Marathon fundraising hockey game attempting to break world record for longest game. Now THAT’S Canadian. 
The CanaDoper Café (2012 edition of The great, ongoing Canadian current events and politics thread.)
According to John Ibbitson of the Globe & Mail, the internet/telephone/no-warrant spy-on-every-Canadian surveillance bill is dead.
Vic Toews will have to search for new ways to insult the entire country if this is true. Of course he could be shuffled off to the back benches with, (a WAG), Julian Fantino taking his place, in which case the fun will begin all over again.
Glad to see it go.
Well, as someone who doesn’t plan on researching my heinous crime on the internet beforehand, I can’t say it bothers me one way or the other. Seriously, what kind of people are going to be affected by a law that allows police to ask internet service providers for details of surfing habits without a warrant? Certainly not the 99.999% of us who aren’t going to be involved in a major crime bust. I say if it helps expedite crime investigation that’s a good thing. The evidence on Michael Rafferty’s computer couldn’t be submitted as evidence at his trial because it was gathered without a warrant. What if he was found to be not guilty beyond reasonable doubt in the Tori Stafford murder? How would you feel then?
Before responding to this please be assured that I completely understand privacy concerns. However, you need to consider who could possibly be concerned with this proposed law. Innocent people have no issue with this. Yes, I do my share of surfing at unsavoury websites, but certainly nothing that would ever get me arrested.
It’s a matter of time before this bill gets re-written and passed, and I’m all for it.
So, if you have done nothing illegal you have nothing to fear.
Jesus H.
Yes.
To play Devil’s advocate here and just to explore the thinking: What is it that you’d have to protect yourself from in a stable democracy? What is it that you are doing that could be used against you in some manner that isn’t an illegal activity? And if it is illegal, then why shouldn’t the government do everything they can to stop you from doing it including monitoring your online activities?
Because in a stable democracy the government, being the sole legitimate users of force, must have a higher standard of need than…“maybe we’ll find something”.
Read this and see if you agree.
I have kids. I want to give police the tools they need.
I’m with Leaffan. I have no problem with the government being able to do this. If it stops crime, I am for it.
Why do I care what they know about my internet surfing? I have nothing to hide.
I read it and noticed the pedophile in question was caught without this bill and through the use of a warrant.
So, the tools currently in place are sufficient to keep children safe, identify potential perpetrators and acquire sufficient evidence to take them to trial. Legislation by outlier is a stupid way to make law.
Really? RIDE programs check hundreds, if not thousands of vehicles (without a warrant I might add) and only find a couple of offenders usually. I guess we should do away with that over-abuse of police power then.
With StatsCan Police Reported Crime 2010 numbers there were ~84,000 Impaired Driving offences reported in 2010.
So we actually have tens of thousands of drunk driving crimes every year. Do we have tens of thousands of child pornography crimes every year? We don’t…unless you’re about to argue that there is a seething Canadian child pornography industry creating crimes at a rate 40 times that reported by police.
As for RIDE, I do have objections to police stopping cars simply based on a time of day and year but I can appreciate the potential for sufficient harm reduction to warrant that particular crimp in my freedom.
Grey, I’m usually onside with you, but not this time. I think the police deserve to have access to information to help catch and especially prevent child pornography, and other crimes.
Giving police the power to be able to set up random check points has significantly reduced impaired driving. If giving the police power to investigate child pornography without a warrant results in anywhere near the same reduction in rates of child pornography then how can this not be a good thing?
Leaffan, I don’t think that the Rafferty matter is a good example, for the evidentiary issue in Rafferty is primarily one of the admissibility of character evidence, and only secondarily one of the admissibility of illegally obtained evidence.
With respect to the Rafferty matter, note that the primary reason that the computer evidence was deemed inadmissible was that it was character evidence. In Canadian criminal law, character evidence is presumptively inadmissible. When looking at whether or not this presumption should stand in this particular matter, Heeney J. considered the importance of trying a person based on evidence of what the person did, rather than on evidence of the person’s character. The judge noted that character evidence has “enormous potential to lead a jury to conclude that a person is guilty of the crime, even if the evidence proving that person’s actual involvement is lacking. Such is the power of character evidence. It can, and has in the past, lead to wrongful convictions.”
That alone would be sufficient to bar the evidence, but the judge then considered the Charter. Canadian criminal law is not inflexible when it comes to admitting improperly obtained evidence. Improperly or illegally obtained evidence of real probative worth will be admitted unless it being admitted would be a Charter violation of such severity as to bring the administration of justice in disrepute. I submit that admitting character evidence contrary to the presumption of inadmissibility would be a Charter violation that would bring the administration of justice into disrepute, but note that even if it were not a Charter violation I submit that the character evidence still would not be admitted.
I believe in check and balances, including oversight of police actions. Requiring warrants for for most searches is such a check on unfettered police powers.
Getting a warrant is not a big deal. All it requires is convincing a Justice of the Peace that there are reasonable grounds to believe – that means more than just a suspicion, but not necessarily a balance of probability. As set out in my previous post, failure to obtain a warrant is not fatal unless the admission would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
In short, I trust the system with its checks and balances far more than I would trust a system in which individual police officers were not held responsible by judicial oversight.
Leaffan, with respect to child pornography, there is nothing to prevent police officers from obtaining warrants to get at on-line and e-mail child porn. Come across some, then trace it back to its source. Find a source, then trace it forward to the recipients.
Some good information Muffin. IANAL obviously, and neither are members of the media. I didn’t see one single story that talked about character evidence, only that the information was obtained without a warrant.
ETA: Maybe I’m naive, but I really can’t imagine any circumstance where I would be worried if any random police officer got a hold of my internet activity. I might be embarrassed if I knew the officer personally, but that would be about it.
Personally it’s a question of infringement and potential harm reduction. In this case C-30 would have infringed on millions of people’s privacy for a tiny reduction of harm. Harm that apparently can be caught and mitigated against through the current laws.
In short if the issue really is child pornography - and in my reading of the bill it seemed the object was more to enforce a surveillance capability onto Canadian ISPs - then legislate very specifically at child pornography and pedophiles.
That was my understanding, too - that the Bill was going to put a terrible, unrealistic burden on Canadian ISPs to do things that we have no business expecting them to do.
Your statement about a huge privacy infringement for a tiny (possible) reduction in harm sounds like what I understood, too