Police chiefs want more access to private e-mail, Internet communication.

Now they will reading YOUR private email, and listening to your intimate cell-phones conversations. However, the more than 8 Billion you kindly "gave them" for this purpose will not be enough.... so expect a surcharge for their "right" to snoop at their leisure.


VANCOUVER (CP) -- Police want the federal government to revamp 30-year-old Criminal Code provisions and give them greater access to fight hi-tech crime carried out via e-mail, the Internet and other forms of electronic traffic.

The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has been after Ottawa for Criminal Code amendments for some time and on Monday, the association's president reinforced that call.

The shortcomings of outdated legislation "poses a significant threat to public safety," said Edgar McLeod, who is also chief of the Cape Breton Regional Police Service.

McLeod said police are losing the crime-fighting battle to legislation that was written in 1974 -- when the rotary-dial telephone was still in use.

"Since then the technology has advanced while the police ability to keep up has not kept pace," Edgar said during a break at the association's annual conference.

"We say it's time to stop talking and start acting immediately."

Cape Breton Police Chief Edgar McLeod: 'What we're hearing consistently from our police agencies and investigators across the country, is that they are not able to intercept -- lawfully -- these communications.' (Global BC)

 

Police organizations want more power -- through *lawful access with warrants -- to monitor e-mail, web surfing, instant messaging, mobile telephones and telephone services that use Internet connections.

[*Just to clarify: Their use of the term "lawful" means that whatever they wish to do is written down on paper (legislation), and sprinkled with ritual 'magic dust', which they presumably keep in the "Royal Mace". The "Public Safety" Ministry - not surprisingly - has pledged to give them whatever additional power they ask for.]

The police [claimed they] are especially concerned about child pornography, exploitation of children, and organized crime.

[Unless its one of their own - in which case they 'look the other way' <click link>]

The chiefs seem to have growing support from the federal government.

In a speech to the Canadian Association of Police Boards last week, Public Safety Minister Anne McLellan described the issue as "something my department is actively working on."

But a Toronto-based national group known as Privateer says the police and the federal government must make the case to the public that cyber crime is increasing and that changes to the laws are needed.

"Those laws can apply to the existing medium quite well," said Robert Guerra, managing director of Privateer, which describes itself as a coalition of computer professionals and human rights organizations.

"It doesn't mean that the old laws are bad," he said. "It means police and authorities have to go through just cause for them to prove to a judge that they can intercept communication.

"That is how it works now. Why do they need additional powers?"

[So they don't need "just cause" - DUH! They have a police state to run.]

Guerra agreed a new era of communications exists, but it's also true that the Charter of Rights came into force after the 1974 Criminal Code provisions.

[BC Court of Appeal says "legislation can infringe your rights" - remember? LINK]

"So any new rights on any new communications medium regarding powers we give police have to be balanced with rights we have under existing modes of communication," he said.

Peter Barnes, president and CEO of Toronto-based Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, said there are huge cost implications to the police demands.

[Huge Costs? Here's your first clue to the scope of the snooping; especially given the more than 8 Billion additional dollars given to CSIS under the "Public Safety" ministry which was responsible for passing (without parliamentary debate) the "Anti-Terrorism/Hate-Crime" Act]

"Our issue is that, whatever is the right approach, we have to recover the costs associated with that," he said, referring to time and labour that Internet providers and others would incur keeping such information and making it accessible to investigators.

"It's quite complex and can be quite costly," said Barnes. "We don't think our customers should subsidize this enterprise that's carried out by law enforcement."

McLeod and other chiefs made the point several times that they are looking at "lawful access," not more powers.

Supt. Thomas Grue of the Edmonton Police Service, said police were reluctant to discuss in detail the types of things they would like better access to for fear of alerting the criminals.

"There is some technology now that we can't intercept but we can't list them for public safety reasons," said Grue.

Some Internet providers, for instance, can now purge data at will because there are no regulations, said Grue.

How long they would keep the data and who would pay added costs for doing so is still being debated, he said.

The association says other countries, including Australia, New Zealand, Britain and the Netherlands, have already adopted legislation aimed at modernizing their lawful access statutes.

Greg Joyce, Canadian Press August 23, 2004

http://www.canada.com/vancouver/globaltv/story.html?id=d0dcae80-091c-4654-a2de-f1ddbdb8470b
 

Police chiefs want public to pay surveillance surcharge.
CTV.ca News Staff

Canada's police chiefs propose a surcharge of about 25 cents on monthly telephone and Internet bills to cover the cost of tapping into the communications of terrorists and other criminals.

The suggestion is intended to resolve a standoff between police forces and telecommunications companies over who should foot the expense of providing investigators with access to phone calls and e-mail messages.

Police say they cannot -- and should not -- be forced to pay the often hefty costs involved in carrying out court-approved wiretaps and message searches, warning that investigations will suffer if they are expected to pick up the tab.

"This is a very, very serious issue for us. It has a potential for really paralysing operations," said Supt. Tom Grue, a member of the law amendments committee of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police.

But the country's largest phone company believes that telecommunications firms and law-enforcement agencies, not subscribers, should split the costs.

"We think there should be more of a partnership between the agencies and us, rather than getting the public to pay for it," said Bell Canada spokeswoman Jacqueline Michelis.

