[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

The government holding personal data of that kind for future use & letting the police use it at will (Do warrants ever get shutdown?) is, imo, the start of a Police State.

What's stopping the Conservative majority from starting to track dissention of their agenda?

Plus, that database is going to cost millions to maintain. Some cons friend is gonna get RIIIIIIIICH.

Alright, so the concern is that the process of obtaining a warrant is meaningless?  Is that it?  Because if that is your concern we have been living in a police state all along...

[Barrister]

The government holding personal data of that kind for future use & letting the police use it at will (Do warrants ever get shutdown?) is, imo, the start of a Police State.

What's stopping the Conservative majority from starting to track dissention of their agenda?

Plus, that database is going to cost millions to maintain. Some cons friend is gonna get RIIIIIIIICH.

Here's the trouble discussing these kind of items with people who, no offence, don't really know what they're talking about.

Warrants have a start and stop time, usually very narrow.  For example a warrant will specify police can search your house on a specific day, between 9 and 5 pm.  Once information comes into police hands they are prohibited from handing it over to anyone else due to privacy concerns (with a few narrow exceptions - like giving info to us to prosecute).

As such there is no database to worry about, absent the computer systems that already exist for individual police agencies.

What's to prevent the conservatives from 'tracking dissention'?  The Charter of Rights.

[Barrister]

What confuses me is that the backers of this law seem to be the same people who hated the long form census because it was against peoples right to privacy.

I don't know much about the law, but i'm again' it I'm ok with CCTV and the like because you're in public. So I'm not totally on the invasion of privacy bandwagon for all things.. Your computer time is private. You want info like that you should need a warrant (which i know they still need to do further investigation).

I can see the consistency of being for this and against the long gun registry (disclosure here: I was not against the registry).  The registry privacy breach argument was that private information was being collected, stored and used without warrant and without any reasonable grounds.  Here the information can only be used if there is a warrant.  So your computer time is still private in that the police must obtain a warrant before they go snooping.

I actually find the reverse more ironic and that is that people that were for the long gun registry which was arguably more intrusive in terms of privacy are against this measure.

The more I learn about this the more I find the calls against it to be overblown.  But the Conversatives sure did a poor job of explaining this up front.

My argument against the long gun registry is that I simply haven't seen it be useful.  I've never seen a single file where it helped solve a crime.  I don't have an ideological opposition to it, but rather a practical one.  FWIW I feel the same against the sex offender registry - never seen it be useful.  Instead both seem to (in practice, if not in intent) be used as tools to harass two very different politically unpopular groups - sex offenders and gun owners.

[crazy canuck]

Intersting.  I hadnt thought of it that way.

[Barrister]

Intersting.  I hadnt thought of it that way.

On the other hand, the DNA databank is tremendously useful, and I'd like to see it expanded. 

[viper37]

It takes the better part of a day to get a warrant in my experience.

than speed up the process, without giving even more power to cops.

[viper37]

My argument against the long gun registry is that I simply haven't seen it be useful.  I've never seen a single file where it helped solve a crime.  I don't have an ideological opposition to it, but rather a practical one.  FWIW I feel the same against the sex offender registry - never seen it be useful.  Instead both seem to (in practice, if not in intent) be used as tools to harass two very different politically unpopular groups - sex offenders and gun owners.

would it be different with that new law?  "We have your IP adress, we know you visit www.barelylegalteens.net every week on thursday night at 8:00pm when your wife is at the gym.  Guys like you are just pervs, waiting to score with an underage teen."  I don't see how that is relevant to police work.  Too much data is just as bad as not enough.

If there's a real problem, they can get all the info they need.  If I'm plotting a terrorist act and posting it about it here on Languish, they'll know soon enough who I am.  When pedophiles post on forums about their real sexual experience, they get easily identified and arrested.   This bill won't change the fact that it's easy for a man to lure a teenager into having "consensual" (meaning she won't be officially raped, not that the 12yo is actually knowing what's she's doing).  Cops just can't know that in advance (unless it's sci-fi ).

[viper37]

Ok, let's go at it another way, since you're a practical man, BB.

What is wrong with the current system, why does it need to be changed?  What is preventing police from arresting an pedophile currently "recruiting" his victims on-line instead of using the plain old newspaper ad (don't laugh, it did happenned in Quebec).  AFAIK, the newspaper will not reveal who bought an ad, unless the cops have a warrant.  And I could have payed an ad cash, with a false name, wich would make identification harder.

[crazy canuck]

My argument against the long gun registry is that I simply haven't seen it be useful.  I've never seen a single file where it helped solve a crime.  I don't have an ideological opposition to it, but rather a practical one.  FWIW I feel the same against the sex offender registry - never seen it be useful.  Instead both seem to (in practice, if not in intent) be used as tools to harass two very different politically unpopular groups - sex offenders and gun owners.

would it be different with that new law?  "We have your IP adress, we know you visit www.barelylegalteens.net every week on thursday night at 8:00pm when your wife is at the gym.  Guys like you are just pervs, waiting to score with an underage teen."  I don't see how that is relevant to police work.  Too much data is just as bad as not enough.

