In the past week, senior police have been talking through friendly media to reassure us of the best intentions of Bill C-30, currently being debated in the House of Commons. The friendly media in Babel have certainly been doing their part. We have heard from the Babel police chief as well as the top cop from the Provincial Police. These people certainly try to be reassuring.
Bill C-30 is called the Protecting Children From Internet Predators Act. Could you ask for anything more innocent or urgent sounding than that? Ontario’s top cop tells us that this bill has had misleading coverage and it is really nothing more than an updating of police capabilities to keep pace with the technology. Oddly enough, that theme is echoed by Babel’s top cop. You would almost think they have been comparing notes—or were both supplied with the same song sheets. Though, understandingly, the Toronto Star-owned grocery wrap is a bit more cautious than the Sun media publication.
The two cops seem to share the opinion that those pesky warrants can take time to process and the investigators are required to have a reason for a justice to issue the warrant. They tell us that they just want access to information such as they used to get easily from the old fashioned telephone book. Mind you, it would be an unusual telephone book that told people where our mail is sorted and delivered from and what other names people used.
It is also questionable if the government should wish to pass a bill that forces Internet service providers to furnish the police with information about customers that they would not normally collect from customers to provide the service. And why should they intrude on a customer’s privacy, just to find out if they might be doing something illegal? Are police not supposed to have an indication that something illegal might be occurring, before they lower the boom?
The entire affair serves to remind us of how the police acted during the disgusting events at the G-20 event in Toronto in 2010. Look what happened when we trusted them to do the right thing then.
If the Conservatives did not have a majority that can ram the bill through the Commons, we would not worry. If we still had a Senate of Canada that was a house of sober second instead of a house of Harper thought, we would not worry.
But since we do not have any such protection, we have every right to be very, very worried!
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Copyright 2012 © Peter Lowry
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