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Reporting back from Ottawa: Weekly Update from OpenMedia.ca
Hello!
Here's Reilly and Steve (in Ottawa!) with your Weekly News Update from OpenMedia.ca:
Thanks for watching and reading,
The OpenMedia.ca Team
News from this week:
Canada, you’ve just lived through what the RCMP calls the “largest domestic intelligence operation in Canadian history”. Wow… How does it feel?
Last week, Canadians learned that the government initiated a large Canada-wide, RCMP-led surveillance mission leading up to the G20 and G8 meetings, as well as to the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. According to the CBC, this Joint-Intelligence Group (JIG) “ran undercover operations, recruited confidential informants and liaised with domestic and foreign governments, law enforcement agencies and even corporations”. Read more »
A new tool to win the battle in the media
Pro-Internet community, you helped us build a first-of-its-kind online tool that will make it easy for Canadians to sound the alarm in newspapers across the country. Thanks to your donations and to some particularly awesome volunteers (Connie, Quincy, we're talking about you), we were able to create an application that will get the voices of citizens into newspapers of record that MPs read.
Take the new tool for a spin. Be among the first to write an op-ed at http://openmedia.ca/letter.
Whether it's pushing back against the government's warrantless online spying bills or Big Telecom's PR spin, this tool will help Canadians win what is likely the most crucial battle: the debate in the media. These powerful groups spend millions on PR campaigns that spin the facts to favour them; the only way to fight back is by building consensus among Canadians and demonstrating that consensus to policymakers. Read more »
Wind Mobile backer latest to take aim at Big Telecom’s grip
Unless the CRTC takes steps to ensure that Big Telecom can’t shut out the competition, upstart company Wind Mobile won’t be participating at the upcoming wireless Internet spectrum auction. That’s the word from Wind Mobile backer Naguib Sawiris, who in a recent interview with CBC’s The Lang & O'Leary Exchange, added his voice to a growing chorus that believes Canada’s telecom industry is anything but a level playing field.
Before the year is out, Industry Canada is expected to announce the rules for an upcoming auction that will put highly valuable and powerful spectrum—which allows wireless Internet transmissions—on the market. If the proper measures are taken, the available spectrum could create a great opportunity to foster desperately needed competition and innovation throughout Canada’s telecom industry, that is of course, unless the CRTC gives smaller companies a chance to get in on the action. Read more »
Ottawa Citizen: Ontario Privacy Commish slams online spying
By Vito Pilieci for the Ottawa Citizen
Canadian judges and politicians have grown too old and out of touch with the reality of today’s digital world to be trusted to make sound policy decisions, according to Ontario’s Privacy Commissioner.
Speaking at the Privacy & Information Security Congress 2011 conference in Ottawa on Monday, Ann Cavoukian expressed her frustration with recent judicial decisions that she believes trivialize Canadian privacy rights. She also critizied the federal government’s planned “lawful access” legislation — Bill C-50 and Bill C-51 — which Cavoukian believes will amount to a major breach of rights and freedoms.
“We are talking about the expansion of surveillance without judicial authorization. This should scare you,” she said. Read more »
Guest Blog: CIPPIC tech lawyer Tamir Israel debunks government myths on online spying
As the lawful access debate moves into full swing, the government spin machine has been busy responding to the many emails received by MPs as a result of OpenMedia.ca’s recentletter-writing campaign set up in opposition to proposed online surveillance or ‘lawful access’ legislation.
Although a number of individuals have previously addressed many of the misconceptions common in government discourse, these continue to persist in MPs’ responses to apprehensive Canadians. In light of this, a few responses are included below as samples which capture the range of answers received and analyzed in this post. Ironically, while the legislation is billed as an attempt to ensure police powers keep up with technological change, many of the government’s attempts to justify the legislation ignore the privacy implications of applying pre-Internet norms to an online world.
To begin with, Letter C implies that there is nothing to fear, as the government chose to exclude the online spying (Lawful Access) legislation in a recent omnibus crime bill in spite of initial expectations the legislation would be included. Canadians concerned about the legislation should not be overly reassured by this fact. The government has made its commitment to passing this legislation clear, stating quite plainly: “The legislation will come”. Read more »
Ars Technica: ISPs policing the Internet? European courts say "no way".
In Europe, the courts have decided that it would be a Charter of Rights violation—not to mention "technically unfeasible" and a violation of privacy—if ISPs were forced to police the Internet.
Here in Canada, the government's online spying bills would mean ISPs would be treated as state agents, obligated to assist in investigations by monitoring and surrendering customer information...no warrants needed. This expansion of surveillance powers would violate Canadians' rights, and push back against our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Let's stop the bills in their tracks:http://StopSpying.ca/
Article by Sean Gallagher for Ars Technica:
While Thanksgiving is an American holiday, internet service providers and users in Europe had reason to give thanks yesterday. The highest court in the European Union overturned a ruling that would have forced a Belgian ISP to preemptively filter Internet traffic to prevent the unauthorized sharing of music files. Read more »
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