Shots Fired On Parliament Hill

[Argus]

Ive given you a whole pile of adverse consequences attached to bulk electronic surveillance.

Name one thing, one way, in which your life would be impacted.

[Argus]

Is that right? There was a time when that statement was correct...for the most part.

Specifics, please.

[Argus]

You would not even notice if they were taken away. That is the problem part. The SCC knows our rights and even told the government that the actions they would take violate the rights of Canadians. Do you side with the SCC or the government trying to ram some unconstitutional legislation through?

That would depend on the legislation. What I view as a human right and what a lawyer views as a human right are not necessarily the same thing. If a mountie comes into my house and starts looking around, or even starts reading my emails without a damn good reason, that's a violation of my privacy, sure. But privacy is kind of a second tier of human rights. It's not one of the biggies. Even so, I value my privacy and would not be happy. But if a huge database is compiled of what numbers made contact with each other over a period of time, and that includes mine I really don't care.

[dre]

Name one thing, one way, in which your life would be impacted.

1. Cost: An arms race between government and private industry over encryption will get very expensive. The internet surveillance act called for the government installing hardware at ISP's and service providers to warehouse the data which would also get very expensive. And it gave them the right to demand ISP's warehouse traffic as well which would increase prices. Remember this is the government that spent 200 million dollars trying to create a database of a hundful of long-guns. They are really bad at IT projects.

2. Public Safety: Like I said before these measures will eventually make it HARDER to track criminals and terror suspects by inadvertantly providing them with secure communications devices and anonymization services.

3. Hassle: Corporations dont want the government to have access to their data. Iv already had to jump through all kinds of hoops at my copany in the last year because of this... I have to use an RSA key and always connect through VPN. The connection is slower and makes it harder to get work done.

But really your question is irrelevant. It wouldnt directly impact most people if the government read every piece of mail, listened to every phonecall, put GPS locators on every car, or installed recording devices in every home.

[dre]

. But privacy is kind of a second tier of human rights. It's not one of the biggies.

Thats not true at all. The requirement for law enforcement to get a warrant before siezing personal information or monitoring personal communications (phonecalls, mail, etc), is one of the cornerstones of our criminal justice system. Its there for a reason... the architects of our system KNEW the government would abuse those powers if there was no checks and balances. We have already seen governments using surveillance apparatus for all kinds of these things.... They wont just look for terrorists and pedophiles, they will spy on any group that they are at odds with (environmental groups, political groups, rival ideologies etc).

And privacy IS a core human right in a democracy. The perception that the government is watching private communications puts a cooling effect on political discourse, and discourages unpopular speech, and the exchange of ideas that the government might not like for whatever reason.

That is why its in the charter...

8. Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

Its reasonable to search a specific individual or sieze their property or communication for a good reason. Its not reasonable to sieze someones property or communication of a person NOT under suspicion simply because the government MIGHT find something later.

And here is where you and I part ways. So what is not part of my lexicon in terms of making things harder on law enforcement. What law enforcement is or is not allowed to do is a decision based on good and bad, pros and cons. You've identifed the con here - making it harder for police to enforce laws. You've identifed no pro. Who is being helped and how? We're paying a price in terms of law enforcement so... so... so why exactly? How will your life be bettered by this?

No I did the exact opposite. I explained how the demand for secure communications generated by all this bulk surveillance is actually making it HARDER for law enforcement.

[Argus]

But really your question is irrelevant. It wouldnt directly impact most people if the government read every piece of mail, listened to every phonecall, put GPS locators on every car, or installed recording devices in every home.

Which it has no chance or interest of ever doing. And yet, you want to hinder the security and law enforcement capabilities of government despite this...

[Argus]

Thats not true at all. The requirement for law enforcement to get a warrant before siezing personal information or monitoring personal communications (phonecalls, mail, etc), is one of the cornerstones of our criminal justice system.

Let's call it a legal right as opposed to a human right. That is, the right to not be tortured is of higher importance, as is the right to not be arrested without due process of law, and other assorted rights, like the right of free speech, association and religion.

The right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure has been interpreted as protecting privacy, but the iffy part is what is 'reasonable'. Although now the new parts include defining 'search' and 'seizure' when it doesn't include anything you own, ie scanning the public communication records for lists of who is calling/emailing whom.

No I did the exact opposite. I explained how the demand for secure communications generated by all this bulk surveillance is actually making it HARDER for law enforcement.

No. You didn't explain how the government surveillance would impact anyone. You explained how the effort to thwart government surveillance would adversely impact society.

Edited October 28, 2014 by Argus

[eyeball]

Name one thing, one way, in which your life would be impacted.

My individual sense of my own privacy would be very different than it was before.

I cannot imagine how Canada will ever be the same when millions of us are stuck living with the sense the government is always trying to look over their shoulder.

[cybercoma]

And you didn't address in any way the fact that Muslims are vastly over-represented in worldwide religious-motivated violence.

Oh. Now it's worldwide and only the religious-motivated violence, which actually isn't religious motivated at all but geopolitically motivated (at least if you take the word of the intelligence community, but why would you?). Nevermind the fights between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland that killed tons of innocent people. Nevermind the Jews in Israel disproportionately responding to half-assed attempts by Palestine to attack them. That doesn't count. Nevermind the Christian butchers in Central Africa. They don't count. Forget the Burmese Buddhists that were murdering Muslims. Nope. Not part of your biased view on violence. Nevermind the Mexican drug cartels who behead people because, well, that's not religiously motivated.

Sure. If you ignore most of the violence in the world other than the violence committed by Muslims, then most of the violence in the world is committed by Muslims.

