Winnipeg Copwatch

The Harper Conservatives, with their new majority government, have promised to look to pass an “Omnibus” crime bill in the near future, which groups together 11 bills they couldn’t pass as a minority government. The bills generally look to increase prison populations and punitive measures. This is happening despite a significant majority of Canadians preferring preventative measures to punitive methods of dealing with crime, Canada’s decreasing crime rate over the past twenty years,  and the evidence that increased incarceration does not reduce crime.

One component of the bill that has gotten little public attention and little debate in parliament is a provision called “lawful access,” that affects Internet policing powers. It will require your Internet Service Provider (ISP) to provide the police with your personal information without any oversight from a court. Up until now they would need to present a judge with a good reason, and get a warrant.

It will also force your ISP to put in place technology to allow real-time surveillance of your activities, and those of their other customers, and give “several new police powers designed to obtain access to the surveillance data.”

Michael Geist’s column in the Toronto Star gives more details about “lawful access”, and discusses the privacy and free speech concerns raised.

UPDATE 25 May: Yesterday, Jesse Brown’s excellent show Search Engine took on the issue of Lawful Access, interviewing the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association’s Micheal Vonn. Have a listen!