Canada’s federal court rules intelligence service bulk data collection illegal
theglobeandmail.com
theglobeandmail.com
It's not really illegal if there's no enforcement, is there?
... for me. Not for them, apparently.
If the people enforcing the law aren't required to know or follow it, why am I required to?
Many crimes require both actus reus (guilty act) and mens rea (guilty mind).
It's up to the prosecutor whether he'll be persuaded by your elaborate scheme. I'm sure he's heard worse.
For those who don't know, this is called jury nullification.
Being formally acquitted means you can't be charged later; this is not true of just not being prosecuted in the first place.
Note that in the U.S. at least there is a "rule of lenity"--requiring ambiguous criminal statutes to be interpreted in favor of defendants. I assume there is something similar in Canadian law.
Instead, the CSIS is being treated as some sort of legal black hole. Where is the police raid?
"I honestly thought that the speed limit was 55. I didn't see any signs saying it was 35."
The cop's answer? "Too bad. Ignorance of the law is no excuse".
Frustrating a few concerned citizens is worth it. You can't expect an organization to do what is morally just if it doesn't align with it's interests.
In times like this, the importance of civics education is highlighted. The very idea that people in law enforcement think it's acceptable to treat judges and the legal system with such contempt is scary. Even if you disagree with a certain law or system, you still need to respect it as a public servant.
They will always find some loophole in the language. Illegal to collect but not illegal to access what has been collected by allies (aka the Five Eyes).
Just encrypt everything, use VPNs and whatever you push in plain/text may as well be public.
Trust open technologies you understand, not politicians.
Of course we're all familiar with the ways consumers can gamed and all the ways adtech makes the Internet suck, but the argument about good intentions works at least as well as it does for law enforcement.
(Maybe better because it's not about coercion.)
Advertising doesn't just "connect buyers and sellers" but can also generate demand for products that are worthless otherwise. The diamond industry is the obvious example. You might say that this stimulates the economy but I would argue it's an example of the broken window fallacy.
How many people really understand these technologies? For anyone who lacks either the time or the know-how to audit the source code: what do you suggest? If it's not "find the time and educate yourself" then does your statement not revert to:
"Trust these technology experts instead of these politicians."?
To which I'd respond: Why? Why is a technology expert more trustworthy than a politician?
This isn't to say that every technology expert can be trusted. The hope is that many eyes looking at the problem helps move the needle.
Politics might as well be the science of deception. My pithy opinion is that nearly everyone is more trustworthy than a politician.
This is ... myopic. Do you think ransomeware is written by politicians?
All malicious software is written by technology experts.
Is not that I trust politicians, far from it: we know they're all lying crooked thieves.
But you think "technology experts are more trustworthy."
* educate yourself and grow your self reliance to understand & use these technologies and look for your interests
* delegate the work to experts, trust authorities and hope they have your best interest
* isolate yourself from technology and pay the economic/social price.
Your Freedom takes work. You can't delegate it. There will always be a conflict between individual freedom and social safety.
Is that a rhetorical question?
The term "technology expert" also encompasses all the Black Hats Hackers and criminals - both opportunistic criminals and organised crime. The people who write ransomware are technology experts.
protip: the white hat and black hat programmers are the same people.
I was hoping you'd elaborate further on what you mean by this, rather than restating the same thing in only-slightly-different words.
I'll have a stab at it. Are you implying that the people who wrote the software for the internet banking website and phone app I use are the same ones who wrote CryptoLocker?
Surely there's some sort of gradient though, right? Like is Facebook malicious software (I tend to think so and I don't use it) or is it benign?
> Are you implying that the people who wrote the software for the internet banking website and phone app I use are the same ones who wrote CryptoLocker?
Essentially I am saying that.
Because you can challenge them to defend their position, and evaluate their answers objectively.
Try that at a political rally, or even at an organized debate.
You'd be almost as large a fool incorporating in a Five Eyes country for the same reasons. Bermuda and Nevis are beautiful countries for more than just the scenery.
Take your assets, and even your liabilities out of the country who doesn't respect your privacy. This is how you truly vote with your wallet in the 21st century.
Come now, I've watched my fair share of Hollywood spy movies.
I'm pretty sure that CSEC dragnet-snooping on airports, including all Canadians, doesn't magically disappear from CSIS storage.
Either way, the government is spying on its own citizens and trust is broken.
Yeah, they told us the same thing.
Do some reading on a concept known as "parallel construction."
We could add rubber-stamp oversight:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/what-you-need-know-abo...
That court approves essentially all requests.
Secret courts, secret laws, warrant-less searches. There's one set of rules for the people in charge, and another set of rules for the people being charged.
Reporters call it "Canada's CIA," but it is mandated by the government in canada to spy only within the country. They are not a police force and cannot arrest their targets. Canada has a bunch of police intelligence agencies. It is hard to see what democratic function a domestic spy agency plays. Maybe there are good arguments for them.
Nobody has managed to roll back the arms merchants' profits and influence, hell some of our governments (US, Canada) are the biggest arms dealers around. I see no reason why we'd be able to hold back this monster (profiteering and control through complex and often secret surveillance) when we can't hold back profiteering and control through mind numbingly obvious stuff like bombers and guns. Hell Trudeau talks a game about lgbt people and human rights and turns around and sells arms to the KSA to help bomb Yemen into hell.
The military industrial complex won, don't see why the surveillance industrial complex won't either.