Tag: Canada

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Border agency asked for Canadians’€™ telecom info 18,849 times in one year

The border agency says that in 2012, only 25 of its 19,000 requests were refused by the telecoms, and only 13 customers were notified that the government had sought their records. Aspects of the handovers seem to happen automatically – with the telecoms typically charging only $1 to $3 for a “BSI” request and the answers usually coming back within three business days.

Every other federal investigative agency says it cannot or will not publicly provide such precise details of their relationships with the telecoms.

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In this context, the CBSA disclosure is important and unprecedented, say digital privacy experts, who argue that the agency’s numbers suggest many more exchanges are occurring between the telecoms and other government agencies as well.

“It makes me wonder what other structures and costs are in place,” said Christopher Parsons, a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. He pointed out that the Mounties and Canada’s intelligence agencies failed to release data.

Though CBSA is being pilloried at the moment for the number of times that it accessed telecommunications data (18,849 times in 2012), the agency should be congratulated as comprehensively responding to MP Borg’s questions. Only the Transportation Safety Board provided a comparable degree of accountability to the Parliamentarian. While I’d like CBSA to go further – we shouldn’t depend on a Parliamentarian’s curiosity to learn about state surveillance practices – the agency has, ultimately, created the model that other federal institutions ought to be forced to follow.

Source: Border agency asked for Canadians’€™ telecom info 18,849 times in one year

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Canada’™s metadata collection worries critics

…Justice Canada says the proposed legal shield against liability offers nothing new. “This protection already existed under the jurisprudence,” said spokeswoman Carole Saindon in an e-mail responding to Globe questions. She added that the “language in the bill is not a substantive change.”

Privacy advocates are not reassured by any of this.

The “unaccountability is absolutely unacceptable,” blogged Chris Parsons, a researcher for the University of Toronto Citizen Lab on Thursday. “And it’s made worse by the fact that the currently proposed lawful-access legislation, C–13, would indemnify [Internet Service Providers] for sharing even more information with state authorities while not requiring these authorities to report on how often, and to what extent, they ‘request’ such information.”

Needless to say, I fundamentally disagree with Justice Canada’s position that they sufficiently account for federal agencies’ surveillance programs. And if the liability shield that is being introduced in C-13 isn’t needed and the language not a substantive change then the government should be happy to remove it when the lawful access bill goes to committee.

Source: Canada’™s metadata collection worries critics

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Accountability and Government Surveillance | Technology, Thoughts & Trinkets

I’ve been busy parsing a nice hefty government document that documents a lot of federal agencies’ surveillance practices the past few days, and my post on “Accountability and Government Surveillance” is the result. It’s admittedly long but is fairly interesting. Go read!

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Quotations

2014.3.24

The tax refund has become a big part of the income stream for many low-income Canadians. Many tax credits are distributed through the tax system. And it’s the least well-off who are eligible for a lot of those credits.

Low-income Canadians can get their tax returns prepared for free at the many free income tax clinics set up across the country during tax season. But because the clinics can’t give instant refunds, it can be a tough sell to have people wait a couple of weeks to get all their money.

“We try to tell them that they don’t need to pay $40 or $50 to get their taxes prepared, they can get it done here for free,” says Viji Naguleswaran, a community financial worker at St. Christopher House, which caters to lower-income residents in Toronto.

Still, it often comes down to personal circumstances. Are these people willing to give up some of that precious refund to get their hands on money now?

“The issue is cash flow,” says Rick Eagan, community development co-ordinator at St. Christopher House. “When you’re desperate, 15 days can make a big difference.”

Tom McFeat, “Are instant tax refunds worth the cost?”
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Canada’s spy agency helped prepare all-of-government approach in case Idle No More protests ‘escalated’: secret files

The report repeatedly emphasizes that the protests had been peaceful, but considers possible triggers for escalation. The sections of the documents that actually deal with what evidence the government had that the protests might have taken a violent turn, and what it would have done if that had happened, were not disclosed.

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The report repeatedly emphasizes that the protests had been peaceful, but considers possible triggers for escalation. The sections of the documents that actually deal with what evidence the government had that the protests might have taken a violent turn, and what it would have done if that had happened, were not disclosed.

Given CSIS’s ongoing efforts to monitor for threats against national oil interests and other resource extraction companies and associated policies, it’s not necessarily a surprise that the security agency was focusing in on Idle No More. Native land is, after all, required to effectively mobilize resources across Canada.

This said, Canadians generally should be mindful that our security agency was “planning for every eventuality, concerned by the decentralized, leaderless nature of the protests and the multiple motivations and influences that drove them.“ Mindfulness is needed for two reasons: first, because CSIS’s concerns will likely lead to enhanced attempts to map communications patterns to divine ‘leaders’ and ‘centralization’ within activist groupings. Second, because CSIS’s activities are known to include stretching or breaking the law by lying to federal justices. CSIS’s targeting of Aboriginal groups shouldn’t be ignored by other Canadian citizens as not ultimately affecting them as well.

What might be most damaging about CSIS’s actions is how they will (continue to) damage relations between Canada and the Aboriginal people’s. Rather than trying to find a way of working with Canada’s native peoples the Canadian government has again classified them as prospective threats: that’s not how you develop a trusted negotiating relationship, let alone try to heal age-old wounds. And no matter how much surveillance CSIS engages in they can’t guard every mile of roads or pipelines that are used in extracting and transporting Canada’s natural resources.