If it is irrelevant why do you assume that a warrant would be issued?

[Neil]

I take the Reagan approach.  If you make it impossible for police to act on internet 'crimes', then eventually those things will cease to be crimes due to their unenforceability.

[Barrister]

My argument against the long gun registry is that I simply haven't seen it be useful.  I've never seen a single file where it helped solve a crime.  I don't have an ideological opposition to it, but rather a practical one.  FWIW I feel the same against the sex offender registry - never seen it be useful.  Instead both seem to (in practice, if not in intent) be used as tools to harass two very different politically unpopular groups - sex offenders and gun owners.

would it be different with that new law?  "We have your IP adress, we know you visit www.barelylegalteens.net every week on thursday night at 8:00pm when your wife is at the gym.  Guys like you are just pervs, waiting to score with an underage teen."  I don't see how that is relevant to police work.  Too much data is just as bad as not enough.

If there's a real problem, they can get all the info they need.  If I'm plotting a terrorist act and posting it about it here on Languish, they'll know soon enough who I am.  When pedophiles post on forums about their real sexual experience, they get easily identified and arrested.   This bill won't change the fact that it's easy for a man to lure a teenager into having "consensual" (meaning she won't be officially raped, not that the 12yo is actually knowing what's she's doing).  Cops just can't know that in advance (unless it's sci-fi ).

They won't know about it "soon enough".  If the ISP won't comply and police have to get a warrant, it will take several days to just get the IP address used.  Then since an IP address is only so useful, they need to get a physical search warrant to try and determine exactly who used that computer.

Given how time consuming and manpower-intensive such investigations are, police simply don't have time to investigate them very often.

Remember my understanding of this new system is this:

-police receive a report that someone using 555-1234 cell phone number is leaving threatening phone messages.  POlice can then quickly find out who that number is registered to.  That's all - they find out whose cell phone it is.  In order to find out what numbers were called, what text messages were sent (all of which is stored by the company) they still need a warrant.  What reasonable expectation of privacy do you have in what your cell phone number is?

-police determine that a computer on IP address w.x.y.z had been accessing child porn.  Police can quickly find out that w.x.y.z is used by ISP customer Joe Blow.  That's it - who has the account with the ISP.  In order to determine what exactly was accessed, who used that computer, they still need a warrant.  What reasonable expectation of privacy do you have in who your ISP is?

[crazy canuck]

Keep on Rockin in a free world Neil.

[viper37]

My argument against the long gun registry is that I simply haven't seen it be useful.  I've never seen a single file where it helped solve a crime.  I don't have an ideological opposition to it, but rather a practical one.  FWIW I feel the same against the sex offender registry - never seen it be useful.  Instead both seem to (in practice, if not in intent) be used as tools to harass two very different politically unpopular groups - sex offenders and gun owners.

would it be different with that new law?  "We have your IP adress, we know you visit www.barelylegalteens.net every week on thursday night at 8:00pm when your wife is at the gym.  Guys like you are just pervs, waiting to score with an underage teen."  I don't see how that is relevant to police work.  Too much data is just as bad as not enough.

If it is irrelevant why do you assume that a warrant would be issued?

BB says they could harrass gun owners because of the registry.  They could harrass anyone. Or they could get their data stolen.  If someone was able to steal the list of undercover agents from Montreal police, they are likely to steal anything.  We know cops have used, in the past, illegally obtained information for their own personal purpose.  It's illegal, yet they've done it.

We also know that police force accross the country routinely make search without warrant, finding probable cause elsewhere, or getting a warrant after the search.  Sometimes, they're caught, sometimes they're not.  What's to stop them from doing the same here?

[Neil]

Keep on Rockin in a free world Neil.

Just call me...  Neil Young.

[viper37]

-police determine that a computer on IP address w.x.y.z had been accessing child porn.  Police can quickly find out that w.x.y.z is used by ISP customer Joe Blow.  That's it - who has the account with the ISP.  In order to determine what exactly was accessed, who used that computer, they still need a warrant.  What reasonable expectation of privacy do you have in who your ISP is?

I've received a few e-mails from my ISP telling me I've accessed copyrighted content.  Apparently, someone knew I'd downloaded the first season of Spartacus, or Age of Empires III (it wouldn't install) or KOTOR (same problem) or other tv series/movies (and sometimes, I can't even remember downloading the stuff).

So, how come police can't know this already?  If they know an IP adress accessed a child porn site at 18:01 on Saturday 18th Feb. 2012, they can get a warrant to access the ISP's records.  In fact they do it already.  For child porn, for child pornographers, for pedophiles, for criminals, etc, etc.

So again, how will this change the rate at wich they catch criminals?  How much more efficient will this new bill make our police force?  20? 30? 50% more effective?
'Cause if the gun registry was no good because it didn't prevent crime (and it didn't) I don't see how snooping my on-line activities will make it easier.
It might make it easier to stop piracy as defined by the media industry, but to stop real criminals?  Let me laugh please.

All I see, is a big privacy flag being raised here, letting police do identity search without any kind of warrant or legal basis.