Canadian bill would strip internet access from 'specified persons', no warrant

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/canadian-bill-would-strip-internet-access-from-specified-persons

by walterbell • 10 months ago

603 294 10 months ago

nationalpost.com

walterbell4• 10 months ago

https://archive.is/1Vvqr

incomingpain6• 10 months ago

Consider this scenario.

Your isp emails you that they are terminating your account.

You phone gets disconnected.

You call them and helpdesk doesnt have a clue why.

You try to sign up for new services and they refuse and wont say why.

All because a politician has decided it 'reasonable' to disconnect you from the internet; and he can order complete secrecy and there's no judicial oversight.

Perhaps you showed up at the wrong protest? Note how they seized the bank accounts of protestors and even an entire small bank only a few years ago.

HappySweeney3• 10 months ago

While I agree with most of this and oppose this bill, your last two lines are a mischaracterization. There is judicial oversight, but only after the order is implemented. Second, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors, as the leaders of that siege were convicted of mischief, two of which are being sentenced today. In general, protests do not engage in torturing the local populace with 95db of air horn for 16 to 20 hours a day. The account seizure also required emergency powers.

gruez2• 10 months ago

There is judicial oversight, but only after the order is implemented

In the sense that you can sue to have the order challenged? How's this different than what Trump's doing, where the government does something illegal (or at least legally dubious), and there's "judicial oversight" because aggrieved parties can sue the government?

Second, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors, as the leaders of that siege were convicted of mischief, two of which are being sentenced today.

Were the bank accounts seized before or after the conviction?

digitalPhonix• 10 months ago

There is judicial oversight, but only after the order is implemented

How would one find out information about the process, find a lawyer etc. without internet access?

joemazerino• 10 months ago

If I am not mistaken, a court ruled those emergency powers were overreach.

incomingpain6• 10 months ago

There is not judicial oversight. You never know there was an order.

If you get into that scenario, you suspect the government cut you off, but you go to a lawyer and have literally nothing. The court will not take the case.

econd, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors,

They seized hundreds of accounts; later had the banks terminate the bank accounts.

In fact, not only protestors but people who donated to the protest got their bank accounts seized.

as the leaders of that siege were convicted of mischief, two of which are being sentenced today.

Protesting the government, in front of parliament is mischief? Political prisoners.

n general, protests do not engage in torturing the local populace with 95db of air horn for 16 to 20 hours a day. The account seizure also required emergency powers.

Which was found to be unconstitutional.

But Bill C8 wont be abused by this same government? How about abuse in the future by other governments?

busymom0• 10 months ago

The account seizure also required emergency powers.

Court ruled the use of Emergencies Act against convoy protests was unreasonable, violated Charter:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/emergencies-act-federal-cou...

Second, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors

Wrong. Many people whose accounts were frozen were family/friends who were not even at the protest.

Court found:

The judge said the economic orders infringed on protesters' freedom of expression "as they were overbroad in their application to persons who wished to protest but were not engaged in activities likely to lead to a breach of the peace." He also concluded the economic orders violated protesters' Charter rights "by permitting unreasonable search and seizure of the financial information of designated persons and the freezing of their bank and credit card accounts."

alexandre_m2• 10 months ago

Emergency powers which were deemed as unreasonable and violated the charter rights by admission of the Federal court.

I can't believe that people are defending that.

https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/trnsprnc/brfng-mtrls/prlm...

zahlman4• 10 months ago

Second, the bank accounts seized did not belong to protestors, as the leaders of that siege were convicted of mischief, two of which are being sentenced today.

"There were arrests, therefore this was not a valid protest" is a very dangerous argument to be making, and I furthermore strongly doubt that you would apply this standard consistently to causes you endorse.

goku12• 10 months ago

Let me remind everyone this again. Democracy is not an autocracy with time limits and turns. It's not a system where you elect a few individuals and hand them the power to rule over you for a few years. They are supposed to be your representatives who raise your concerns and protect your interests in a forum that takes decisions that affect all of you. Legislation like these are the small steps that convert the latter into the former. Democracy is fragile. Just electing a candidate periodically is not enough. It depends on the constant effort, vigil and activism from the citizens to safeguard it. It wont survive your apathy. As idealistic as it sounds, this burden is the true cost of living in a democracy. This is a harsh lesson that's recorded in history again and again.

Always take legislation like this seriously and hold your representatives responsible for it. Let them know that their political career in your constituency is finished for good if they support such moves. Let their political party know that they're not winning your constituency again until the damage is reversed. There's no room for subtleties and pleasantries when they're clearly showing you that they don't value your autonomy or the checks and balances on their abuse of power.

lisbbb• 10 months ago

That was a bold statement that the children on here will no doubt downvote into oblivion as will mine. I'm tired of having this same argument over and over--just having the ability to vote for draconian shit doesn't mean you get to lord over everyone else! The power mongers in control of most Western governments are insane lunatics who use fear against hapless, low-information fools. They seem hell bent on eliminating every single basic freedom we ever had? Why? I keep hearing "neo-feudalism" but that's just a label, it's not the why. Also, why not just eliminate voting completely? Well, I mean, it's nearly a formality in many places these days already, but they like that little semblance of false legitimacy, I guess.

tamimio2• 10 months ago

Democracy is fake; it's the rule of whoever controls the money, influence, media, and pulls the proper manipulation tactics to manipulate the public through fears. It was funny watching the digital ID in the UK, how they were using "porn and kids" for the left-leaning crowds, and "immigrants" for the right-leaning ones, but ultimately the result of both is the same: more control, more surveillance, and decaying freedom.

isaacremuant5• 10 months ago

Always take legislation like this seriously and hold your representatives responsible for it. Let them know that their political career in your constituency is finished for good if they support such moves

But it isn't. I've gone the route of writing my representatives but when most people support the measures or at least don't oppose them they can easily laugh in your face or outright lie to you, claiming that protests aren't banned when they are (e.g. covid times) and things like that.