Source: Canada’s spy agency helped prepare all-of-government approach in case Idle No More protests ‘escalated’: secret files

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Practical Steps Towards Telecommunications Transparency | Technology, Thoughts & Trinkets

I’ve just put up a longish thought piece on how Canadian telecommunications companies can practically move to improve the transparency of their corporate practices. Sometime in the next few weeks I intend on writing up how governments can develop accountability reports, and the importance in distinguishing between corporate transparency and government accountability as it relates to state surveillance.

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Aside Quotations

2014.3.19

…undercutting this fair-to-strong record on the policy side is Mr. Flaherty’s general approach to the budget process, which could only be more opaque if it were one of Frank Underwood’s schemes on “House of Cards.” As the finance minister has tackled the budget deficit with across-the-board spending cuts, it has been impossible to get reliable information on what was being cut. Compounding the problem has been the use of omnibus budget implementation bills, which have included a host of things not directly related to the budget, such as changes to environmental regulations and policies affecting First Nations.

Not even the parliamentary budget officer, a position created as part of broader “accountability” reforms, could obtain the information needed to see what programs were being affected by the government’s austerity measures. Rather than operating on the basic democratic principles of transparency, Mr. Flaherty attacked the PBO, Kevin Page, as exceeding his proper mandate.

This is a pronounced stain on a legacy that is otherwise up for legitimate debate. Whether the GST or corporate tax cuts were inappropriate or whether one ideologically favours or disapproves of the government’s efforts to reduce the size of government, we should all agree that Canadians deserve to know, with clarity, what the government is doing. While much of the focus on Flaherty has been his ability to return the budget to balance, the climate of obfuscation surrounding his budgets is a significant and lamentable background to everything else he accomplished.

Emmett Macfarlane, “Flaherty’s policy brilliance overshadowed by darker politics”

What will be most damning is if, whenever another party is elected to govern the country, they merely change policy positions without also ending the current practices of omnibus legislation and budgetary obfuscation. Fiscal policies are something that Canadians can legitimately debate the merits of. There should be little to no debate that legislation, regulations, and budgets should be accessible to citizens who just want to understand what these things mean, how they are implemented, and the implications of their implementation. A representative democracy is farcical when citizens and their representatives alike cannot discern the actions of the day’s government; as it stands today, much of Canadian democracy is little more than a bad farce.

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2014.3.18

If you find yourself wishing your province had a competitive fourth provider, you could move to friendly Manitoba or set up shop under Saskatchewan’s living skies. But you wouldn’t have to stay for long. It’s hard to believe, but this is the truth: it’s cheaper to buy a roundtrip plane ticket to Regina or Winnipeg, subscribe to one of these plans and then use it back home, than it would be to sign a contract in Toronto or Calgary.

For the Telus 1GB plan, you could fly roundtrip from Calgary to Regina for $369 and save yourself $350 (after paying for the plane ticket) on a two year 1GB plan.

For the Rogers 10GB plan, you would save a whopping $1,180 dollars after the price of airfare if you flew from Toronto to Winnipeg and signed up for service there.

It might sound crazy, but check for yourself. If you decide to fly to Winnipeg, look me up. I’ll even pick you up at the airport.

Aside from pushing up demand for air travel, it’s hard to see how this kind of pricing is beneficial to anyone but the wireless carriers’ shareholders and management. Canadian carriers like Bell, Telus, and Rogers are supposed to be affected with the public interest – not opposed to it.

We as a country won’t even get close to having a fair market until you can walk, not fly, to a provider offering reasonably priced service.

Ben Klass, “Wireless Carriers’ High Flying Prices”

Ben’s written a nice, punchy, piece about the new cellco price hikes. You should go read it.

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Cellular Competition in Canada

Cellular contract competition in Canada. It’s incredible that the major cellcos all raised their rates over the same weekend.

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Canada’s electronic spy agency uncovers wrongdoing, ethics breaches

OTTAWA – An investigation at Canada’s secretive eavesdropping agency has uncovered misuse of public assets and “serious breaches” of the spy outfit’s values and ethics code.

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the agency took “various measures” with regard to the employees in question.

CSEC spokesman Ryan Foreman said that for privacy reasons he could not release any information about “specific employees involved in this disclosure of wrongdoing.”

Foreman also refused to discuss the number and type of employees implicated, whether anyone was disciplined or fired, what kind of public assets were involved or their value.

Nor would he say when the matter came to CSEC’s attention, or when were the corrective steps were taken.

“They basically tell you nothing,” said Liberal public safety critic Wayne Easter.

NDP defence critic Jack Harris said the response “shows an unwillingness to be up-front with the public.”

“It just seems to me to be a public-relations response which doesn’t do much to inspire trust and confidence, frankly,” Harris said in an interview

My money is that in terms of misuse, facilities were being used to store, access, or download copyright infringing materials. And, in terms of asset misuse, I have at least one very good idea what that might have encompassed…

Source: Canada’s electronic spy agency uncovers wrongdoing, ethics breaches