The matter has taken on new urgency as the federal government prepares legislation aimed at preventing criminals from using new digital technologies to shield their communications from police and intelligence agencies.

Authorities argue the measures are needed to keep up with sophisticated criminals involved in such activities as terrorism, money laundering, child pornography and murder.

The legislative proposals, outlined two years ago, have raised the hackles of privacy advocates and civil libertarians.

Bubbling in the background is the equally thorny debate about money.

Under the federal proposals, service providers would be required, when upgrading their systems, to build in the technical capabilities needed by police and intelligence agencies, such as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, to easily tap communications.

The controversy revolves around the ongoing costs of looking up phone numbers, hooking up to networks and relaying communications from one city to another - individual services that may cost anywhere from pocket change to thousands of dollars.

Currently, a hodgepodge of payment practices applies, from negotiation of fees by the parties involved to refusal by some police forces to accept the bills.

Grue, a member of the Edmonton police force, said the costs should be spread as widely as possible to avoid unduly burdening a small number of parties.

The association of police chiefs, which represents the majority of Canadian forces, argues one way to accomplish that is adding a fee to each subscriber's monthly telephone, cellular or Internet bill.

"We're thinking, amongst ourselves, 25 cents. Whether that would cover off all the costs, we don't know. We haven't done the analysis on it," Grue said.

"But if you impose too great of a burden or put too high of a fee, then it becomes less and less attractive, obviously."

Grue compares the proposed fee to the one customers already pay to support 911 emergency service, which ranges from about 25 to 50 cents a month depending on the type of telephone plan.

[That's some big project if they need as much as the 24 HR per day, 911 services.]

Bell Canada's Michelis wants to pull the plug on the idea of a wiretap charge.

"We don't really think the cost should be flipped over to the general public," she said.

"I don't know how popular that's going to be, something like that. Twenty-five cents is a really significant amount to add to everybody's phone bill."

Tom Copeland, a spokesman for the Canadian Association of Internet Providers, said tacking a fee on monthly bills "might work" but could create a burdensome administrative regime that hampers companies, especially small ones with few staff.

Grue said it's "a bit of a mystery" to him why the industry is decidedly less than enthusiastic about the idea. "All companies would have that fee on the bill, so it's not like you're giving one company a competitive advantage over another company."

Federal officials have convened meetings of the various players to try to work out the issues.

Internal Justice Department notes prepared following a roundtable session in December stressed the need "not to further exacerbate the situation."

Bell Canada says it has invested heavily in infrastructure to allow for wiretaps and is only trying to recover its costs on the day-to-day services provided to police and intelligence agencies.

"Bell has already spent millions of dollars on this initiative and it's going to continue costing us a huge amount of money going forward," Michelis said. "We are looking to get some sort of compensation on the ongoing costs."

For the police, it's a matter of principle.

"From our perspective, it's a very slippery slope to start paying for the execution of search warrants or any kind of a court order," said Grue.

Lucie Angers, a senior Justice Department lawyer, indicated the issues will be resolved at the political level.

"You have different interests at stake," she said. "There's good sums of money that are involved in taking these decisions."

Federal officials are interested in a solution that would "balance the costs," said Simone McAndrew, a spokeswoman for the Public Safety Department.

"Any proposal that is brought forward will be considered."

CSIS had no comment.

Copeland said if subscribers end up funding the surveillance effort through monthly fees, Canadians would "demand a great deal more explanation" about the initiative and how it affects their constitutional and privacy rights.

And should the money come from law-enforcement budgets, the public will be contributing "out the back door" through tax revenues, he noted.

"One way or another, Canadians are going to pay."

[Not just in the wallet, but in terms of our blood bought liberty. Note that CSIS had "no comment" on the need for more Billions.]

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1092606743312_57/

Kelowna Camera Challenge Dropped

July 4, 2003

Canada's new Privacy czar is dropping his court challenge against an RCMP surveillance camera in Kelowna.

George Radwanski started complaining about the police camera two years ago, and launched a court challenge last summer saying the camera violated the Charter of Rights. A judge threw the case out last month, ruling that the Office of the Privacy Commissioner does not have the right to file lawsuits.

Radwanski has since been replaced by Robert Marleau, and the new commissioner has decided not to appeal that ruling.

[Might we suggest the reason Marleau was chosen, was for the sole reason that he supports police state surveillance cameras? You decide.]

http://www.vancouvertelevision.com/displayresults.jsp?id=/news/stories/2003/07/news-20030704-07.htm

Bloomberg | April 13 2006

Google Inc. CEO Eric Schmidt on Wednesday defended the search engine's cooperation with Chinese censorship as he announced the creation of a Beijing research center and unveiled a Chinese-language brand name.

Google is trying to raise its profile in China after waiting until January to launch its Chinese-language site Google.cn. Activists have criticized the company for blocking searches for material about Taiwan, Tibet, democracy and other sensitive issues on the site.

"We believe that the decision that we made to follow the law in China was absolutely the right one," Schmidt said at a news conference.

[................]

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In a outstanding display of anti-Christianism, the search engine "Google" who at the slightest reason artistically changes the graphics of their website logo, failed to acknowledge the worlds largest celebrated Christian holiday - Easter.