Most people here probably called me some government/media pushed negative label just for protesting to uphold freedom/constitutional rights/human rights.

It's not that easy to advocate effectively once you realize gov/media funded propaganda permeates really well.

morkalork• 10 months ago

Sounds about as opaque and infringing on rights as the no-fly list or anything else implemented post 9/11?

btbuildem4• 10 months ago

[flagged]

tomhow2• 10 months ago

2022 freedumb convoy

Please avoid snarky tropes like this on HN. We're trying for something different here.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

ProllyInfamous2• 10 months ago

As a middle-aged person voluntarily NOT using email/phone, I cannot even imagine being banned from the internet. How would you function?

walterbell4• 10 months ago

Would this apply to traveller phones roaming on Canadian telco networks?

What forms of digital identity could be used to enforce an internet kill switch / blockade for specific humans?

ProllyInfamous2• 10 months ago

Great thought — see also: StarLinks

zetanor• 10 months ago

If the Governor in Council believes on reasonable grounds that it is necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation [...]

https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-8/first-re...

Anyone familiar enough with Canadian law to know how much bearing this condition might have in practice?

neom• 10 months ago

Will depend heavily on how it is interpreted and exercised by Cabinet, it's ex-ante accountability - required parliamentary reporting after the fact.

Personal opinion as a Canadian, and may not be popular...but I like it's done this way to a degree, I actually have more faith in the Governor in Council than how the courts might interperate this, there is a lot of political risk to using this, and I do believe that the crown will in fact enforce parliamentary accountability. If this truly is a national security tool, these powers are less alarming than, say, those granted directly to an independent agency or to security services acting without crown/ministerial oversight.

nick__m2• 10 months ago

I would agree with you if this clause was amended to remove the part after the coma:

  (6) Any order made under subsection (1) must be published in the Canada Gazette within 90 days after the day on which it is made, unless the Governor in Council directs otherwise in the order.

mhurron• 10 months ago

This is a law enforcement action. If the government is going to give itself the ability to strip the ability of a citizen or resident to access services that are their right to access, and an increasing number of those services are online access, it should be done within the confines and oversight of the law.

This is a disgusting power grab. 'Because I said so, trust me' is not a justification.

gpm11• 10 months ago

Governor in Council effectively refers to the cabinet, i.e. the senior members of the party that has formed the government. I.e. it remains a political decision by elected members of parliament to do that, but it's a subset instead of the whole thing.

zahlman4• 10 months ago

This area of Canadian law is almost entirely dependent on concepts of "reasonability" so there is nothing unusual here. Our equivalent of the Bill of Rights is bookended by a section of "reasonable limits" (cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_1_of_the_Canadian_Char...) and a "notwithstanding clause" that allows for a "temporary override" of several other sections (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_33_of_the_Canadian_Cha...). It's as vague and unpredictable as ever.

nick__m2• 10 months ago

I tought that the National Post was exaggerating the severity in their crusade against the Liberal like they frequently do. So I when to read the law and it's as bad as they say: https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-8/first-re...

  ...
    Factor 
    Before making the order, the Governor in Council must consider

    (a) its operational impact on the affected telecommunications service providers;

    (b) its financial impact on the affected telecommunications service providers;

    (c) its effect on the provision of telecommunications services in Canada; and

    (d) any other factor that the Governor in Council considers relevant.

  ...
    No compensation
  
  (8) No one is entitled to any compensation from His Majesty in right of Canada       for any financial losses resulting from the making of an order under subsection  (1).

api2• 10 months ago

It’s always important to check these days, but nothing surprises me in the realm of bad laws anymore.

brightball• 10 months ago

This legislation is clearly dangerous, but how do you associate it with targeting a particular group?

torben-friis2• 10 months ago

The universal push for expanded security trumping all is concerning.

At this point authoritarian pushes are the best case scenario - I’m fearing it’s preparation for wartime.

1234letshaveatw3• 10 months ago

it's pretty much SOP for Canada

MagicMoonlight• 10 months ago

We’re definitely in the pre-war era. It’s like when Britain was trying to negotiate with Hitler while rearming in the background.

China is going to attack pearl harbour in the hopes that a sudden unexpected attack will cripple the pacific fleet and knock America out of the war. It won’t work, we’ll go through hell again. But every time these places think it will work, and they don’t factor in the fact that they are completely reliant on foreign trade for their economy.

Russia is pretty much in war economy now, they have no choice but to escalate and invade Eastern Europe. They have no chance of winning, but that never matters to crazy people.

txrx00007• 10 months ago

I think this current wave of low social cohesion and authoritarianism is caused by recent technological advances. Indeed, this phenomena I'm about to describe is a precursor of war, but the causal relationship is the inverse of your suspicions. And I think it can also be fixed by other recent technological advances. Here's why and how:

The Internet and social media in its current form makes it easier for social groups to get larger and more intellectually and ideologically homogenous. As these groups get larger, it becomes harder for individuals to communicate across groups or think for themselves because there are various in-group moderation mechanisms (filtering, banning, ranking, deplatforming, cancel culture, etc). Eventually, the echo chambers become large enough to fight over who gets to run a nation's government. The winner turns into a government that moderates its people (like it always did before it became the government). Multiple such governments emerge around the world. This happened in cycles in the past as well, but modern technology facilitates the process.

