{"id":7112,"date":"2012-02-18T10:32:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-18T18:32:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=7112"},"modified":"2012-02-18T10:32:36","modified_gmt":"2012-02-18T18:32:36","slug":"online-surveillance-bill-c-30-opens-door-for-big-brother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/18\/online-surveillance-bill-c-30-opens-door-for-big-brother\/","title":{"rendered":"Online surveillance bill (C-30) opens door for Big Brother"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.” – George Orwell, 1984.<\/p>\n

It’s often forgotten that, for Orwell, 1984 was far in the future \u2014 a distant and imaginary hell. Published 35 years earlier, in 1949, his book conjured up a surveillance state filled with chilling new concepts: “Big Brother,” “Thought Police” and “Newspeak.”<\/p>\n

Today, 1984 has come and gone but Big Brother is real and present in ways Orwell never imagined. In China, the very names of imprisoned dissidents are banned from the internet. In Saudi Arabia, an unholy tweet can bring you a death sentence.<\/p>\n

Here in Canada, though, freedom reigns. A sign of that may be that the government’s new plan for policing cyberspace is in big trouble.<\/p>\n

Within 24 hours of its unsteady launch, the government pledged to send its new legislation straight to committee for amendments \u2014 some of which may come from the restive Conservative back benches. The bill is “too intrusive,” said New Brunswick Conservative MP John Williamson. Conservative voices across the land agreed \u2014 to say nothing of NDP and Liberal ones.<\/p>\n

Conservative MPs don’t usually grumble about Conservative legislation \u2014 especially when one of their front-line cabinet ministers [Public Safety Minister Vic Toews] has declared that Canadians must “either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Read the whole story: http:\/\/www.cbc.ca\/news\/politics\/story\/2012\/02\/16\/pol-vp-terry-milewski-bill-c30.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Cost of surveillance bill concerns providers, say customers may pay more<\/strong>
\nFrom the Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The government’s online surveillance bill \u2014 already hitting snags over privacy \u2014 is raising concerns among Internet providers about who’ll pick up the tab.<\/p>\n

The legislation would allow authorities access to Internet subscriber information \u2014 including name, address, telephone number and email address \u2014 without a warrant.<\/p>\n

It would also require telecommunication service providers to have the technical capability to enable police and spies to intercept messages and conversations.<\/p>\n

The price tag for carriers could be significant, and it’s unclear what kind of compensation will be offered, said Bernard Lord, president of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association.<\/p>\n

“These new undertakings could generate significant costs, and the question remains whether the government will compensate those costs,” Lord said in an interview.<\/p>\n

The association represents companies including Bell Canada, Rogers Communications and Telus, which provide wireless services to millions of Canadians.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think we should ask law-abiding citizens that are using Internet services or wireless services to pay more on their bills because the government decides that the police needs extra tools to investigate,”<\/strong> Lord said.<\/p>\n

Read the whole story: http:\/\/www.winnipegfreepress.com\/canada\/cost-of-surveillance-bill-concerns-providers-say-customers-may-pay-more-139470623.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Over 90,000 people to-date have signed a petition at http:\/\/www.StopSpying.ca<\/a> to protest the online spying bill and a survey from Canada\u2019s Privacy Commissioner show that 83 percent of Canadians oppose warrantless surveillance measures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.” – George Orwell, 1984. It’s often forgotten that, for Orwell, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}