Vic Toews, Bill C-30 and Accountability
By now, you’ve probably heard about An Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and other Acts, otherwise known at Bill C-30, which was put in front of Parliament by the Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews.
Bill C-30 seeks to, among other things, give the government and law enforcement warrantless powers to invade your privacy. In other words, they’ll be able to ask your ISP for all sorts of personal information about you and your online habits without first obtaining a warrant.
Needless to say, this has made a lot of people very unhappy and resulted in a number of campaigns against it, including the #TellVicEverything hashtag on Twitter.
When questioned about the warrantless access in the House of Commons, the minister basically said that there was nothing about warrantless access in the bill and told people that if they didn’t support the bill they were supporting pedophiles. (Even though the bill makes no reference to pedophiles or pornography.)
And then it appears he actually read the bill he’s endorsing. (more…)