To prevent this, we must realize two democratic principles simultaneously: "one shall have the freedom to decide what one sees and hears" and "one shall have the freedom to express whatever they like". It wasn't possible to realize both principles simultaneously in the past without a central authority because if someone is doing something in a public space, you cannot selectively filter them out. If you cover your eyes and ears, you block out not just that person, but everyone else as well. So we came up with rules for behavior in public spaces and wrote them into law. This didn't drastically raise the probability of a democratic society turning authoritarian because there were physical limits on practical group size. It was very hard to rally a large group of intellectually homogenous people. But the Internet and social media completely broke this safeguard imposed by physics. Now, echo chambers form naturally and grow rapidly.

To fix this, we must normalize not moderating or filtering content online in any centralized manner. Instead, we build user-configurable client-side content filters and ranking algorithms so that each individual can decide what they see and post, but nobody can decide what anybody else sees or posts.

We need to replace server-side content filters and ranking algorithms with offline solutions controlled by each individual on their own device. Get rid of likes and dislikes, and get rid of server-curated feeds. Have the server send a raw RSS feed of everything posted in the past day (or whatever time window, sparsely randomly sampled if there's too much) at once, then get it ranked and filtered on the user's device based on the user's preferences and viewing history, and then fetch the actual media associated with those feed entries.

This will, somewhat counterintuitively, increase social cohesion by limiting the inter-group rift between individuals and prevent the formation of large echo chambers. People will be more likely to engage with eachother in good faith. Authoritarian patterns will be more likely to naturally dissolve.

coldtea• 10 months ago

The push is for expanded goverment control, safety is just a pretext at best

heavyset_go5• 10 months ago

Damn those rich bastards must really be afraid of us

padjo2• 10 months ago

Not nearly afraid enough.

narrator• 10 months ago

I think the problem with most average left of center people who want to be agreeable and civic minded is they have total incredulity at the government would actually do anything really screwed up, especially as they are so "moral" with their performative political correctness. How can someone who cares about the rights of minority groups act so tyrannically? There's always a glitch though somewhere, and people assume pious in one dimension, pious in all dimensions.

charles_f• 10 months ago

I'm not sure why you would mention "left of center". This seems to be true for everyone, look across the border of Canada if you want an example. People tend to be trusting of others, because society came to be through collaboration.

dfxm12• 10 months ago

Why do you think this? Talking to Canadians (and Americans) who self-describe as left of centre, from centre-left to progressive and even a few beyond, this is not the case. People were afraid of what Poilievre would do. Americans definitely understand that Trump is doing really screwed up things. I don't think it is partisan. Off the top of my head, we saw leftists protest against Trudeau, Biden and Obama on gas pipelines, people locked in cages and drones.

Simulacra2• 10 months ago

Sounds very much like a social credit scoring system

olalonde4• 10 months ago

Which doesn't even exist.

Simulacra2• 10 months ago

in America whereas in places like China, it very much exists.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Credit_System

thinkingkong2• 10 months ago

The argument made here seems to be that the power to prevent unlawful access or threats is somehow required to keep us all safe. But if someone was an actual threat, do we really think they’d be using the internet with their own identity? Like if someone is willing to hack into a power station or some other critical infrastructure, they’ll be simultaneously stupid enough to use their own credit card?

Illegal things are already illegal. Safety and security mechanisms already exist. We dont need additional, punitive, and opaque laws that can be abused.

themafia3• 10 months ago

Politicians seem to enjoy corruption. It benefits them directly.

They really do hate anyone who points out their hypocrisy or makes fun of them. It challenges their corrupt kickbacks directly.

I think it's easy to make a prediction of actual use cases here.

pavel_lishin2• 10 months ago

Is this even corruption? Who's getting kickbacks here? It sounds like they're just incompetent, and brainstorming stupid ideas and writing a law around whatever sticks to the wall.

ekianjo2• 10 months ago

Politicians seem to enjoy corruption

You can remove the "seem". They go specifically into that line of business to benefit from juicy corruption.

KurSix3• 10 months ago

Yeah, it's hard not to be cynical when the tools they keep pushing for always seem ripe for political abuse rather than legitimate threats

bawolff7• 10 months ago

I get the impression a lot of this is not just people but companies. So in theory the order might be - don't use any huawei routers, we think they have backdoors, etc.

(Just to be clear, i agree this law is way too broad)

kQq9oHeAz6wLLS• 10 months ago

This argument is often unsuccessfully used in other areas; gun rights jumps to mind.

Often the new laws only affect those who are already following the laws. Those who are willing to break the laws will ignore and/or find ways around them (see: Chicago, DC, etc).

thinkingkong2• 10 months ago

Agree that its not the most effective. What would you suggest? What works better?

KurSix3• 10 months ago

And I think that's not how rule of law is supposed to work in a democracy

osigurdson• 10 months ago

It's always like this. Bad guys, unless extremely dumb, will come up with workarounds. So, it ends up just being a war on law abiding citizens.

verisimi• 10 months ago

Yes, illegal things are already illegal. But, if you alter the law, you can create new areas to monetise or ways to extract private information from legally minded citizens. In other words, these laws are nothing to do with preventing illegality, they are about control. They are co-ordinated across different legal jurisdictions too.

tastyfreeze• 10 months ago

The Leviathan cannot be controlled. It hungers for power and control. People in positions of power are deceived into thinking that if they just had a little more power they could fix so many things. The Leviathan grows. The people are crushed.

Our desire for power feeds the Leviathan. To prevent this power must be diffuse.

txrx00007• 10 months ago

This is worse than the EU's ChatControl, or the UK's Online Safety Act. This will pave the way for total online censorship and surveillance in Canada. The Canadian government will be able to target any user or service provider it doesn't like, silently.

They don't even have to pass laws to ban VPNs or read private chat messages or enforce identity verification, or whatever other unambitious attempts other governments are making. This will do it all:

Knock knock, it's the Chinadian government. You host a web service that uses encryption? Great. Now provide a backdoor for us or we'll ban you. Oh and don't tell your users. We'll ban you for that too.

