The following two articles are important reading. You need to visit the website at the addresses provided in order to access the numerous other articles linkable from the original Western Standard posting.
July 15, 2009
Government of Canada moves to monitor Internet users
The Canadian Government has introduced legislation to expand its surveillance of Internet users. Find out what it means to you.
By Jesse Kline
In the spring, the Government of Canada introduced two pieces of legislation that would greatly expand the power of the state to monitor its citizens online activity. The legislation, known as the Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act, would force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to install costly surveillance systems on their networks and give police wide ranging new powers that do away with judicial oversight.
According to University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, the legislation would create additional requirements for ISPs and expand police powers. These ISP requirements can be broken down into two components. First, ISPs will be required to install costly surveillance equipment on their networks. Part of the cost will fall to taxpayers while the remainder will be carried by the companies themselves. Some smaller ISPs will be exempt from this requirement for a period of three years, creating an unfair burden on the larger, more successful companies. Second, the legislation would require that all ISPs give personal information to the government, including the names of their customers, as well as their IP, e-mail, and mailing addresses — on demand and without any judicial oversight.
Police will also gain expanded powers under this legislation. First, they will be able to obtain information about Internet-based messaging, including tracking what sites people are visiting and who they are communicating with. This information will be subject to a judicial order. Second, police will be able to order ISPs to preserve data on their customers. Third, police will be able to obtain a warrant to remotely activate tracking devices in technologies such as cellular telephones. Fourth, the legislation also deals with computer viruses and makes it easier for the government to coordinate its efforts with international governments.
There are numerous problems with the proposed legislation that should be alarming to freedom loving Canadians. It forces private business to not only be complicit in the government’s attempt to spy on its citizens, it also forces them to shoulder much of the financial responsibility for the new policy. As such, some ISPs may be forced out of business. In addition, the legislation gives law enforcement officials unprecedented access to private communications and forces ISPs to preserve private data and disclose subscribers identities. “This is now a formal way in which the government will determine who you’re in contact with, how often and for what purpose. If identified that someone or some area you’re in contact with as being a danger, you’re then connected to that,” said UBC professor and civil libertarian Richard Rosenberg in an interview with Vancouver’s News1130. Moreover, the legislation does away with the principles of judicial review, probable cause, and our constitutional right “to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.”
Currently, police can obtain subscriber information by getting a warrant from the courts. Under the new law, however, police would no longer require the permission of a judge to obtain such information. This represents a reversal of the pledge by Stockwell Day, the government’s previous Public Safety Minister, that the government would not seek “extra powers to police to pursue items without a warrant.”
It is bad enough that the government will expand its powers of surveillance. What’s worse is that it will circumvent the courts, the one institution with the power to place limits on the state’s ability to use its agents as tools of coercion, oppression, and censorship. With parliament out of session, however, Canadians will have the summer to debate these issues.
One of the arguments we will undoubtedly hear is something to the effect of, “I don’t do anything illegal on the Internet, so I have nothing to worry about.” I reject this argument wholeheartedly. If this legislation is passed, the slow degradation of our rights to privacy and freedom of speech will be sped up considerably. The right to free speech and free expression is essential to democratic governance, since democracy is based on the idea that government is ultimately controlled by the people. In this regard, it is important that there is a free flow of ideas within society — no matter how controversial those ideas are — so that the people have the necessary information to make informed decisions. It is also important that people be allowed to speak out against their government in order to prevent tyranny and ensure that the state is making decisions that are in society’s best interests.
There are already many legal restrictions on speech, such as laws against sedition, defamation, and hate speech. Moreover, we have seen governments across the country use Human Rights Commissions to impede freedom of speech and freedom of the press. Bureaucrats from the Canadian Human Rights Commission have even been known to pose as neo-Nazis on the Internet in order to nab people for hate speech. The commission has also gone after mainstream magazine and newspaper columnists, including former Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant (more information on how Human Rights Commissions trample on free speech can be found in Levant’s new book Shakedown: How Our Government is Undermining Democracy in the Name of Human Rights).
It is essential that people have the ability to publish their opinions and ideas anonymously to prevent government censorship and allow a free flow of information in the marketplace of ideas. The proposed legislation would make it easier for the government to monitor online communication and obtain the identities of those who wish to express themselves on the Internet. With the amount of information people send over the Internet increasing all the time, this issue becomes even more important. Anyone who thinks they have nothing to lose by giving big brother the right to watch them at all times is sorely mistaken. This is not 2009 folks, it’s New Year’s Eve, 1984.
So what can be done to prevent the state from using this Soviet-style legislation to watch our every move? The legislation will not be passed before the fall, so Canadians have all summer to lobby their MPs. The best-case scenario is that these bills never see the light of day. There are also a number of steps that can be taken in order to prevent government spying and censorship on the Internet, which I explore in my column entitled How to thwart government surveillance and censorship online.
July 15, 2009
How to thwart government surveillance and censorship online
Governments around the world are monitoring Internet activity. Find out what you can do to protect your privacy and beat the censors.
By Jesse Kline
The Canadian government recently introduced legislation that would expand its powers to monitor Canadians Internet activity. Even though the legislation has not yet been passed into law, we already know that governments around the world are monitoring Internet communications. Luckily, there is an abundance of ways to help protect your privacy in cyberspace. The main obstacle to many of these technologies becoming commonplace is a lack of users. For example, it is possible to send encrypted e-mails, but unless the other people within your social network are using the technology, no one will be able to read your messages. If enough people are concerned about protecting their privacy, we may see the critical mass of people necessary to seamlessly integrate some of these technologies into our daily computing experience. Detailed below are some of the ways to protect yourself on the Internet.
