1. Bill C-13, ‘Cyberbulling’ Legislation. Introduced under the thinly disguised banner of anti-cyberbulling measures, the new bill will amend key parts of the criminal code in order to extend police power—streamlining the process of obtaining warrants to intercept private communications, enabling the tracking of individuals if a crime is suspected, and expanding wiretapping from telephone data to any digital activity. In short, bullying tragedies are being exploited to push through previously struck down legislation (such as Bill-30), that will force Internet Service Providers to surrender our personal information to government agencies with absolutely no civilian oversight.

2. Bill C-56, The Combating Counterfeit Products Act. Championed as a measure to protect intellectual property, closer scrutiny reveals that the bill is but an attempt to push the extensively discredited Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)—an agreement rejected by EU member countries for its invasiveness—in through the backdoor. Attempting to cover everything from pharmaceuticals to art, the bill would legislate new invasive border measures including seizure powers without court oversight in instances where a government official ‘reasonably’ believes there may be some risk to a dangerously flexible conceptualisation of ‘public safety.’

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This is a guest post by Michael Harris, writer, journalist and documentary maker.

According to the pollsters at Ipsos-Reid, about half of all Canadians don’t care if their own government is spying on them through CSEC, Canada’s national cryptologic agency.

A whopping 77 per cent of us apparently actively support such spying when it is justified by the claim that it helps prevent terrorist attacks. So the message to government is that to get buy-in from three-quarters of Canadians on gross violations of privacy, simply play the terrorist card.

(The fact that we are spying on an ally, Brazil, has sparked less public interest than Vanity Fair’s upcoming tongue-wagger on Gwyneth Paltrow.)

There are two problems with our laissez-faire attitude about the government listening in. None of us will ever be able to check the claims of the authorities when they say they acted in the interests of national security – it’s classified; and governments routinely lie about alleged security threats to get around the messy business of defending the indefensible in public.

I wonder how many people have stopped to think about the predatory menace of big governments that want to get even bigger. In the U.K., for example, look what has happened in the wake of the phone-hacking affair.

A Rupert Murdoch newspaper closed, huge fines and settlements were paid, and people went to jail. That’s what happens when you violate peoples’ privacy rights and break the law; rightly so. But politicians, who dislike the media the way our esteemed prime minister does, have used as a tool to not-so-gradually knock down free speech.

The Leveson Inquiry in the U.K. did recommend regulation of the press, but the key word was “voluntary” regulation. There is nothing voluntary about an all-party agreement amongst politicians that a government panel should have the right to decide if someone has overstepped the journalistic boundaries, or should be fired. That’s what they do in the places where there is but one name on the ballot and a dark room for dissenters.

Consider this monstrous contradiction. When journalists and news agencies were caught illegally listening in, it wasn’t enough to punish the guilty under existing law. Instead, freedom of the press itself became a target of politicians and their ongoing efforts to constrain an institution that often embarrasses them. Politicians led the charge with alacrity.

But the governments of the United States, the U.K, and Canada have been caught implementing vast domestic and international spying that makes phone-hacking look like putting your ear to the keyhole. Yet there is no talk about charging people who have violated the Constitution in the U.S., the Charter in this country, and the law in both, there is no push to hold an Inquiry – just a poll saying that an awful lot of us don’t really give a damn.

The banal routine of big government’s big lies ought to keep everyone awake at night. It has been widely reported in the U.S. and British press that the leak of diplomatic cables by Julian Assange and Wikileaks put the lives of Americans at risk and threatened national security.

Assange was universally painted as treasonous by people like then-U.S. national security adviser General Jim Jones and Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. It was nothing more than misguided hate-mongering disguised as patriotism. One idiot on Fox News, Bob Beckel, said that the U.S. should “illegally shoot the son of a bitch.”

In Canada, Ezra Levant and Tom Flanagan agreed, Levant arguing that Assange was no different from Taliban leaders who had been targeted for assassination.

Assange had actually performed an invaluable service for democracy-loving people; telling them the documented, unspun truth about what their government was doing in their name in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In other words, doing what government is supposed to do – own up to one’s public actions in order to make accountability possible. But no one in the U.S. military was particularly anxious to talk about torturing enemy combatants, (as witnessed by former SAS officer Ben Griffin), or using white phosphorous in the raising of Fallujah, where even the British were appalled at American disregard for civilians.

As for the claim that Assange had done irreparable damage by documenting what actually happened in two wars, it was a gross distortion. Then U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates made that clear when he said the reaction from some U.S. officials was “fairly significantly overwrought,” and consequences of the leaks, “fairly modest.”

Even the chief investigator into Bradley Manning’s leak of classified documents testified that he found no evidence of a single person dying as a result of what the young soldier revealed, the Guardian reported.

And now half of the country doesn’t care if the Canadian government spies on them. One has to shake one’s head to remember that there was a time in Canada when official law-breaking was mega-news.

There was a time nearly 35 years ago when illegally opening first-class mail, stealing party membership lists, conducting unauthorized wire-taps, burning barns and conducting more than 400 break-ins led to the McDonald Commission. It pays to remember that the RCMP, which lost its Security Service over these deeds, used the Commission not to exhibit remorse for its many disgraces, but to argue that what it had done illegally ought to be made legal.

It’s time to stop jumping every time the security establishment says boo. It’s well past time to recognize that spurious national security claims have been used to either suppress information or punish those who make it available.

It is no accident that prison, embassy sanctuary, and exile have so far been the reward for three men who dared to tell what their governments are actually doing. The truth is now treasonous. The unkindest cut of all? The spooks who peer into our lives from the electronic shadows get a billion dollar palace at public expense.

For the fifty percent who don’t care what CSEC, GCHQ, or NSA are doing, ponder this: lazy democracies don’t last long. What comes next won’t really care what you think.

This article originally appeared on iPolitics.

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WARNING: Military Spooks Probably Know You Are Reading This

You could be in Canada's secret surveillance database. All it takes is a phone call, text message or email to someone in another country. And every time you visit a website your location, your browsing history and other metadata can be collected by the little-known Communications Security Establishment Canada.

All of this is illegal according to BC Civil Liberties Association which filed a lawsuit in BC Supreme Court Tuesday.

“Unaccountable and unchecked government surveillance presents a grave threat to democratic freedoms,” says Joseph Arvay, Q.C., lawyer for the BC Civil Liberties Association.

"We are deeply concerned that CSEC (Communications Security Establishment Canada) is gaining secret, illegal access to the private communications of ordinary Canadians," said Arvay.

CSEC, which will soon be housed the most expensive government building ever constructed (almost $1.2 billion), is Canada's $350 million-a-year counterpart to the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA).

In recent months the NSA has received much media attention after whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked secret NSA documents. Those documents revealed the extensive surveillance the NSA undertakes including tracking the calls of almost every American citizen and spying on a vast but unknown number of Americans’ international calls, text messages, and emails.

Turns out CSEC also spies on Canadian citizens but unlike the NSA no court or committee  oversees its operations. Canada's other big spy agency, the $500-million-a-year Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) has its activities monitored by an independent  committee.

CSEC is a military spy agency and has no such overview. The Minister of National Defence calls all the shots and issues directives in secret.

However a Nov 21, 2011 directive that became public revealed that then Minister Peter Mackay approved the collection and analysis of metadata. This is information that is automatically produced each and every time a Canadian uses a mobile phone or accesses the internet. [See Guardian's Guide to Metadata]

"Metadata information can reveal the most intimate details of Canadians’ personal lives, including relationships, and political and personal beliefs," said David Martin, lawyer for the BCCLA.

Canadians should be able to use the internet "without the government snooping on our personal information and monitoring our behaviour online," Martin said in a Vancouver press conference Tuesday.

The spy agency is allowed to capture the communications of Canadians at home and abroad if the collection relates to obtaining “foreign intelligence.” CSEC shares this information with foreign intelligence entities in the United States, the United Kingdom, New Zealand and Australia.

Arvay says CSEC's domestic spying infringes on Canadians rights of freedom of expression.

"Canadians are going to censor themselves fearing their communications will be intercepted," he said.

It's "unbelievable there is no judicial oversight of CSEC" said Caily DiPuma, Counsel for the BCCLA.

"Canadians have a right to privacy. We have no idea what CSEC is doing with their information or how they are interpreting laws," DiPuma said.

No one knows have many Canadians are caught up in the CSEC net said OpenMedia.ca Executive Director Steve Anderson.

OpenMedia fought a successful battle against Bill C30 – the online spying bill. "I was shocked to learn that CSEC is monitoring Canadians online and we're picking up the tab," Anderson said.

"We can’t even tell when we’ve been victimized by it. We strongly support the BCCLA’s court challenge," he said.

OpenMedia has launched a new online sign-up pledge against "out-of-control spying on Canadians.”

Incredibly, CSEC is just the tip of the domestic spying spear for Canadians involved in labour and social justice, indigenous issues, environmental or other organizations the Harper government has labeled as a "threat" to Canada's business interests.

