… should fear Bill C-30!

Here I am on my morning commute going through downtown Ottawa and reading about how Vic Toews is called opponents to the Bill supporters of child porn.

Huh?

…here we go again…

In case you haven’t been following this (and you should have been!):

Bill C-30 includes, as CBC.ca reports online: requiring telecommunications and Internet providers to give up subscriber data, including name, address, mobile phone number and IP address (your online ID). And that’s before they get a warrant.

The bill also forces tech providers to provide police with a “back door” for easy surveillance. It also lets police get warrants to track any information sent online, who sent it and from where, and will let courts force other parties to preserve electronic evidence.

This last one rather sums up the terror of this new law. While we anguish over Facebook and Google’s increasingly blatant use and storage of our online lives, we’re blind to the ultimate destination of this information. It can now go straight to the cop who asks for it. As the NDP’s Charlie Angus put it, it gives the police a licence for fishing expeditions into all “private communications,” the all-inclusive term used in the bill. Cellphones would become an “electronic prisoner’s bracelet,” Angus said.

And now they have, at the last-minute, renamed the legislation to pander to the fear and disgust with child porn.

In fact, neither Toews nor the police can come up with examples of where the current legislation has interfered with or prevent the police from pursuing and prosecuting child pornographers. Not one.

I have written about this before. As have many others, like the Squid, who correctly notes:

The day this legislation gets royal assent, you can bet that police forces all over the country, starting with the RCMP will start building files on Canadians.  Innocent Canadians.  Not child pornography users (that’s the “appeal to emotion” that the government is using to try to drum up support), but regular people whom someone in authority doesn’t agree with.  People like me, who are writing this anti-government article.  University students in Montreal.  People with non-Anglo-Saxon names.  Basically anyone that they feel like can have their internet stuff trolled through without warrant, just because.

You betcha. I would like to think that those in authority would use this legislation wisely. But they won’t. Historically, if police forces have access to power. They. Will. Use. It.

Take that to the bank.

I just listened to Toews being interviewed by Hallie Cotnam this morning as he was trying to defend the Bill on Ottawa Morning… he is calling up the conspiracy ghosts again – calling efforts against the Bill as concerted and targeted by special interests.

Sound familiar?

Meanwhile, this father of 3 who despises and is sickened by child pornography will nonetheless continue to oppose this Bill… and fight for the ouster of every single Con who votes in favour of it at the last election. And I know some conservatives who will be joining me.

Of course, we are not only accused of being in league with child pornographer, but, as Kinsella notes, opponents are also likely to be a:

Atheist
God Hater
Child Hater — remember it is always about the children
Rural Canada Hater
Outdoor Sportsman Hater
Tim Hortons Hater
An Oil Sands Hater
Witch Lover
CBC Lover
Lover of the Arts
Book Lover
Statistics Canada apologist
A Baby Seal Lover
A United Nations Lover

(104)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario

Thanks to Warren Kinsella for posting this on his site.

As a father, he, um, takes a bit of issue with complete strangers touching his kids in what would ordinarily be a very inappropriate manner. He says:

I am a big, big Obama fan, as regular lurkers will know. But I think these new Transportation Security Administration rules – wherein they are permitted to paw your privates, in effect – are insane. And Obama is insane for letting them happen.

I don’t give a rat’s ass what the Fourth Amendment says. If some bureaucrat touches my kids, I’m drifting him

So yeah, travellers can go through one of those body scan machines (If they are available in the airport from which they are departing. I have no idea if these things are in each and every American airport.) – which I personally don’t have a big problem with – better than personal contact. But then, I read this:

According to information the T.S.A. has shared or published, the airport pat-downs are supposed to be conducted by officers the same sex as the traveler, and passengers can request a private screening and have a traveling companion present during the search. Agents are not permitted to look inside passengers’ underwear or reach inside a skirt, and children 12 and younger are supposed to receive a modified pat-down.

Even passengers who submit to the new body scanners may be subject to a pat-down if the machine detects an anomaly. In other cases, passengers may be randomly selected for a physical search.

Number one, more of a reason than ever to delay visits to the US of A until some measure of sanity has returned to that paranoid nation. Number two, if I do go to the States and if anyone touches my kids, well, I’d pull a “Warren”. And yes, there will be a scene.

Big deal that under-12s get a modified pat-down. Yeah, right. Just try.

Hmmm… just realising that even writing this will put me on some sort of “watch” list.

Too bad. (171)

Trashy,
Ottawa, Ontario