---

Hello user, we noticed that you've shared some concerning information online, and you're also using this E2EE chat service that we can't monitor. A friendly reminder from the government: continuing to use such services and spreading such harmful information online may cause your Internet connection to malfunction.

arandr0x2• 10 months ago

I'm finding it interesting (after spending time in the EU where ChatControl is front and center in the news) that there's been this resurgence of interest in electronic surveillance and information warfare suddenly in countries that 10 years ago spent a significant amount of the news cycle decrying the US's NSA and China's internet police. What's changed?

steve_adams_862• 10 months ago

I support prohibiting people from accessing the internet IF they're proven to be dangerous to others if they access the internet. But this applies to any public space or commons, internet or otherwise, and we already have the means of accomplishing this... With a due process.

Why would it makes sense to remove that process, while introducing an incredible opaque decision-making process in its place, which totally bars anyone from knowing why they were excluded from accessing the internet? It even prevents wrongfully excluded individuals from receiving compensation.

For example, I could be cut off from the internet which I need to do my job. Say I'm unable to work for a week or two and then it's determined that I can access the internet because an error was made... Well, as far as I can tell, I'd be SOL. That doesn't seem right...

Worse still is that this seems about as technically competent as using an IP address to determine a person's location. Any serious threat vector, human or otherwise, will find other ways to access the internet or perpetuate their threat if they care to. If they're a serious threat, why wouldn't prison be a better solution than... Calling their ISP and banning them from the internet?

All of this seems very short-sighted, undemocratic, and naive.

And while the 'human or otherwise' phrase I used might seem odd (I know someone's dog isn't shit-posting on X), what I mean to say is something like... What if an LLM is posting from an unsuspecting person's computer and was placed there as a virus? Once it's cut off from that poor person's computer, it's very likely it will eventually or already be functioning from some other unsuspecting person's computer, server, or whatever other device. Their toaster. My point is that we live in an age where there are non-human agents causing harm online. The machine they operate from will not always be OpenAI's or Anthropics, and indeed, will probably rarely be so.

This was already the case with human actors, but it made much worse with the advent of AI-based agents.

BLKNSLVR• 10 months ago

Why would it makes sense to remove that process, while introducing an incredible opaque decision-making process in its place

For all the Canadian railing against Trump, this is an authoritarian play as much as many of Trump's actions.

Unfortunately this seems to be a growing, hypocritical trend around the world. EU's Chat Control as another example. Australia's lax control over entities able to access ISP metadata as another.

The problem is that it enables Trump further by allowing him to point at their decisions as similar examples to his own, as justification. I'm only using Trump since he seems to be the one willing to push boundaries the furthest, so if supposedly "more democratic" leaders are pushing such boundaries, then Trump will... Trump them.

steve_adams_862• 10 months ago

I agree that it's an authoritarian play, completely. That doesn't mean I think we have an authoritarian government, but I do see the nature of the bill as authoritarian. Ideas like this should be unwelcome in Canada, period.

I was opposed to freezing bank accounts during the trucker convoys, even though I was opposed to how the convoys were performing their protests. These kinds of measures—and capabilities of governments in general—are anti-democracy in nature and in my opinion, should be rejected by everyone who values democracy.

I'm all for keeping dangerous people offline. I'm all for protecting fellow Canadians from online dangers. We can find better ways to do this, though. I'm very disappointed that such poor judgement is being used by our current government.

The worst part is that seemingly no one gets to know what the cause of the ban is, and there are so few checks or balances before the decision is acted on. It's absolutely bizarre.

armada6512• 10 months ago

Unfortunately this seems to be a growing, hypocritical trend around the world. EU's Chat Control as another example.

It's not hypocritical, there's no such thing as an absolute right to freedom of speech in the EU like there is in the US. Chat Control is widely opposed in the EU and I don't agree with it, but it's not hypocritical nor inconsistent with how the EU treats freedom of expression.

Here are the limitations placed on freedom of expression by the European Convention on Human Rights:

The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

You won't find those conditions in the 1st amendment of the U.S. constitution.

LeroyRaz• 10 months ago

This particular type of authoritarianism is primarily from the left in the west. The EU, the UK, Canada, it is the political left implementing these policies, often using them to censor right wing views (e.g., Objecting to immigration gets labelled racist -> justified censorship. Objecting to trans women in women only spaces gets labelled as hateful -> justified censorship, etc...).

kennethrc• 10 months ago

IF they're proven to be dangerous to others if they access the internet

... which means what? They espouse ideas "you" don't like?

zahlman4• 10 months ago

proven to be dangerous to others if they access the internet.

What exactly would this entail? Some people nowadays seem to have a very broad conception of "safety", broad enough to cause serious concern on the part of advocates for freedom and privacy.

xvector• 10 months ago

It will invariably be reduced to "saying mean things on the internet" by the government. I do not understand why people are so willing to give governments an ever-increasing amount of power. People never learn from history.

SchemaLoad• 10 months ago

In modern society it's pretty much impossible to live without using the internet. You can't apply for a job, you can't apply for a rental. You can't even order a burger at some restaurants without scanning the QR code.

Anyone too dangerous to be allowed any access to the internet probably just needs to be in jail. What would be the point in leaving someone to their own devices while preventing them from participating in society at all?

zzo38computer2• 10 months ago

You can't even order a burger at some restaurants without scanning the QR code.

I have only ever been to one restaurant where this was the case (and it was not a very good restaurant in my opinion, so I do not intend to go back there even if they have a real menu, unless they also improve their food and management), but they provided a iPad to any customer who needed it for this purpose (I did not need it, since I was not alone and was with another customer who had their own iPad). (I think it might be better to post the menu on the wall for customers to read. It might be suitable to use e-paper displays if they sometimes change but not very often; this is more reliable and does not require as much power, nor emit too much light.)

bakugo• 10 months ago

IF they're proven to be dangerous to others

You are literally part of the problem. "Dangerous to others" is a meaningless phrase that can be twisted to mean anything you want.