The RCMP, CSIS and others involved in "security intelligence" have been monitoring Canadians involved in various non-governmental organizations such as environmental groups said Jeffrey Monaghan of the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario.

Protests and opposition to Canada's resource-based economy, especially oil and gas production, are now viewed as threats to national security, Monaghan said.

Based on security documents just released under freedom of information laws, CSIS has likely created a wide-ranging surveillance net in partnership with the private sector he said.

One Feb 2011 document reads: "…the private sector is ideally suited to provide the Service (CSIS) with unsolicited, but potentially valuable street-level information."

Later the document notes that the private sector can violate Canada's privacy laws "for reasons of law enforcement, national security, defense of Canada, conduct of international affairs…"

Part II will look at the role of the private sector, including energy companies, in working with law enforcement to spy on and punish individuals and organizations involved in legal, democratic activities. 

Image Credit: CSEC Common Criteria icon

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This article originally appeared on OpenCanada.org.

The information leaked by Edward Snowden about the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA)’s data collection programs is driving a nation-wide debate in America over the future of privacy and national security. Americans, however, are not the only ones who should be considering the consequences the NSA’s activities. Other countries, including Canada, operate similar surveillance programs and participate in national security data sharing partnerships that crisscross the globe. Given this reality, and the fact that much of Canadians’ online data flows though servers located in the U.S. where it is not subject to any Fourth Amendment protection, we think the tenor of the privacy-security debate within Canada is too quiet. Expanding the debate will require engaging more Canadians with what we know and don’t know about surveillance in Canada. To this end, here is a modest exploration of what we’ve learned since the Snowden story broke.

What kind of data is the Canadian government collecting?

Since 2001 Canada’s government surveillance agency, Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC) has been monitoring communications transmitted from or received in Canada to identify potential security threats. Part of the Canadian security apparatus since 1941, CSEC currently employs 2,000 people and has a budget of $422 million, according to statements made by CSEC spokesperson Ryan Foreman.

CSEC has increasingly focused on mining communications metadata, which refers to mass computer searches for information on electronic communications. The handing over of telephonic metadata from American Verizon subscribers to the NSA sparked the ongoing debate in the U.S. This type of metadata can include where a telephone call is initiated from, the number to which the call is made, and the duration of the call.

What does metadata tell the government?

Data points like these allow the government to map out not only who knows who, but how well and for what purpose. Deviations from established patterns of activity can also be identified and analyzed. Citizen Lab Director Ron Deibert has pointed out that “MIT researchers who studied 15 months of anonymized cellphone metadata of 1.5 million people found four “data points” were all they needed to figure out a person’s identity 95 per cent of the time… Access to metadata, when combined with powerful computers and algorithms, can also allow entire social networks to be mapped in space and time with a degree of precision that is extraordinarily unprecedented, and extraordinarily powerful.”

Is the government mining my metadata?

CSEC insists that it does not target Canadian citizens and that metadata intercepted unintentionally is safeguarded under Canadian privacy laws.

So why should I be worried?

Concerns over data mining and surveillance were voiced in Canada even before Snowden exposed the NSA’s PRISM, Xkeyscore, and affiliated programs. Globe and Mail reporter Colin Freeze has written that on November 11, former Defence Minister Peter McKay introduced legislation to renew Canada’s metadata surveillance program. The program had been suspended after a federal watchdog expressed concerns that there were insufficient checks on the extra data collected on individuals of no interest to security personnel vacuumed up in the process of collecting data on suspicious individuals. One worry was that data gathered by CSEC as part of “foreign intelligence” collection could end up being shared with the domestic law enforcement agencies who would normally need a warrant.

Despite a lack of public evidence that such issues have been addressed, CSEC’s importance within the Canadian security establishment is growing. Colin Freeze has reported that “the Canadian government is building CSEC a gleaming new $900-million, 72,000-square-metre compound in Ottawa – even as it has relocated military and RCMP operations to older, cheaper offices on the outskirts of the nation’s capital, in buildings vacated by fallen technology companies.”

Who else has access to Canadian metadata and under what conditions can it be used?

Beyond the question of what data Canadian security agencies are collecting is the issue of who else may be gathering Canadian data, and how that data is being used and stored.

It is well known that Canadian data flows through servers located abroad, including the United States. What was not know until Edward Snowden’s interview with the Guardian was that Canadian metadata was among that being swept up by the NSA. The PRISM program secretly collected data from many web services including Google, Microsoft, Apple, Skype and Facebook as well as metadata found through phone calls and emails. Since these interfaces are “borderless”, Canadian data could be collected. Dr. Michael Geist of the University of Ottawa has explained why it is “entirely possible” that Canadian data has been targeted and obtained by U.S. programs.

