Data-collection program got green light from MacKay in 2011. Defence Minister Peter MacKay approved a secret electronic eavesdropping program that scours global telephone records and Internet data trails – including those of Canadians – for patterns of suspicious activity.
Mr. MacKay signed a ministerial directive formally renewing the government’s “metadata” surveillance program on Nov. 21, 2011, according to records obtained by The Globe and Mail. NSA has direct access to tech giants' systems for user data, secret files reveal. The National Security Agency has obtained direct access to the systems of Google, Facebook, Apple and other US internet giants, according to a top secret document obtained by the Guardian.
The NSA access is part of a previously undisclosed program called Prism, which allows officials to collect material including search history, the content of emails, file transfers and live chats, the document says. Tory MP says government should do something about anonymous online comments. Parliament should look into how to raise the level of online discourse by making anonymous commenters identify themselves, according to Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro.
“While I believe firmly that the right to free speech must be strongly defended and protected, I also believe it should be backed up by the common decency to stand by one’s words as opposed to hiding behind online anonymity,” the Peterborough MP said in the House of Commons Friday. “Anonymous online attacks are, in my view, cowardly but they are no less hurtful and represent a caustic scourge that is harming too many in our society.”
Mr. Del Mastro, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, first brought up the issue on his Facebook page Thursday. Mr. Magnotta case and online surveillance bill linked in memos - Politics. The controversial online surveillance Bill C-30 would help police catch criminal suspects such as Luka Rocco Magnotta more quickly, according to briefing notes for Public Safety Minister Vic Toews prepared in the aftermath of the gruesome killing of Jun Lin.
The documents drawing a link with the Magnotta case and Bill C-30 were drafted and circulated by senior officials June 4 — the same day the suspect was arrested in Berlin and more than a week after the crime occurred. The arrest came after an international manhunt and a video of the crime in progress was posted to an online gore website. Parliament Watch: Proposed PIPEDA Amendments Languish. [author: Tim Banks] Canada’s House of Commons has recessed.
Members of Parliament aren’t scheduled to return until September 17, 2012. By then, Bill C-12, An Act to amend the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (short title: Safeguarding Canadians’ Personal Information Act) will have been on the order paper for almost a year, having been introduced in the House of Commons on September 29, 2011. Canadian version of SOPA is close to becoming law. Source: Yahoo!
News After months of review, it looks like the Harper government’s copyright reform bill will likely become law before Parliament’s summer recess. Bill C-11 passed a final vote at third reading on Monday night, bringing Canadians one step closer to SOPA-like regulation of their media consumption. Border agency to listen in on travellers' conversations - Politics. Travellers already under the watchful eye of security officials at Canadian airports and land border crossings could face increased surveillance in certain customs-controlled areas as the Canada Border Services Agency will soon monitor them with high-definition cameras and use microphones to listen in on their conversations.
Canada's warrantless surveillance bill is back, and bigger than ever, with surveillance powers for US gov't, too. Bill C30, the sweeping Canadian warrantless Internet surveillance bill, is back from the dead.
Why I'm Leaving Facebook. I established a Facebook account in 2008.
My motivation was ignoble: I wanted to distribute my journalism more widely. I have acquired since then just over four thousand “friends”—in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, the Middle East, and of course, closer to home. I have discovered the appeal of Facebook’s community—for example, the extraordinary emotional support that swells in virtual space when people come together online around a friend’s illness or life celebrations. Through its bedrock appeals to friendship, community, public identity, and activism—and its commercial exploitation of these values—Facebook is an unprecedented synthesis of corporate and public spaces. The corporation’s social contract with users is ambitious, yet neither its governance system nor its young ruler seem trustworthy.
There are many reasons to be skeptical about Facebook’s I.P.O., which raised $16 billion for the company. How Canada’s telecoms quietly backed Internet surveillance bill. Canada’s proposed Internet surveillance was back in the news recently after speculation grew that government intends to keep the bill in legislative limbo until it dies on the order paper.
Public Safety Minister Vic Toews denied the reports, maintaining that Bill C-30 will still be sent to committee for further study. Since its introduction in mid-February, the privacy and law enforcement communities have continued to express their views on the bill, but Canada’s telecom service providers, which include the major telecom carriers and Internet service providers, have remained strangely silent.