__turbobrew__• 10 months ago

proven to be dangerous to others if they access the internet

What does this even mean? What kind of crimes can people commit using the internet that justifies bypassing due process for public safety?

There are rules on the books in Canada that allows bypassing due process to confiscate firearms from a potentially violent or mentally unstable person, but I think that is a bit — just a little bit — more justifiable as the crimes that can be committed with a gun are much more serious than the crimes you can commit with the internet. Also, the internet is almost a necessity to be a part of functioning society whereas guns are not.

rock_artist• 10 months ago

We live in very confusing times. Democratic countries start acting more and more like big brother.

Its also concerning to read the quote: “necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation.”

Where Canadian telecommunication is almost a duopoly and had major outage a few years ago without any claims of bad actors.

walterbell4• 10 months ago

Canadian telecommunication is almost a duopoly

Nortel, never forget

ipnon• 10 months ago

In China you expect this because you get 5% GDP growth every year, housing that actually gets more affordable, government-subsidized growth industries and jobs. In Canada you get all the totalitarianism with GDP growth less than inflation, skyrocketing housing, and a zip line directly from Waterloo to Market Street.

tdb7893• 10 months ago

So it has been on the upswing recently but my understanding is that in the US we have been doing pretty much as much surveillance as technology (and also generally the 4th amendment) practically allows since at least WWII, and especially during the Cold War. Many law abiding people opposed to government policy (e.g. civil rights leaders or anti-war activists) have always been surveilled with dubious cause.

This isn't the best wiki article I've ever seen but it has some examples of the US surveillance over the last century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...

trollbridge• 10 months ago

The current “workaround” to the 4th amendment is to simply have private companies who do surveillance and then buy bulk data from them.

ICE does this with location data from mobile apps. They simply buy from a private vendor the information about where specific people are. Then they go detain them.

Some real life friends of mine are on a work crew with some migrants. ICE pulled their truck over, asked the migrants to identify themselves (with different names than they’d been using), they complied, and ICE drove off with them after detaining them.

I asked “Did they have their mobile phones with them?” “Yes.” People literally are carrying around a tracking device, voluntarily, with apps installed on them, voluntarily, that report their location to government authorities who want to detain them.

johnnienaked2• 10 months ago

True but it's never been as overt

glitchc4• 10 months ago

It always starts with the left, not the right. Read "The True Believer". It's not the poor folk that start a revolution. They are too busy trying to survive to do anything else. No, it's the idle bourgeois. They are the most unhappy as what they seek is just out of their reach.

standardUser2• 10 months ago

A few fascist movements sprang out of leftist movements, or had some small overlap in rhetoric with the left, but by and large the most repressive Western governments have come firmly if not exclusively from the right.

fasbiner5• 10 months ago

This is one of those weird cold war american things that has not aged very well. Why would a philosopher be a good source for this instead of an anthropologist, an economist, a statistician, or a student of comparative revolutions? Is that really how it should go down?

You put your philosopher making unprovable assertions against theirs and just say "well it's true I don't know very much about the redshirts and redeemers or the guatemalan civil war as such, but I do have the eternal wisdom of the philosophers."

You can in fact, read the work of a variety of scholars on the comparative study of revolutionary movements in a variety of languages and ideological bents. And what we can see is that anyone that says "it always" while being unable to even identify the majority of countries on a globe is speaking in bad faith, or else genuinely has never given their own thoughts the most cursory and basic inspection.

Everyone has the right to their own metaphysics, but it's not clear what you expect speaking ex cathedra to accomplish.

isaacremuant5• 10 months ago

It's not confusing at all. It's the same trend we've been having for ages and that most people have cheered for because they were usually dunking on their political rivals, the "evil enemy (TM)" or "protecting the children/against covid misinformation", etc.

Only when people start recognising that was all bullshit and demand their freedom can we collectively fight back. Resist your impulses to go with the propaganda and call every dissenter a conspiracy theorist.

Recognize authoritarianism is extremely common and it happens in "democratic" countries which are absolutely shielded in bureocracy.

immibis2• 10 months ago

Good things are good and bad things are bad. It's not contradictory for someone to like a bill that says "if you try to convince the population vaccines are bad, your internet service should be terminated" and also dislike a bill that says "if we say so, your internet service should be terminated"

ARandomerDude• 10 months ago

Do you criticize the government too much? You're now a "specified person". Sure, the court may overturn the decision eventually, but for the next 3 years your life is ruined. This is the COVID trucker protest response playbook, now applied to the internet.

If you think but I don't like the COVID truckers, well that's fine for now. Wait until there is something you vehemently disagree with the government about. Freedom of speech must be protected, regardless of how much you like the content or the speaker.

ETA: What might be the justification for censorship in this bill? The telecom network is critical infrastructure. You're spreading mis/dis/mal-information, according to the government. Therefore you are harming the integrity of the telecom network.

FlyingBears• 10 months ago

C11 and this bill makes me think about what situations does the government need this sort of "weaponry"? I think the plausible answer is war.

petermcneeley3• 10 months ago

Is it plausible? I wouldnt give these people the benefit of the doubt. In Canada we also have the emergency powers ... so if we had a war we would already have the "weaponry".

gpm11• 10 months ago

Emergency powers don't give you ability to unwind time and not buy Huawei equipment in the past. This bill appears to almost entirely be about allowing the government to exercise control over the telecommunications supply chain... which is certainly necessary if you want the ability to defend yourself against people who would otherwise be in that supply chain.

thmsths• 10 months ago

Applying for jobs has almost entirely moved online these days. And this is just one of many such things. Does whoever wrote that bill understands that? Or do they just naively think that "it's just time out for people who break the rules".

