Pubdate: Mon, 10 Jul 2006 Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC) Copyright: 2006 The Vancouver Sun Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouver/vancouversun/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477 Author: Ian Mulgrew BELL'S MOVE TO MONITOR US AN OMINOUS PORTENT Fears Of Corporate Information Fishing Arise As Internet Providers Take Steps To Monitor Users' Online Activity We should be concerned about the erosion of our civil liberties in the post-9/11 world and the very real Big Brother-style monitoring of our Internet activities. The Canadian Bar Association has long argued lawmakers went too far in the wake of the World Trade Centre strikes and did not build in enough checks when they gave law-enforcement agencies greater powers ostensibly to combat terrorism. Still, when Canada's largest Internet service provider, Bell Sympatico, amends its service agreement with customers to create an environment of institutionalized cyberspying on behalf of the government, we're entering a whole other realm. Bell three weeks ago told its customers it's reserving the right to monitor, collect and on request provide to police a list of every site you visit and every keystroke you type while connected. Other ISPs have or are expected to follow suit. Civil rights and privacy activists are concerned because they see this as a signal Ottawa is planning to introduce legislation that goes even further than the offensive Liberal bill, the Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act, which died with the old government. Brian Tabor, president of the Canadian Bar Association, last week wrote to cabinet decrying Bell's move as an ominous portent. The association, which represents about 36,000 members of the country's academic and professional legal community, is especially concerned about lawyer-client communications that move over the Net. Solicitor-client privilege is considered a cornerstone of our legal system and is obviously at risk. "This seems to be introducing a corporate or industry content monitoring scheme, without the necessity of prior authorization or oversight," Tabor wrote. "The current initiative by ISPs appears significantly more intrusive than the previous legislative proposal." The Halifax lawyer said the bar wants assurance from Ottawa this kind of information-fishing won't be done without a court order. That's one of the nuances here -- private companies can often do things without being subjected to scrutiny and public oversight the government can't. That's why the Bush administration uses civilian contractors for work it doesn't want subjected to accountability laws that apply to the military or government agencies. I have always agreed with the bar association that Ottawa delegated too much power to law-enforcement and national security agencies without enough oversight in the name of keeping us safe. Forget about the constitutional abuses of Dubya and Co. south of the border -- our own agencies are using these badly drafted laws to avoid scrutiny, trample on citizens' rights and cover up misconduct. Even Shirley Heafey, former head of the RCMP Commission for Public Complaints, has beaten the drum since stepping down last October that we're headed down a very nasty road. We've got police and their agents blithely breaking laws with impunity. We've got people who have been held in jail in Canada for years without trial or disclosure. We've got more secret proceedings under way in this country than you can count. In most cases, there is no way for reporters to even learn what is happening save by accident. When pressed on misbehaviour, the regular official stance is to stonewall and deny, deny, deny. Or better yet, as they do down in Washington, D.C., officialdom self-righteously insinuates the media are being disloyal and giving succor to the enemy by raising such issues. In this particular case, during discussions about the new cyber-space law, officials characterized the proposals as simply updating current investigative powers to recognize technological realities. Instead, we are seeing signs that the measures will have much broader scope and potentially much more profound impact on Canadians' privacy. Like the bar association, I do not believe these measures are necessary. Worse, they mock accountability and obscure what should be in a democracy transparent -- the working of justice and government. After watching Prime Minister Stephen Harper cozy up with the president, however, I suspect such concerns will get short shrift. After all, as the law-and-order set likes to say, if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman