Canada’s Bill C-22 Is a Repackaged Version of Last Year’s Surveillance Nightmare

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BBrajeshwar about 3 hours ago 39 commentsRead Article on eff.org

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Discussion (39 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

EmbarrassedHelp•about 1 hour ago

Both the mandatory data retention and encryption backdoor requirements will cause encrypted messaging services like Signal, WhatsApp, iMessage, Matrix, and others to block both Canadians and Canadian businesses from their services.

If you live in Canada or are impacted by this legislation, then you need to tell both your MP and the Minister of Public Safety of Canada to reject this legislation.

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The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) published information about Bill C-22 here just over a week ago: https://ccla.org/privacy/coalition-to-mps-scrap-unprecedente...

The blanket metadata retention and encryption backdoor requirements of Bill C-22 are illegal in the European Union.

Multiple groups have made easy to use tools for sending your MP and (other members of government) an email about rejecting this terrible legislation in its current form:

* The Internet Society's tool: https://www.internetsociety.org/our-work/internet-policy/kee...

* OpenMedia's messaging tool: https://action.openmedia.org/page/188754/action/1

* ICLM's messaging tool: https://iclmg.ca/stop-c-22/

I'd also recommend emailing Minister of Public Safety of Canada (Gary Anandasangaree: gary.anand@parl.gc.ca), and the Minister of Justice (Sean Fraser: sean.fraser@parl.gc.ca).

qball•33 minutes ago

That won't do a damn thing, and you know it.

These people don't answer their messages and have an [unelected] majority- it doesn't matter how you vote in this country, and the group that keeps the group of carneys in power want it that way.

rapind•21 minutes ago

Carney’s current majority is correlated to PP’s douchiness levels and Trump adjacent language.

I’m not in love with bankers running the country either, but give us another option.

qball•13 minutes ago

You had an option, you turned it down.

So enjoy your chat control, spy bills, and censorship.

It's what you voted for, after all.

Bender•7 minutes ago

I know this will be an unpopular comment but I actually somewhat like it when governments show their totalitarian side. It's both a wake-up call for some in denial and also drives my favorite type of innovation. That is, anything that subverts censorship. It won't be a lot of people but there will be splinter groups that break away from the big centralized platforms. It's not usually a big deal but it's also not nothing and that's maybe good enough for me.

In the past this occurred in the US as a result of having a totalitarian style Attorney General John Ashcroft in the early 2000's. Many new protocols and applications popped up around his time and his leveraging of the fears around 9/11. There were many articles written about his time in power if anyone was curious.

aryan14•11 minutes ago

How is this not bigger news?

wewewedxfgdf•about 2 hours ago

Just keep bringing legislation back eventually it gets through.

frakt0x90•about 1 hour ago

That's p-values for you.

black6•about 2 hours ago

The legislative process has a check valve. Vote on it until passes, then it can't be undone ever.

subarctic•about 2 hours ago

I've noticed a lot of bad digital rights stuff on HN over the last couple weeks - more pushes on age verification, attacks on end-to-end encryption, and now this. Is there something about the time of year? Maybe because the world cup is coming and people will be distracted?

boothby•24 minutes ago

In my hometown, we're quashing human rights to make room for the world cup! It's not a smokescreen, it's the justification.

https://www.pivotlegal.org/city_of_vancouver_s_new_fifa_byla...

fidotron•about 2 hours ago

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9q3x19ddl7o is perhaps an unintentionally good summary of this situation.

EmbarrassedHelp•about 1 hour ago

That article appears to be slightly biased in favor of attacks on privacy, and it omits important details like the UK's ongoing consultation includes questions on banning VPNs.

nitrix•about 2 hours ago

I'm doubtful the venn diagram intersection of engineers and the world cup is as big as you think it is.

dylan604•about 2 hours ago

My engineering team would all take long lunches to catch matches, and most of us would have windowed streams for games not aligning to a lunch break. I'd be willing think it would be a larger intersection that you think it is

NooneAtAll3•43 minutes ago

engineers sure

non-permanently-online activists on the other hand...

varispeed•14 minutes ago

Why this is not treated as act of terrorism by law enforcement?

tw85•about 1 hour ago

There would of course be much more of a public uproar about C-22 and the steady diet of online censorship and surveillance bills served up over the last 6 years if they were being pushed by a Conservative government. But it's the Liberals, and they get a free pass from mainstream media who are subsidized handsomely for their complicity.

If anyone believes the real intent behind this authoritarian legislation is to protect the kids or crack down on organized crime or to keep the public safe, I have a bridge to sell you. This is an administration that did away with mandatory minimum sentences for serious crimes, considers pedophilia to be a minor offence, allow repeat violent offenders out on bail repeatedly, refuses to convict migrants if it might impact their chances of obtaining citizenship, has allowed thousands of terrorists to enter the country with minimal vetting, and openly tolerates election interference from China. Public safety is far, far down the list of their priorities. They are very thirsty to silence their online detractors, however.

jmclnx•about 2 hours ago

The is the thing and it happens in every Country. If a bill fails to pass it or none like it should be brought up for 5 years.

I know doing that would be crazy, but Companies keep trying and trying until it is passed.