BJones12• 10 months ago

They want to ruin the lives of those who oppose them. The Canadian Liberal government has previously attempted the same goal by de-banking protestors, in a move that the courts later ruled unconstitutional.

Spivak2• 10 months ago

If there's an avenue for extrajudicial punishment it seems like every government is angling to use it. How did we wind up with such openly vindictive and unprincipled people in our governments? Like you call yourself Liberals, surely it's clear as day that such a thing isn't compatible with how you believe government should operate. You're doing this because you can't arrest them for a crime—shouldn't that give you pause?

btbuildem4• 10 months ago

Let's not defend the konvoy agitators here, these were legit seditionists who were given far too much leeway to start with. Cutting off their access to crowdsourced funds was too little too late, they should have been shut down more forcefully much sooner.

aceofspades193• 10 months ago

No one got "debanked", it was a temporary freeze for a few days and for a small number of accounts. I also disagree that it was to ruin the lives of those who oppose them, the money was released back to them, that seems like an odd way to ruin someone's life. Surely the tyrannical Liberal government would have been able to do more than keep them from accessing their money for a few days if they truly wanted to ruin lives.

pavel_lishin2• 10 months ago

In the House of Commons last week, Anandasangaree, the public safety minister defended Bill C-8 as a means to crack down on hackers and ransomware fraudsters.
“Malicious cyber-actors are breaching our country’s IT systems, accessing sensitive information and putting lives in danger,” he said.
Anandasangaree added that “hostile state actors are stealing information and gaining access to systems that are critical to our national security and public safety.”

... and these hostile state actors are doing this from their checks notes home in Ottawa, using a Rogers internet connection they're paying for?

logicchains3• 10 months ago

Americans like to say the first amendment relies on the second amendment, or as Mao Zedong put it, political power grows from the barrel of a gun. When I was younger I thought it was exaggerated, but now it seems like there really are fewer and fewer countries where you can criticise your government online without facing legal repercussions. If things continue at the current rate, in 5-10 years America might be the only English-speaking country with freedom of speech (as long as you don't criticise Israel).

hagbard_c• 10 months ago

as long as you don't criticise Israel

Eh?

You can criticise Israel all you want. Some people might not agree and start pointing fingers at you but go ahead and criticise.

Awesomedonut• 10 months ago

Not sure why this is downvoted, plenty of Canadians are very vocal and public with their criticism of Israel. There are protests regularly happening on the streets.

logicchains3• 10 months ago

In America you can lose your visa or government job for doing so.

ulrashida• 10 months ago

Why do you think Canadians are restricted from criticizing government?

logicchains3• 10 months ago

The premise of most of the comments here is that individuals in the Canadian government may use this new power to disconnect their critics from the internet.

globalnode• 10 months ago

If this was to become an actual law, that could ruin a persons life. what if they depended on the internet infrastructure for their work or profession. They'd literally have to leave Canada.

opengrass3• 10 months ago

Not really. Use open and public WiFI with anonymizers, don't post on public social networks to incriminate yourself.

jjmarr• 10 months ago

If you're technical enough to bypass the censorship, you'd just move to the USA and double your salary.

clickety_clack• 10 months ago

There is no such thing as rights or a constitution in Canada. The government can waive them away with a “notwithstanding” clause and then they can do what they like.

bawolff7• 10 months ago

This law does not cite the notwithstanding clause, so nothing has been waived away. The federal government has never once invoked the notwithstanding clause.

Furthermore, the notwithstanding clause only allows overriding some rights. It does not override the entire constitution.

int_19h3• 10 months ago

It doesn't override all, just the most important ones: sections 2 & 7-15. Section 2 is even titled "fundamental freedoms". This means all of the following (and more) are subject to "notwithstanding":

Freedom of conscience and religion.

Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.

Freedom of peaceful assembly.

Freedom of association.

Right to life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.

Right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.

Right not to be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.

Right not to be subjected to any cruel and unusual treatment or punishment.

Right to equality before and under the law and right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, sex, age or mental or physical disability.

btbuildem4• 10 months ago

It's the provincial governments of Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan that have been abusing the notwithstanding clause to further their political (conservative) agendas. The feds have not once reached for it. The career loser Poilievre had threatened to used it as soon as possible had he somehow clawed his way to power.

bawolff7• 10 months ago

As far as i am aware, neither Ontario nor Alberta have ever sucesfully used the notwithstanding clause although they have tried.

I dont know its correct to apply the label "conservative" to Quebec.

canadiantim• 10 months ago

Thank god for the notwithstanding clause or we wouldn’t live in a democracy but instead rule by unelected judges.

The notwithstanding clause is about ensuring Parliament remains supreme.

bawolff7• 10 months ago

It is not, there is no tradition of parlimentary supremacy in canada like britian has. The courts do strike down laws invoking the notwithstanding clause for being unconstitutional.

If you exclude Quebec,laws invoking the notwithstanding clause have been struck down by courts more often then they have succesfully been used.

alexandre_m2• 10 months ago

public safety minister defended Bill C-8 as a means to crack down on hackers and ransomware fraudsters

That kind of threat mostly comes from overseas anyway, so this doesn’t actually solve any real problems.

Case in point: the recent Salt Typhoon incident (spoiler: it was China) https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/salt-typhoon-canada-cyber-s...

Just another authoritarian attempt by the Liberal government.

btbuildem4• 10 months ago

That's an absurd overreach. I can't figure out what the real motivation for this is.

hostile state actors are stealing information and gaining access to systems that are critical to our national security and public safety

If they're hostile state actors, they've got internet access from elsewhere. It's a global network.

I am not dismissing cyber-threats, but perhaps I would weigh them differently. To me, the largest issue is the cultural influence and political meddling affected by the increasingly hostile state - Canada's southern neighbour.