Encryption
There are numerous ways to encrypt data that is either being sent over the Internet or stored on a local drive. One of the best pieces of encryption software is The GNU Privacy Guard (GPG), which uses a public/private key system to verify identities, encrypt files, and send encrypted information via e-mail. Users are able to create public keys and upload them to key servers. Other users can then sign their key once they have verified the identity of the key holder. This creates a “web of trust” to help verify that people are who they say they are. People can then send out e-mails with their GPG signature attached so others can be confident of the sender’s identity. The system can also be used to encrypt e-mails and files, which can only be decrypted by a specific person or group of people on the other end.
Another method that can be used to hide the fact that an encrypted message is being sent is known as steganography. Using this method, a message can be hidden within a picture, making it hard for a third-party to detect the presence of the hidden message, let alone find out what it says. An extensive list of steganography software can be found at StegoArchive.com. As an example, I used a piece of software called diit to embed the DeCSS source code, which is used to decrypt DVDs and is illegal in some jurisdictions, into an image from my trip to Phoenix. Note that there are ways to break steganography and corresponding workarounds. See here and here for more information.
The advantage of a technology like steganography is that it provides plausibly deniable encryption. In other words, one can claim they had no idea that extra information was hidden within the file they distributed. Other pieces of software offer additional methods of hiding information within other types of files, either for transmission or local storage, including TrueCypt, Elettra, and Rubberhose.
Anonymous web browsing, Anonymous P2P, Darknets
Surveillance is not only a concern when sending messages over the Internet, it can also be used to find out what websites a person has visited and the identity of people posting anonymous comments on blogs. Likewise, governments can go after hosting providers and use filtering technologies to censor information. Fortunately, technology exists that facilitates anonymous browsing, file sharing, and publishing.
Tor is a piece of software that hides the user’s identity when surfing the web and preforming other tasks on the Internet. According to the Tor website, “Tor protects you by bouncing your communications around a distributed network of relays run by volunteers all around the world: it prevents somebody watching your Internet connection from learning what sites you visit, and it prevents the sites you visit from learning your physical location. Tor works with many of your existing applications, including web browsers, instant messaging clients, remote login, and other applications based on the TCP protocol.”
While software like Tor allows one to browse anonymously, it does not solve the problem of government censors tracking the owners of websites or shutting them down entirely. Anonymous Peer to Peer (P2P) networks allow people to share information anonymously and can be vital in preventing censorship. Freenet is a decentralized, censorship resistant network that runs as a background process on the computers of the people that use the network. Information is distributed across the network, making it impossible for any group to impose its views on others by censoring information.
Think of Freenet as a parallel Internet. It allows for anonymous browsing and publishing of websites (Freesites) and blogs (flogs), as well as e-mail (Freemail), messaging, and file sharing. In many ways, Freenet reminds me of the Internet in the mid-1990s. Just don’t expect any Web 2.0 technologies and be prepared to wait awhile for things to download. The more people that use Freenet, however, the faster it becomes.
[The Freedom Diaries flog on Freenet]
Encrypted VOIP
It is also possible to make encrypted telephone calls over the Internet. Be aware that Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) software has the ability to make calls between Internet connected devices or between networked devices and the traditional PSTN telephone network. While it is possible to encrypt a transmission between VOIP clients, calls that go to regular telephones will be subject to traditional wiretapping mechanisms. There exists a draft standard for encrypted VOIP calls known as ZRTP. A number of software packages support ZRTP, including Zfone, SIP Communicator, and FreeSWITCH.
The Benefits of Free Software
I have, wherever possible, recommended using free software packages to protect your rights online. While there are many benefits to using free software over proprietary software, it becomes even more important where freedom of speech and privacy are concerned. When a program is licensed as free software, its source code (the language used to create the software) is available for anyone to review. There have been examples in the past of companies and governments creating “back doors” in software so certain people can gain access to your data. By using free software, one can ensure that their software is as secure as possible.
The prospect of the Canadian government increasing its ability to spy on its citizens and circumventing the courts is, without a doubt, a scary prospect. It would be best if we could convince what I once thought was a freedom-loving government to drop the proposed IP21C Act outright. It will likely be a short time before the government starts going after the software that bypasses its surveillance measures. In the mean time, however, there are numerous steps that Internet users can take to preserve their anonymity and prevent the state from trampling on our rights to freedom of speech, freedom of expression, and freedom of the press.
Jesse Kline is an Associate Editor of the Western Standard and a student at the UBC Graduate School of Journalism.
Public date: July 17th, 2009
July 20, 2009
The police can check my e-mails anytime they like.I have nothing to hide.
if there is a lot of criminal exchange,it should be open to the police at any time .We have far to much crime in our country as it is. Nothing should be there to stop the justice system from discovering it.
July 22, 2009
Hello Jesse,
I share W. Veldbooms sentiments when it comes to checking my emails. I have nothing to hide either. What you failed to report was WHY the police/law enforcement feel they need to more closely monitor the internet. Could it be that terrorism, organized crime (re drugs and prostitution) and child pornography might be issues where time is of the essence, and perhaps our judicial system is too slow to keep up with it?
I also share your concern re free speech. As you pointed out, the Human Rights Commissions are a travesty in our justice system–perhaps we can start there.
As for the proposed new legislation, when there are mitigating circumstances (these need to be clearly defined), and where the justice system can oversee the activity to protect privacy rights, I do support giving certain law enforcement agencies the tools they need to continue to protect us and our children. Regards, J. Webb