We are not talking about Santa here. We are talking about the Harper Conservatives. And they want more and more information about how you feel and what you think. Now they want real-time access to your social media attitudes and what you say in your blog. And if Babel-on-the-Bay suddenly disappears, you will know that we finally pissed off the Prime Minister by writing too much about his silly hair piece and his private hairdresser.
But this is a serious topic. This is invading the privacy of all Canadians. Public Works and Government Services Canada is advertising now for a high-tech firm to monitor Canadians on the Internet 24/7. And it can be done. It is even easier to analyze publicly posted material than to check on your e-mails and they are already reading those over at National Defence’s Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). That agency is believed to be spending more than half a billion of your money each year reading our e-mails and listening to international communications. Exactly what they are looking for is being kept confidential, even if they think what we say to overseas friends is not.
Many people will welcome more attention to their blogs but that is until you realize that the blogger is not the only Internet user who can access Google Analytics. It is who reads your blog that is of interest to Big Brother. He wants to know just how much influence your blog is having on Canadians. That can be measured and Big Brother can find out just who among us is convinced that the Prime Minister wears a hair piece.
It is important to remember that the World-Wide Web is basically nothing more than millions and millions of addresses. When you go to a web site, you are basically giving the site an address to send you information. The web site keeps your address and sends you the info. And that is not necessarily a fair exchange.
While blogs and social media are there to be read, the involvement of the government in analyzing this is definitely questionable. What is wrong with the analysis is that we have no idea of the questions and who is asking them. Studying blogs to see who is naughty and nice towards the government is just too much for many civil rights proponents.
Mind you, if Big Brother accedes to Access to Information requests and readily publishes annual reports on the information gained, who could complain? Until such time, we will reserve judgement.
-30-
Copyright 2013 © Peter Lowry
Complaints, comments, criticisms and compliments can be sent to [email protected]