A much better defence would be to quarantine or outright block access to the large social media platforms, and make space for homegrown alternatives. On balance, these players do more harm than good, and they're massive vectors for foreign political interference.

dmitrygr2• 10 months ago

I can't figure out what the real motivation for this is.

Can't you?

tim333• 10 months ago

I can't either. Seems dumb. "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity".

What do you think the motivation is?

gpm11• 10 months ago

I don't believe this is about disinformation at all. It's about not letting hostile state actors have an off switch for our infrastructure (only really relevant in wartime), or to be able to man in the middle it at will (relevant in both as an espionage tool). I.e. it's a cyber war measure not a propaganda war measure.

neilv3• 10 months ago

Can someone please characterize the likely political and cultural atmosphere of Canada for the next decade?

If the US continues its current trajectory for a couple more years, will Canada be a welcoming beacon of goodness?

(Obligatory great scene in Handmaid's Tale: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJEjrNB2iTA&t=40s )

gpm11• 10 months ago

Hard to say without being a prophet.

There's a non-zero chance we follow Trump/MAGA, but I would say its unlikely.

My impression is that politically and culturally we have been becoming less welcoming to less well off immigrants. Since the motivation for this feels largely economic (and thoroughly pushed by foreign media and online trolls), economic hardship from losing the US trading relationship is likely to make it worse. I'd compare this more to the sort of anti-refugee sentiment you've seen in Europe for the last decade than what you're seeing in the US now. Of course being anti-refugee when its looking increasingly likely that our southern neighbour will somehow create a refugee crisis would be... unfortunate.

American media has an outsized influence here. When they complain about, say, trans people, you see a loud echo of that here. What that means when American media seems to be increasingly bowing to Trump is... worrying but unclear. At the same time the baseline is much more accepting of differences, cultural or personal, than the US baseline. If I was trans I'd choose Canada over California every time, pre and post Trump.

neilv3• 10 months ago

Thank you. That's interesting about US media influence. Here's hoping that we all do well, and the current craziness calms down.

tomhow2• 10 months ago

This kind of question could easily set off a flamewar filled with nationalistic and ideological rage. Let's not do this here.

neilv3• 10 months ago

True, but it's an honest question. I'd actually like to know the answer.

deadbabe• 10 months ago

I thought the US was bad but Canada is speed running a fully fascist government even faster.

userbinator• 10 months ago

In many ways, Canada is more similar to the UK than the US.

umrashrf• 10 months ago

And Canada wants companies to stay in Canada duh

Jalad• 10 months ago

What's a good organization to donate to which would oppose this?

SequoiaHope• 10 months ago

I assume the EFF?

gpm11• 10 months ago

Does the EFF do any Canadian advocacy?

walterbell4• 10 months ago

In Canada, OpenMedia is one org, https://action.openmedia.org/page/177914/action/ | https://action.openmedia.org/page/73972/donate/

  When Bill C-26 was introduced, OpenMedia and our partners in civil society.. unpacked what the bill meant for Canadians, raised the alarm about its risks, and put forward practical recommendations to improve cybersecurity without compromising privacy. Civil liberties groups, academics, and experts joined us in calling for change. While a few of our fixes were adopted, most were ignored. Those unfinished issues now carry over into Bill C-8.. This campaign is about restarting the national conversation on cybersecurity and privacy. If we push harder this time, we can shape Bill C-8 into the law Canadians want and deserve.

This comment mentions CCLA, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45511581

tamimio2• 10 months ago

crack down on hackers and ransomware fraudsters.

What kind of justification is this?! Seriously, do they think people are 6-year-old toddlers that all you have to say is "Oooo bad guys out there!!" and they will just magically believe everything you say after?! This is mockery, an insult to people's intelligence at best, and a fucking dystopian one mixed with digital ID at worst.

Also, are they gonna ban satellite based internet after? Clowns.

dmitrygr2• 10 months ago

I support banning people from accessing the internet for safety AFTER the government completes banning people who are a physical danger from accessing the public physically. After all the dangerous criminals are in jails or asylums (those who cannot stand trial by definition cannot be free as they cannot answer for harm they do), we can talk about this nonsense.

p1dda• 10 months ago

Canada, Australia, Great Britain: all disgusting Marxist, totalitarian, censoring hell holes that nobody should ever visit

KurSix3• 10 months ago

The justification is, of course, “national security,” but as always, the scope is vague enough to be stretched into whatever shape the government finds convenient... Sorry... yet this kind of legislation should send a chill down anyone’s spine, regardless of where you fall politically

stinkbeetle7• 10 months ago

I think countries with division and low social trust and cohesion necessarily require increasingly authoritarian measures from the government to hold them together. Increasing dependence on government for their own security will reduce peoples' ability to question and change the government.

One might think it's all part of the plan. Real freedom and self determination has been a fleeting blink of an eye in the history of humanity, and only achieved by a few peoples. Those at the top have always considered it a violation of their right to rule, and they've never stopped working to take back what they believe was stolen from them. Sadly I think they're going to eventually win, and the light will go out.

tvier• 10 months ago

The power given to the masses vs the ruling class is always in flux. The light may go out, but it won't be forever.

I'm also hopeful that the requirement for a well educated workforce will nudge societies towards more freedom than the historical norm.

stinkbeetle7• 10 months ago

The power given to the masses vs the ruling class is always in flux. The light may go out, but it won't be forever.

Impossible to be so sure.

I'm also hopeful that the requirement for a well educated workforce will nudge societies towards more freedom than the historical norm.

"The educated" have been among the most susceptible to authoritarian tendencies and propaganda, so I would not be too hopeful of that.

https://jacobin.com/2022/10/chahla-chafiq-iranian-left-khome...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Guards

https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/pot_pol.shtml

Also there have been demonstrated to be other ways around the problem of educated population. Divide them against other classes of the population for example. Or subsidize and encourage non-productive people.

