Categories: Need to know

Will the police soon be reading your email?

Federal government looking for Internet providers to hand over citizens’ text messages, e-mails and web history

by macleans.ca on Friday, June 19, 2009 12:04pm - 7 Comments

The Federal Government has introduced legislation that gives police greater investigative powers into the Internet and telecommunications environment. Under the new law, Internet service providers would be forced to give police “lawful access” to Canadians’ digital information, including text messages, e-mails, web surfing history and Internet phone lines. Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan has said that the bill looks to modernize surveillance laws. Police say they have lobbied for this law to fight “Internet safe havens” that house gangsters, sexual predators and terrorists. The bill is expected to be tabled before MPs break for summer.

Calgary Herald

Tags: Canada

Change the channel

They can read all the spam mail I get for special offers on male enhancement and guarantees of riches if I advertise on google.
Concerned

I don't mind there being a mechanism to monitor somebody's internet traffic if they are involved in criminal behavior. However, it is not wise to give police this access without warrants. Even with warrants the access will be abused at times but at least there will be some sort of paper trail. Without it we are putting a huge amount of temptation in front of the minority of officers and other staff who are bad or merely irresponsible. There will be a long list of people willing to pay handsome sums to acquire information for criminal, political or financial reasons.

The police in this country, especially our vaunted and once proud RCMP are suffering an unprecedented crisis of disappearing public trust. If they are smart they will lobby hard to have the requirement for warrants included in the legislation. Otherwise a few bad apples will make their now difficult problem so bad as to do them irreparable damage and that is not good for society nor for the police.
Mary out West

I'm a law abiding citizen like most Canadians. Heck, I haven't even had a traffic ticket in 35 years. I disagree strongly, however, with sacrificing the privacy rights of the majority due to the actions of a criminal minority. Get a warrant.
robbie

we are standing on the edge of a very deep chasm,one wrong step and it is over
Michael Reynolds

Who cares! They are going to be looking at emails where people are being investigaged for crimes. So go ahead. They'll be doing a good service for the country. Besides that, hire more police officers. There are not enough since it is the government that funds them.

Andrew (not P or C)

You are naive in the extreme if you don't see how internet surveillance without the need for a warrant is asking for widespread abuse and outright corruption.

Fear Headlines

People! Please read the legislation! Listen to the Minister on Powerpoint last week. The warrant MUST be sought for detailed info. All the police want without a warrant is an address/phone. Duh! Like they have with Canada411. This is NOT so scary a trade-off for public safety! To get detailed info, they still have to go to court with probable cause to tap/monitor.