers estimated it would need to retrieve about 200,000 records related to 34,000 subscribers.

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What kind of 'investigation' needs information about 50,000 citizens? Seems pretty clear now that all that "unreported crime" Herr Harpler was ranting on about is crimes committed by the police against the citizens of Canada.

Depends what kind of investigation it is. Should it be a CSIS/RCMP terrorist investigation they could be asking for communication of an airport cell tower or tower near an airport or even port of entry. Thats the only time I could even fathom the need for communications of every single person on a tower. If it were related to anything else, child porn, trafficking, etc. Every phone produces a public ip address or phone number that is very simply tied to an individual.

They would likely be trying to find a correlation between two datasets that they can't disclose to the other source. This means they have to get the lists from each source and look for the matches themselves.

Still the requests do need to be as limited as possible in scope and the alleged crime serious enough to warrant the intrusion. As well it should be done it two parts: enough information to find matches followed by requests for more detailed information on any matches if necessary. From the article it seems the request was originally too broad and was narrowed after Telus and Rogers balked at the original request.

This kind of thing just doesn't compute. What possible crime could necessitate police asking for records on 3.3% of a regions total population - not just cellphone users for those companies, total population (ie: % of cellphone users would be much higher). That's insane.

While I think dragnet surveillance should never be a substitute for good police work, sometimes they're not mutually exclusive.

Good read here:

»arstechnica.com/tech-pol ··· matters/

Proper legal authorization ought to be required at all times.

NO information from ISPs, phone etc. should be handed over without the judicial oversight of a warrant. This idea that police should have some free rain to monitor anyone, and everyone without some kind of legal oversight is giving up our rights as Canadians.

I'm not against police etc being able to catch the bad guys, but I don't trust police to not start doing witch hunt type investigations and not monitor the daily lives of innocent Canadians without some kind of additional oversight. If they suspect someone is doing something illegal (child porn etc) then go to a judge and get a warrant for the information. Any other way will make a police state where the government and police monitor every persons moves, in the privacy of their own homes. This is not Canada or the way a free country should be and should accept.

At the same time, speeding up the warrant process, I don't have an issue with.

Dragnets and good police work are mutually exclusive. That's not to say using data to locate someone isn't viable, it's that the police should not be able to request the dump. Rather, the police should provide the information to the company with the info and if they are able to isolate a single account that information be provided to police. If it's more than one account then a judge should decide if the number of potentials is small enough to warrant handing over the information, balancing rights vs public safety.

While it's a nuance, it's an important one. It's easy to grow complacent in a fairly reasonable society like our own and forget the lessons of the past.

But it IS Herr Harpler's Kanada, and that's the way he wants it.

Glad I'm with neither of those. Wonder if Bell would have been any different?

Not that I'm with Bell anyway but just wondering why they weren't cited

That's why the request was done at the behest of Peel Regional Police, which is obviously under the control of the Government of Canada. Oh wait, no it's not...it operates under the behest of the PSA, which is currently overseen by the Liberal Party of Ontario.

Who writes the laws?
Herr Harpler and his merry bunch of yes men.
Of course, we have the SCC which strikes down some of Herr Harpler's excesses.

Really? You're telling me they traveled back in time, and wrote the laws while the liberals were in power, somehow? That's pretty impressive. What's next for the ol'boy? Supreme overlord? Becoming Spuds McKenzie?