And even if everyone was educated and wanted better, how would they ever vote for more individual rights and freedoms if the suppression of those rights is the only thing keeping them safe from other groups in their country?

api2• 10 months ago

All authoritarian societies have their priesthoods, knighthoods, police forces, scribes, etc., or their modern equivalents, essentially a small middle class afforded more wealth and more rights than the peasantry.

Couple this with the fact that educated people often buy into authoritarian ideologies. At least that’s what I’ve seen. If there is any legitimate basis behind American anti-intellectualism this is it.

preommr• 10 months ago

low social trust and cohesion necessarily require increasingly authoritarian measures

Then this country is fucked.

It's really hard to have some kind of national identity when the previous PM goes and says things like Canada might be the first post-national state.

JamisonM• 10 months ago

Jean Chrétien is the one that said Canada is the first post-nationalist state, why would it be a bad thing?

Is there a reason why national identity and being a high-trust society need to be linked?

array_key_first2• 10 months ago

I think countries with division and low social trust and cohesion necessarily require increasingly authoritarian measures from the government to hold them together.

This sounds like it makes sense, but in reality, the most authoritarian countries throughout history and presently are highly nationalist.

A strong and cohesive national identity does not reduce authoritarianism. If anything, it seems to be one of the primary and most reliable indicators of authoritarianism.

stinkbeetle7• 10 months ago

This sounds like it makes sense, but in reality, the most authoritarian countries throughout history and presently are highly nationalist.

That doesn't address what I wrote though. I didn't say that is the only way authoritarianism could arise.

HaZeust• 10 months ago

social trust and cohesion aren't necessarily a pride in national identity. Scandinavian countries are highly homogenous, high social trust, and extraordinarily cohesive, and isn't very nationalistic or prideful in its identity - short of the run-of-mill "white" bickering.

fasbiner5• 10 months ago

This is terribly self-important and extrapolatory. Canada is a place that allowed private for-profit institutions to sell an unlimited number of student vouchers that made the associated visa shall-issue.

These are trivial to overstay without oversight and millions of people have. Regardless of the relative merits of this policy, it certainly isn't what canadians voted for or even permitted public discussion of beforehand. Combine this with the social welfare state unraveling and the government suggesting disabled citizens to kill themselves after their benefits are cut, and it's had a sharply radicalizing effect.

So the government is panicking, trying to crack down, and will no doubt propel some dubious populist to power who can handily win simply by reading an opinion polls and not denouncing the majority of the public, in public.

What light? What eventual winning? Stop watching children's movies and reading children's books.

stinkbeetle7• 10 months ago

This is terribly self-important and extrapolatory.

No it isn't.

kazinator• 10 months ago

How would you keep them away from free Wi-Fi all over the place?

Or, from giving fifty bucks a month to their neighbor?

Or from a phone plan that has next to no background check: buy a cheap SIM from a convenience store, activate with credit card and you have data.

werdl• 10 months ago

It is concerning how internet censorship seems to be increasing, even in socially liberal developed countries (UK, Australia, US and now Canada)...

logicallee• 10 months ago

Here is a picture of ten dropped calls I had yesterday:

https://ibb.co/bj7CYt3t

My wife has been trying to reach me for a while as well.

johnnienaked2• 10 months ago

Out with a whimper

zarzavat• 10 months ago

Compared to the 90s, all the systems that existed to live without the internet have disappeared or been degraded. There are no more paper phone books or phone booths for example. If I want to apply for various government services I have to do so online, in the 90s there were paper forms.

I don't know how digitised the Canadian government is, but banning people from accessing the government is cruel.

isaacremuant5• 10 months ago

You will not engage in wrongthink or else.

You will not dissent effectively against the government.

b00ty4breakfast• 10 months ago

give a man a fish and feed him for a day

give a man a fishing boat and you can threaten to take it away if he starts doing things you don't like.

bregma• 10 months ago

Set a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Set a man afire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

codedokode2• 10 months ago

Does Canadian law require identification for using public WiFi? If not, then "specified person" can simply hop on the bus or subway, connect to WiFi and do illegal things all day long. Just trying to help.

xmcqdpt2• 10 months ago

It's a dumb bill but it's pretty clear from reading the act that "person" is mostly meant to refer to a legal person, i.e. a corporation (though it can apply to natural persons too). It's basically financial sanctions but for internet access.

codedokode2• 10 months ago

I wonder if this bill allows accidentally by honest mistake to disconnect members of opposing party from the Internet before elections?

heavyset_go5• 10 months ago

If you don't think they're going to use this to go after VPN users, that's just naive

surfingdino• 10 months ago

Given that governments want to move to 100% digital government and economy, denying someone access to the internet will strip them of ability to take part in society, use government services (accessible via digital id), or pay (living expenses, travel, repay debt, etc.)

bparsons• 10 months ago

This Bill has been withdrawn and is being reintroduced without the controversial provisions.

parliament32• 10 months ago

I really don't get how this is supposed to be effective at all. Apart from the obvious examples of free wifi at Starbucks, the library, etc., I can walk down to 7-eleven and buy a prepaid SIM with a data plan with cash, today, no ID required. Not to mention, if I'm a master hacker who is a "threat", surely I can spend a few hours cracking my neighbour's WPA2 key.

I suspect they want this purely as a punitive measure for people they don't like, kinda like the time they froze the bank accounts of vaccine passport protestors (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60383385).

mnky9800n• 10 months ago

Some days I wish someone would take away internet access from me.

DiggyJohnson• 10 months ago

I genuinely don’t understand why a realistic actor in Canadian politics, intelligence, or private sector would be incentivized to advocate for this.

Canadian bill would strip internet access from 'specified persons', no warrant

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