So it’s just the U.S. government we have to worry about?

The Canadian government has stated that CSEC does not have access to the data collected through PRISM, but it has not confirmed or denied allegations that it has been granted special access to data on Canadian citizens specifically.

Metadata inadvertently intercepted by the NSA can be stored for up to five years or longer if it becomes of interest to law enforcement. New technology-enabled capabilities such as this have led some to argue that legal protections for the personal communications of Canadians are weak and outdated. Michael Geist has commented that “The problem is that surveillance technologies (including the ability to data mine massive amounts of information) have moved far beyond laws that were crafted for a much different world. The geographic or content limitations placed on surveillance activities by organizations such as CSEC may have been effective years ago when such activities were largely confined to specific locations and the computing power needed to mine metadata was not readily available. That is clearly no longer the case.”

How are Canadians responding to the issue of government surveillance?

Many Canadian parliamentarians have spoken out about their concerns over Canadian privacy. Two critical voices are that of Liberal MP Wayne Easter, the man responsible for overseeing CSIS in 2002-03, and who wants to see “some kind of political oversight, beyond just the ministers” and Privacy Commissioner Jennifer Stoddart. In her comments on Canadian data collection, she has stated that “we know very little specific information at this point, but we want to find out more” and that the collection raises “significant concerns”.

Daphne Guerrero, manager of public outreach and education for the office of the privacy commissioner, has also spoken out about the online privacy of Canadians, noting during a CBC web cast that “even the most public people have something to keep private”.

Leading academic voices include Michael Geist, who has raised the question of “who is watching the watchers”.  Geist raises the issue that “Not only do the surveillance programs themselves raise enormous privacy and civil liberties concerns, but oversight and review is conducted almost entirely in secret with little or no ability to guard against misuse”. Ron Deibert wants greater accountability for those with access to our digital private lives. “Oversight of CSEC is really thin, compared to even the oversight that takes place at the (U.S.) National Security Agency… There’s one retired judge with staff that issue an annual review — and in all the years they’ve been doing reviews, they’ve never once found a single problem with CSEC.”

Andrew Clement is concerned by information sharing by CSEC, and Craig Forcese questions whether Canada’s intelligence and security review bodies are up to the challenge posed by new surveillance technologies.

Why haven’t I heard more about this in the media?

The Canadian media has reported widely on the Snowden leaks, less so on the surveillance story at home. A few voices and videos stand out: Alongside Colin Freeze’s sharp analysis of CSEC – “soon to be a literal bridge of the divide between foreign and domestic intelligence” – journalist Jesse Brown has weighed in on the role of telecom companies, and the uneven public interest in surveillance. Jim Bronskin recently reported that CSEC follows complies with federal policy on information-sharing when there is a risk of torture.

Anybody else?

In Canadian civil society, author Andrew Mitrovica finds the biggest problems stem from the information-sharing networks Canada participates in internationally. He has commented that “The pervasive scope and intrusive nature of the [American] surveillance state is breathtaking. It would be a big mistake for you to believe that what Snowden has divulged is solely an American phenomenon without connection to, or consequences for, Canada and Canadians.”  CSEC expert Bill Robinson is also skeptical of the Canadian government’s assurances that it is not spying on Canadians and believes that “if we are to master that Internet, we will have to do it together”.

Openmedia.org has started a petition to stop secret spying and to demand answers from the Canadian government. Canadian experts on government surveillance who have voiced their concerns regarding Conservative party legislation can be found at unlawfulaccess.net

So what do we do now?

Debates over mass government surveillance of communications are likely to continue until processes and regulations to create and sustain a balance between security and transparency in the digital age have been put in place. General complacency around government surveillance – the ‘I have nothing to hide’ attitude – concerns experts in the field. They argue that in order for Canadian society to remain open, citizens must ensure there are appropriate checks and balances on government surveillance programs.

OpenCanada will be soliciting answers from experts over the coming months to the following questions:

• What information should Canadian citizens have access to regarding government surveillance programs? What information should Canadian authorities be able to gather, share, and store on Canadian citizens?

• What policies should be implemented and what laws should be updated or created to avoid a repeat of the PRISM situation in Canada?  Does the combination of data sharing agreements and flow of data though U.S. servers make any distinction between American and Canada surveillance law in practice moot?

• Should greater public knowledge of surveillance programs motivate Canadians to change how and what they communicate, and which companies they use? Will it?

• Why aren’t we seeing more public debate about surveillance in Canada? How would you like to see the Canadian surveillance debate develop?

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