Killing Bill C-30 is Meaningless, Canada and the US Have Long Been in 'Security' Lock Step

Two days ago Canada's Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced that the Conservative Government was killing Bill C-30, its controversial online surveillance bill. But Canadians should take the time look carefully at the wording of the regulations that replaces it, like, "Emergency Wire Tap", for "Imminent harm, such as a kidnapping or bomb threat". In addition 'security' authorities "can listen without a warrant if they feel like harm may come from or to one of the parties involved. They are obligated to tell you at 90 days from when this starts.... unless they choose to extend it to 3 years before they notify you." Yikes.

Next look into the information already publicly available about the U.S.-Canada deals on 'Perimeter Security'.  There's 'The Integrated Cross Border Law Enforcement Operations Act', embedded in Bill C-38, which has been passed. It's part of 'The Beyond The Border initiative' which is "intended to foster the sharing of intelligence and, among other measures, the deal aims to address threats at the earliest possible opportunity as well as build on cross-border law enforcement programs and enhance emergency and cyber infrastructure." Yikes x 2

Then there's the US's 'Cyber-Intelligence Sharing & Protection Act' (CISPA), which commits [Bill C-12] Canada to “real-time information sharing” between cyber-security operations on both sides of the border. Every Canadian who thinks for a second that every thing they type, every call they make, isn't being recorded some place by one of the vast US 'security' operations is being naive. Yikes x 3

When it comes to 'security' the US and Canada are lock step and have been for a long time. It was common practice for one ally, like Canada for instance, to collect info from another country, like the US, then 'advise' the other of dangerous information however it was obtained. The US will continue to do it for Canada just as they had for years before documents obtained by FOI requests in the US forced the hand of that government to pass laws codifying these arrangements.

Never could understand why the Harperites opened themselves up to public criticism by introducing Bill C-30, other than as a sop to their ultra-conservative base, because they already had all legislation in place that they needed to legally farm out their domestic Internet spying and warrant-less wiretapping. The Canadian 'security' agencies - CSIS and the RCMP - can and will continue to take whatever information they are given and use it anyway they want, just like information taken through torture.