Edited October 28, 2014 by cybercoma

[Shady]

Oh. Now it's worldwide and only the religious-motivated violence, which actually isn't religious motivated at all but geopolitically motivated (at least if you take the word of the intelligence community, but why would you?). Nevermind the fights between Catholics and Protestants in Ireland that killed tons of innocent people. Nevermind the Jews in Israel disproportionately responding to half-assed attempts by Palestine to attack them. That doesn't count. Nevermind the Christian butchers in Central Africa. They don't count. Forget the Burmese Buddhists that were murdering Muslims. Nope. Not part of your biased view on violence. Nevermind the Mexican drug cartels who behead people because, well, that's not religiously motivated.

Sure. If you ignore most of the violence in the world other than the violence committed by Muslims, then most of the violence in the world is committed by Muslims.

Not to offend your sensibilities, but Catholic and Protestant "violence" in the world is almost non-existent compared to that of the Muslim world. Nice try though.

[cybercoma]

Not to offend your sensibilities, but Catholic and Protestant "violence" in the world is almost non-existent compared to that of the Muslim world. Nice try though.

Not to offend your intelligence, but you completely missed the point.

[On Guard for Thee]

Not to offend your sensibilities, but Catholic and Protestant "violence" in the world is almost non-existent compared to that of the Muslim world. Nice try though.

Oh, so you figure it was Muslim's flying those F 16's over Baghdad in '03. That explains a lot!

[cybercoma]

Oh, so you figure it was Muslim's flying those F 16's over Baghdad in '03. That explains a lot!

Those 86 gun deaths every day in the US....Muslims. Bet you didn't know that.

[cybercoma]

I mean, holy crap. Imagine if there was a terrorist attack every single day that killed 86 Americans. Yet, that's business as usual.

[bush_cheney2004]

I mean, holy crap. Imagine if there was a terrorist attack every single day that killed 86 Americans. Yet, that's business as usual.

Wow...holy crap....what happens in the U.S. defines terrorism in Canada ? Now that's really business as usual.

[On Guard for Thee]

Those 86 gun deaths every day in the US....Muslims. Bet you didn't know that.

C'mon, we all know Protestants and Catholics don't kill each other. Well there was that little thing in Ireland but hey, what's that got to do with the States?

[dre]

Although now the new parts include defining 'search' and 'seizure' when it doesn't include anything you own, ie scanning the public communication records for lists of who is calling/emailing whom.

That information IS "owned". Those are records of your transaction with a private company (your telecomm), and they are proprietary and non-public. Depending on your contract most likely the ISP owns them. The government only has the right to sieze them when one of the two people communicating is suspected of a crime, and the only way they can sieze it without a warrant is under section 184.4 and there has to be reasonable suspicion... they cant just go on a fishing expedition.

And the reality is that the government can already get this data. ISP's have responded to hundreds of thousands of such requests in the last few years. If the police want to find out who someone suspected of a crime is communicating with they can already easily do it. They can easily get a warrant for the information, but they dont even need to do that in practice... Canadian ISP's have responded to hundreds of thousands of such requests in the last couple of years.

Maybe we should start at the beginning...

Can you tell me specifically what it is you want the police to be able to do that they cant do now? Im not quite clear... one moment it will seem like you are just talking about access to metadata, and the next it seems like you are talking about being able to store and datamine content.

Edited October 28, 2014 by dre

[On Guard for Thee]

Wow...holy crap....what happens in the U.S. defines terrorism in Canada ? Now that's really business as usual.

Talk about missing the point.

[bush_cheney2004]

All those "Muslims" committing suicide in the USA each day....good reason for Canada to just R-E-L-A-X, eh ?

[cybercoma]

Wow...holy crap....what happens in the U.S. defines terrorism in Canada ? Now that's really business as usual.

I'm Pavlov reincarnate.

[WWWTT]

Wow...holy crap....what happens in the U.S. defines terrorism in Canada ? Now that's really business as usual.

You sound surprised.

Got news for you, Canadian PM's bend over backwards to kiss the butt of the US.

And Canada's PM right now needs justification for the escalating military actions in the M.E. as requested by the US/oil corporations

But you already knew that.

WWWTT

[Moonlight Graham]

So you see as a silver lining that it's "open season" on police or military interests inside Canada? Wow.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I'm saying it's a silver lining that innocent civilians weren't targeted, only military and those that control the military.

[Moonlight Graham]

Give yourself a shake. You're attaching some sick form of "honour" to these terrorists.....don't think for a moment that the Parliament Hill killer would have spared anyone's life if he himself had not been killed. He was going after the politicians - and anyone who would get in his way.

I'm not giving them "honour", I'm stating the facts. As for your other statements, they're speculation. The shooting & car attack were still sad and disgusting, but I'm pretty glad these guys didn't blow up a car bomb in the middle of a busy public place, aren't you?

[Moonlight Graham]

I'd like to know what this need is for a changing of the laws to allow greater surveillance. Seems to me the cops didn't have too much trouble arresting the

wanna-be terrorists in toronto or the other wannabe's planning to derail a train. The present security system seemed quite capable of dealing with those threats. What more is needed that can't be done with the present laws?

Exactly. How would either of these 2 attacks have been prevented with more surveillance? Both of these guys were well known to authorities. I'm sure they RCMP and CSIS have more than enough authority to track shady characters like these already.

[Moonlight Graham]

The difference with terrorism, which you [Cybercoma] appear to be dismissing as a threat of any importance, is it can hit anyone anywhere. And most people with even minimal effort realize that had this been an organized group things would have been far, far, far worse.

That's true for sure. But I'm confident our authorities can prevent major organized terror attacks in Canada, because they've prevented all such attacks thus far. You can watch one single guy closely, but it's very difficult to prevent them from taking their car and driving into some people, even soliders, walking around in public.