
How Bureaucrats and Spies Turned Canada into a Surveillance State - dsr12
http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-bureaucrats-and-spies-turned-canada-into-a-surveillance-state-csis
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FreedomToCreate
What I want to know is how did CSIS and the Justice Department utilize the
information they have. Was someone wrongly convicted, was a reporter stopped
from publishing something? Evidence that gives the general public a concrete
example is what is needed to spur any real action here, and unfortunately I
think that will be the hardest part.

~~~
edblarney
That's a very good point.

It's unlikely that a single person was put at risk, and not a single person
was put in a negative/unfair situation because of it.

CSIS capturing phone call records (not content, just who contacts who) sounds
all very scary and nefarious ...

But Google is doing 1000x more than that - and they sell that information to
others - and those 'others' act on that to sell you stuff.

The phone companies probably do it. Maybe even your internet provider.

At least CSIS has a communitarian purpose, which is real.

I'm definitely weary of CSIS doing things which are outside the law, but I'm
less weary about the meta-data collection than most people - so long as there
is oversight and it's kept secure.

~~~
throwaway2048
The "metadata" distinction is pure sophistry, metadata matters every bit as
much to privacy as the data itself (often moreso). Telling Osama bin Laden you
are really excited about your new dog is much less significant than the fact
you know and talk to Osama bin Laden.

As for oversight, there is next to none.

~~~
edblarney
A) 'Metadata = sophistry' is totally false. Metadata can never capture
thoughts, statements, intentions, motivations, etc.. It captures who at
number/email ABC has communicated with number/email XYZ. That's a huge
distinction.

In fact - the address and return address you put on your parcels is
fundamentally different from the contents.

Moreover - the argument fails to grasp the materiality of the situation -
public good vs. private profit. There's 100x more sensitivity over entities
operating in the public good, than there are corporations like Google who do
in fact 'read all your emails' \- and use that information purely for their
own gain and profit.

B) 'There is no oversight' \- this is again, false. There is a lot oversight -
legal, administrative, operational - every step of the way there are checks
and balances either external or internal. Do we have the type of public
oversight we want - maybe, maybe not. There is definitely public oversight of
CSIS: it's called the 'Security Intelligence Review Committee'. But it's wrong
to suggest there is 'no oversight'.

~~~
xordon
Metadata can reveal intent, motivation, and far more than you intend
especially when collected in mass. Metadata = Data. Saying that metadata
doesn't matter, or matters less is just wrong.

~~~
edblarney
I didn't say it metadata is irrelevant, I said that it is fundamentally
different than the content of messages.

Trying to derive 'intent' from 'knowing who you talk to' is not possible with
any degree of reliability. You can make some minor probabilistic inferences,
but that's it.

The most important advantages of metatadata are establishing those engaging in
criminal networks - which is very salient, in which case I think metadata is
the right solution.

I have a distant family member (barely related) - who sells cocaine and is a
grade A douche-bag/thug/criminal. He beats people. Proudly. I think he was
caught because of this - the RCMP was able to establish his network and they
took down him and his thug buddies. Guns, beatings, I think a murderer in
there. I'm glad they finally got him.

500m from my flat in Montreal, there is a polytechnic school where 11 young
men decided to join ISIS - they were caught just before getting on the plane -
again, I think that the tech worked the right way here, but again, it's hard
to be specific.

FYI - even 'socialist utopian paradises' usually have more aggressive policies
than this. Sweden, for example, captures 100% of packets leaving/entering the
country and look at all o it's contents - as just one example.

As a Canadian citizen, I have zero problems with CSIS thus far - there hasn't
really been a single case of this information being abused in a manner that
affected the lives of a citizen in a negative way. The lack of these cases of
abuse is salient.

I'm far more concerned about 'other countries' surveillance programs, as a
non-US citizen, the NSA is free to capture anything they want about me without
really any oversight and that's a little too nefarious.

As an operational compromise, I would try to enact the following: CSIS can
capture metadat long term, but then to actually access that data - they need a
warrant from a judge.

This way - my idiot second cousin's rights are protected, but as soon as the
RCMP catches a local thug and can access that thug's 'network' \- with a
warrant, it's shown that my dirtbag cousin's name comes up, with criminal
intent easy to identify in ensuing investigation. Similarly with 'terrorism'.
A local Imam contacts CSIS and says 'so and so in my congregation is asking
about how to join ISIS' \- then, with a warrant, CSIS can see who he's
communicating with, and with further investigation, get a proper warrant for
more information.

Somewhere in there, there is a solution, I think.

------
Canada
CSIS has been intercepting domestic traffic (full packet, at their discretion)
without needing any kind of warrant since before 9/11.

~~~
xordon
Source?