Tin Fol hat time: It almost looks like it is a way to funnel Political Contributions (bribes) to the politicians. The politicians fail the bill because they felt they did not get enough Contributions :)

dyauspitr•44 minutes ago

> If a bill fails to pass it or none like it should be brought up for 5 years.

The republicans would bring up a bill for everything they don’t like and ceremonially vote it down which would make it inaccessible to the next round of democratic leadership.

josefritzishere•about 2 hours ago

Why are they so determined to do evil?

qball•22 minutes ago

Because there's zero electoral accountability, and the voting bloc that insist it be that way are so obsessed with importing all the bad parts of the Commonwealth here that this will not change for the foreseeable future.

That Commonwealth, of course, imports all the cultural ideas and outlooks Coastal Americans have with about a 5 year delay, usually with anti-Americanism as the excuse, at the expense of the local culture.

This is just what happens when you import American politics without the American system that restrains it to just being noise.

AlanYx•about 2 hours ago

It's a confluence of two things: (i) Canada's government policy community tends to be heavily influenced by legislative trends in the UK/Aus/NZ; this particular one is almost a direct import from the UK's ill-advised Online Safety Act, though worse in some ways, and (ii) a series of Canadian Supreme Court decisions, most notably 2024's Bykovets, which the security intelligence apparatus in Canada feels has totally hamstrung data collection.

Both (i) and (ii) have led the government to this dark place, thinking they're doing good.

EmbarrassedHelp•about 1 hour ago

I think there could also be some lobbying from Canadian Centre for Child Protection (C3P). C3P's site is filled with anti-encryption and anti-privacy disinformation, and they are a major Chat Control lobbyist in the EU. They are also currently trying to kill the Tor Project by attacking anyone who funds it.

dmitrygr•about 2 hours ago

> led the government to this dark place, thinking they're doing good.

I'll take the other end of the bet claiming that they think they are doing good. I am pretty sure they know what they are doing full well, and it ain't good.

AlanYx•about 2 hours ago

I'm in the middle. I have some sympathy for the Canadian intelligence community's perspective here; in recent years, much intelligence potentially preventing major criminal public safety incidents has had to come through five eyes partners because the legal situation for domestic collection has become unworkable. CSIS refers to the situation as "going dark", which is an unfortunate US terminological import.

That being said, C-22 goes way beyond what would be halfway reasonable to solve the main issues in a fair and rights-respecting way, and I have absolutely no sympathy for the reasoning and goals imported from the UK's Online Safety Act.

Izikiel43•about 2 hours ago

> Both (i) and (ii) have led the government to this dark place, thinking they're doing good.

You can summarize a lot of government actions of any spectrum with: "The road to hell is full of good intentions"

jauntywundrkind•about 2 hours ago

What a deeply troubled time. It's accelerating so fast. All this age verification/surveillance shit is intensifying super fast.

Meanwhile personal computing is being savagely destroyed, as consumer channels to ram and storage disappear.

It's so bad. These people need to be punished. This is so so so unacceptable and the forces for state intrusion into all digital systems and pervasive survelliance have gotten so so so far in the past couple years.

themafia•about 2 hours ago

Usually? Money.

There's an exceptional amount of money to be had in creating the new digital feudal state.

Given that most everyday digital technology is in the hands of a few powerful monopolies they feel they have the opportunity to actually pull this off.

briandw•about 1 hour ago

This is clearly a government power grab, not a corporate one.

fidotron•about 2 hours ago

Because we've removed the ability for anyone non-evil to succeed politically.

jasoneckert•about 2 hours ago

I'm reminded of a speech Barack Obama gave many years ago about the difficulty and necessity of finding a "happy medium" between protecting individual liberties and providing law enforcement with the abilities to provide security in a digital world.

I think the topic itself is difficult for everyone involved - there will likely be a lot of uproar for many years as we get closer to finding this happy medium.

applfanboysbgon•28 minutes ago

There is no happy medium. Government will continuously push for the greatest surveillance power possible, because surveillance is in the government's own interest and personal liberties are not. Obama oversaw the NSA, which blatantly violated the US constitution and showed exactly where his idea of a "happy medium" lies (ie. complete and total surveillance of all Americans' prviate information), so anything he said on the subject is nothing more than lipservice utilising his charisma to prime people to accept more surveillance. He certainly wasn't suggesting a "happy medium" to convince people that less surveillance was needed to reach the target equilibrium.

jimmar•about 1 hour ago

Don't we all inherently know that government surveillance will constantly increase over time if we give in? In theory, we could achieve a "happy medium," but the same access used by a thoughtful law enforcement agency are the same tools that a fascist government would use to suppress dissent or other "wrong" thinking.

xienze•31 minutes ago

> I'm reminded of a speech Barack Obama gave many years ago about the difficulty and necessity of finding a "happy medium" between protecting individual liberties and providing law enforcement with the abilities to provide security in a digital world.

Yeah the problem is you'll never get a politician to say "OK, _this_ is what we've determined the 'happy medium' is and we're going to codify in law that it will never go beyond this point." It'll just keep inching further and further and anytime someone complains, just go back to step one and dish out some more "elder statesman" wisdom about having to find a "happy medium." Rinse and repeat. Worked on you, didn't it?