Vic Toews surprised by contents of his own surveillance bill

Vic Toews the Canadian Public Safety Minister has faced a harsh backlash over his own Conservative government's Bill C-30, a bill that would require internet service providers to turn over client information to law enforcement authorities without a warrant. Given that this is a prized Conservative bill one would think that the minister would know what was in it.

Toews was surprised by a section that in exceptional circumstances allows any police officer to request information about a customer from a service provider. Toews thought that such a request could only be made as part of a specific criminal investigation. Obviously the bill gives powers much more extensive than that.

Provincial Privacy Commissioners have been highly critical of the bill. The billl is called the 'Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act' even though the title is the only place where that issue is mentioned! This is pure political spin meant to take advantage at public revulsion over child predators roaming the internet.

Toews confirmed the bill will be sent to committee before second reading, which he said will allow for the opportunity to amend the bill beyond its original scope. The minister says that the opposition is welcome to present amendments but it remains to be seen how many if any the Conservative majority allows to pass. For much more see this article in the CBC.

Canada: New bill would allow police eavesdropping on individuals without warrants

   The Canadian Conservative government always depicts itself as on the moral high ground when it comes to legislation on crime. The new bill has the grandiose title: Protecting children from internet predators act. Only in the title are children and predators mentioned. In fact according to the CBC article the title appears to have been changed when the bill was sent to the printers.
   When the bill was introduced in the commons by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews the same theme was adopted of protecting children from internet pornography. Toews said: "I believe that unless this legislation is adopted, this will in fact allow child pornographers and organized crime to flourish,"
   The bill contains provisions that would require internet providers to give police information about subscribers. Earlier bills also demanded such information but the difference in this bill is that there is no warrant from a judge required. The police need not prove to anyone that the snooping is justified
   Police could demand names, phone numbers, and IP addresses. The bill could also force internet providers to allow a back door by which communications would be available to police. There is to be an internal audit of warrantless requests and a provision for review but only after five years.
   Toews received a great deal of flack for his comments that those who were critical of the bill   "can stand with the child pornographers." In spite of the Conservative hard line on crime they were on the wrong side of most police organisations when they voted to repeal the Canadian gun registry legislation. To be fair this legislation certainly had its faults. Now it seems that Conservative government is mending its relationship with the cops. After noting that it was no part of its business to comment on legislation the RCMP did exactly that: "While it is not the RCMP’s role to comment on pending legislation, the organization believes police need modern tools and resources to respond to the evolving nature of national and transnational crime, including terrorism,"
  Supporters of the bill note that in many respects the provisions bring Canada in line with most other economically advanced  countries such as the U.S. U.K. Australia, and Germany. In particular other countries already demand internet providers provide back door access for law enforcement agencies so they can snoop on suspects. Only Canada and Japan of the G8 remain behind in the period before the age of the progressive cyber snoop state.
    If a CBC poll and comments to be found here are any indication the vast majority of Canadians do not support the bill.Over 90 per cent disapproved of the bill and only 8 per cent were in favor at the time I wrote the article. You can still go and make your views known. For more see the entire CBC article.

Day does something right!

Day deserves credit for speaking out and setting forth a clear position on the issue.


Day firm on police warrants for access to internet user data
Last Updated: Friday, September 14, 2007 | 10:37 AM ET
CBC News
Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day said the government would not introduce legislation forcing internet service providers to give customer information without a warrant.

"We have not and we will not be proposing legislation to grant police the power to get information from internet companies without a warrant. That's never been a proposal," Day told the Ottawa Citizen late Thursday.

Stockwell Day, the federal public safety minister, addresses a crime prevention conference in Halifax on Friday, June 8, 2007.
(Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press) "It may make some investigations more difficult, but our expectation is rights to our privacy are such that we do not plan, nor will we have in place, something that would allow the police to get that information."

Day's announcement comes after CBCNews.ca and other news organizations obtained copies of a consultation document from Public Safety Canada and Industry Canada that was looking into ways law enforcement and national security agencies could gain lawful access to personal information from ISPs.

Personal information would include names, addresses, land and cellphone numbers, as well as additional mobile phone identification, such as a device serial number and a subscriber identity module (SIM) card number.

The consultation, which was distributed to only a limited number of stakeholders, called for submissions by Sept. 25.

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Privacy advocates, however, expressed displeasure over both the content and the process of the consultation.

In response to the outcry, Public Safety Canada extended the deadline for submissions to Oct. 12 and posted the consultation document on its website.

Day told the Citizen that the original document sent to a select group of stakeholders "never would have gone out if I had seen it" and that it "somehow went out without my approval."

Mélisa Leclerc, a spokeswoman for Day, told CBC News that the minister's objections with the document weren't with its contents, but rather its wording, and that had he had a chance to look at it they might have included language making clear that searches without warrants would not be pursued.

"The wording led some to believe the consultation was biased and so we wanted to be clear that we are looking at all possible approaches," Leclerc said.

The document Public Safety Canada posted on Thursday is virtually identical in language to the original document leaked to the media, save for the change in submission deadline date. Leclerc said the document was left untouched to avoid confusion among those stakeholders who had already received one.

Investigators having difficulties
The document says that under current processes, enforcement agencies have been experiencing difficulties in gaining the information from telecommunications service providers, with some demanding a court-issued warrant before turning over the data.

"If the custodian of the information is not co-operative when a request for such information is made, law enforcement agencies may have no means to compel the production of information pertaining to the customer," the document says.

"This poses a problem in some contexts."

It says enforcement agencies may need the information for matters other than probes, such as informing next-of-kin about emergency situations, or because they are at the early stages of an investigation.

"The availability of such building-block information is often the difference between the start and finish of an investigation," according to the document.

Leclerc said the purpose of the consultation is to deal with this issue without allowing for access to personal information without a warrant.

"We are trying to improve the process and achieve a balance between public safety and respect for privacy," she said. "We're looking for how to do this, and if there are other ways we want to hear what they are."

Writing in his legal blog, Michael Geist, chair of internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa, said Day's statement was "welcome news and represents a remarkable change from earlier this week."

Some security experts, however, remain in favour of giving enforcement officials more flexibility in accessing personal information.

Michael Murphy, Canadian vice-president and general manager of Symantec, said the time necessary to obtain a warrant often comes into conflict with the nature of internet crime, which can happen and spread quickly.

"It might work in the gumshoe days, but things are different now," said Murphy, who is consulting the government on the issue.