Never mind that public opposition shut down internet regulation laws SOPA and PIPA in the United States. Never mind that protestors in the European Union managed to delay the progress of their version, ACTA, through the courts so that (knowing European bureaucracy) the law may never in fact be enacted. Now it’s Canada’s turn to try to weasel punitive Internet laws through parliament that censor users and infringe on personal privacy. Oh Harper, you sneaky one, you.
The two parliamentary bills are C-11 and C-30. While C-11 is benignly called the Copyright Modernization Act, C-30 has a catchier title: the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act. According to Public Safety Minister’s Vic Toews, you “either stand with us or with the child pornographers.” There’s no question here about who the good guys are. Society, myself included, generally disapproves of child pornographers. According to Mr. Toews’ ultimatum, however, I will have to stand with the child pornographers on this one.
The majority of Canadians, according to an Angus Reid poll, also stand with the child pornographers, and for good reason: naming this bill the “Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act” is misleading, if not a flat-out lie. C-30, from what I understand, has less to do with cracking down on Internet predators than creating an Orwellian surveillance system. The bill includes a provision that allows the government to force Internet providers to disclose subscriber data without a warrant. These data are not simply names, addresses, and phone numbers, which the government already has. We’re talking about our email addresses, email and text message content, what websites we’ve visited, and what digital transactions like uploading and downloading we’ve made. And since global positioning systems have built-in tracking devices, police would be able to-again, without a warrant-activate these devices and find you, wherever you are, to figure out what you’re doing, whenever you’re doing it. If this isn’t Big Brother watching you, I don’t know what is.
Ironically, as this bill has been proposed by the Conservative government, the province that is offended most by warrantless citizen-stalking is Alberta, which, with its love of beef, oil, and conservatism, has always reminded me of the Canadian version of Texas. I find Alberta’s opposition to the bill comforting: if the most Conservative province in Canada does not support these acts, why is Harper’s government proposing it?
Scarily enough, if the government doesn’t pass these acts, Big Brother will still be watching us, just from a more capitalist platform. We are already user-profiled and monitored by social media giants like Google and Facebook. Google being the largest of my concerns, I recently deleted my entire account, losing Youtube and my blog in the process, only to discover that the smartphone I use for web-browsing purposes is an Android, which also belongs to Google. I comfort myself with the knowledge that Androids are composed of non-official open-source software, but the reality is that I really can’t escape Google’s clutches. They know where I am, whenever they want to.
Apparently this is for my convenience. Google has now secured a patent on a novel technology that allows them to monitor and broadcast environmental data from my phone. The idea, according to the patent document, is that if Google’s server discovers I am in the middle of Texas in summertime, I will receive a text message advertising air conditioners. If I am caught in downpour, I will be directed towards the nearest umbrella stand. If I am facing frostbite in Montreal winter, Google will kindly remind me to buy a winter coat.
Convenience, according to this example, is terrifyingly intrusive. I know mobiles can already be traced, making C-30’s provisions for citizen stalking possible, but the idea of a constant communication loop between Google’s server and my mobile as part of an advertising scheme is creepy. We have a right to privacy. We should be able to send emails without governments peeking over our shoulders and we should be able to step outside with our phones without our steps being monitored by multi-million-dollar organizations. Public opposition to similar laws shut them down in the US and the EU, and as the Conservatives put forward these bills, it’s Canada’s turn to speak up.
