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Heads up Canada

Canadians should be concerned about a triage of 'Lawful Access' bills that the 'Harper Government' had intended to include in the Omnibus crime bill (Bill C-50, Improving Access to Investigative Tools for Serious Crimes Act; Bill C-51 Investigative P

Canadians should be concerned about a triage of 'Lawful Access' bills that the 'Harper Government' had intended to include in the Omnibus crime bill (Bill C-50, Improving Access to Investigative Tools for Serious Crimes Act; Bill C-51 Investigative Powers for the 21st Century Act; and Bill C-52, Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act).

Those who support these bill do so with the colloquial sentiment that 'law enforcement requires these tools in order to extend their capabilities into the 21st century'. While that itself is arguable, what isn't is the fact that if the Lawful Access bills do get passed, the government will have an unprecedented level of access into the lives of Canadian citizens, without a warrant.

Why should this concern the average Canadian? If we have nothing to hide, then we have nothing to worry about. Let's examine this sophism:

Those who say this imply that the sole purpose of an individual's expectation of privacy is the concealment of wrongdoing and malevolent behaviour. It presents the argument as a false choice -- That an individual is either guilty of doing something thus requiring concealment, or not guilty at all and therefore having 'nothing to hide'. This excludes the more likely of scenarios, when individuals are innocent of any wrongdoing but still want to conceal their activities. Are individuals wrong to expect privacy in their personal lives? Some things may be deeply personal, someone may want to keep potentially embarrassing information from being public, or keep their information from being sold to marketers.

Bill C-51, C-52, and C-53 each push the eradication of our privacy a little bit further. Firstly, the bills are attempting to change the terminology in existing laws, such as the replacement of 'telephone' and 'pager' with 'telecommunication device.' The term telecommunications device can now be a facsimile, text message, e-mail, voice communications or whatever new technology that comes into existence.

C.S Lewis once stated 'Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.'

Andrew Tejero

Prince George