National Post 27/11/2012 - The Harper  government, under pressure at home over its controversial Internet surveillance bill, including a renewed push from law enforcement to pass the legislation, continues to come under international pressure to pass Bill C-30. The legislation, dubbed the "lawful access" bill, contains provisions that would allow Canada to ratify an 11-year-old convention on Internet crime, which its allies are antsy to see approved. Bill C-30 created a storm of outrage when it was tabled because it would allow authorities access to Internet subscriber information - including names, addresses, telephone numbers and email addresses - without a warrant in cases where companies refused to provide it voluntarily.  

Read more   

Should the UN govern the internet?  

It's back: How new legislative amendments are bringing Online Spying Bill C-30 back into focus  

OpenMedia.ca 25/11/2012 -  An obscure bill, C-12, has just been brought back to the House of Commons. This bill makes significant changes to the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). In an interview with the Canadian Press, Tamir Israel, a public-interest lawyer at CIPPIC-part of the StopSpying.ca Coalition, said that the changes would allow online service providers more latitude to voluntarily share the personal information of their customers. Further, it even prohibits those companies from letting their customers know that their personal information has been shared. Most disturbingly, Mr. Israel said that while this bill is intended to expand the amount of information that companies can share with "policing services", this term is not defined, and it could easily be expanded to include private investigators. This bill is extremely dangerous to the privacy of Canadian citizens. In tandem with the mandatory data collection that would be obtained through online spying bill C-30, the potential for abuse and risk to cybersecurity is huge - with a complete lack of oversight.  

Read more  

US Senate bill protecting Internet privacy won't even do that much to stop Johnny Law

Huffington Post 29/11/2012 - A Senate bill to protect the privacy of electronic  communications won't keep federal agents from combing through your inbox if they believe a crime has been committed, legal experts say. Federal and state authorities still will have a robust set of tools to track down lawbreakers even as these officials oppose changes supported by a broad coalition of technology companies and public interest groups. The legislation, which the Senate Judiciary Committee was expected to consider Thursday, would update a 26-year-old law by requiring police to obtain a search warrant from a judge before accessing the content of all emails and other private information from Google, Yahoo and other Internet providers. Under the current law, the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act, a warrant is needed only for emails less than 6 months old.

Read more 

The Government can read your emails, but a new law might stop them 

Why email is and must remain private 

RT 27/11/2012 -  Bradley Manning is expected to testify in a pretrial hearing that he has been punished illegally by being locked in solitary confinement. The whistleblower hopes that his inhumane punishment is grounds for having all charges against him dismissed. Manning, who is accused of sending classified information to WikiLeaks, will testify in a pretrial hearing in Fort Meade, Maryland. "Until now we've only heard from Bradley through his family and lawyers, so it's going to be a real insight into his personality to hear him speak for himself for the first time," said Jeff Paterson of the Bradley Manning Support Network. Manning's lawyers will maintain that his treatment in a small cell at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia was illegal and unnecessarily severe. If pretrial punishment is particularly flagrant, military judges have the right to dismiss all charges.  

Read more 

The New York Times 26/11/2012 - Civil liberties, human rights and religious groups are now urging Mr. Obama to veto the military authorization bill for the 2013 fiscal year if it contains any language that denies the executive branch the authority to transfer Guantánamo detainees for repatriation or settlement in foreign countries or for prosecution in a federal criminal court. They make a powerful case. Because of the existing restrictions, including an onerous requirement for certification of detainee transfers by the secretary of defense, no detainee identified for release by the task force has been certified for transfer overseas or to the United States in nearly two years. At that rate, the chance of emptying Guantánamo before the end of even a second term is zero.

Read more   

Latif autopsy report calls Gitmo death a suicide: questions remain  

Official report calls for the closure of Guantanamo