The Huffington Post 01/05/2014 - At least one Canadian telecom is evidently giving the government unrestricted access to all the communications on its network, according to documents from Canada's privacy commissioner. The documents, obtained by University of Ottawa digital law professor Michael Geist, cite an unnamed telecom firm as saying it had allowed the government to essentially copy the communication data moving on its networks. "Interception of communications over data networks is accomplished by sending what is essentially a mirror image of the packet data as it transmits the network of data nodes," the privacy commissioner's document states.

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Les renseignements des Canadiens dévoilés 1,2 million de fois chaque année

Government makes over a million requests a year for data from telecoms

Données personnelles : les agences sont dans leur droit, dit Harper

The Toronto Star editorial: Canada should stop enlisting telecoms in secret violations of privacy

Reports of massive public surveillance badly timed for Conservatives' cyberbills

 

The Globe and Mail 01/05/2014 - The Conservative government is proposing changes to Canadian law that critics say will make it easier for authorities to gain access to personal information on telecommunications users without a warrant. Two pieces of legislation are making their way through Parliament even as newly disclosed material shows that government agencies obtained customer data from Canadian telecommunications companies at least 800,000 times in a single year, with at least one firm installing a "mirror" on its network to more easily route data to authorities. C-13, a bill expressly aimed at tackling cyberbullying, is expected to expand warrantless disclosure of Internet or cellular subscriber information to law enforcement. That's because it offers immunity from criminal or civil liability to telecommunications companies that preserve personal information or disclose it without a warrant, according to University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist.

 

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Globe editorial: Change the law. Make it harder for government to snoop  

 

Déclaration de la commissaire à la protection de la vie privée du Canada par intérim concernant la réponse des entreprises de télécommunications aux demandes de renseignements émanant des autorités gouvernementales 

 

Statement from the Interim Privacy Commissioner of Canada regarding telecommunications companies' responses to information requests from government authorities  

The Canadian Press 29/04/2014 - A Canadian organization that provided humanitarian aid to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza has been formally branded a terrorist group before the start of a court battle over the revocation of its charitable status. The move came as the RCMP confirmed it had raided locations in Ontario and Quebec as part of a terrorism-financing investigation. In a letter to the International Relief Fund for the Afflicted and Needy, the RCMP said the federal government had added the group to a list of "terrorist entities" as of April 24. The letter offers no reason for the listing decision but Canada Revenue Agency has said the organization supported Hamas, itself branded as a terrorist organization. The non-profit IRFAN was due in Federal Court of Appeal on May 6 to contest a 2011 CRA decision to revoke its charitable status because of its alleged ties to Hamas and failure to keep proper records. IRFAN did not know the terrorist listing was in the works and had no opportunity to respond or offer its side of the story, Ottawa-based lawyer Yavar Hameed said in an interview. There's no evidence the group did any direct funding of Hamas, he said. "This listing happens days before we are to present arguments for the first time to the Federal Court of Appeal, so we're very concerned about the timing with which this listing happens which completely undermines any ability for this organization to work as a charity," Hameed said. Even acting for IRFAN as a lawyer puts him in a "tenuous" position because any support for the group could be seen to run afoul of the Criminal Code, he said, adding it is only the second time a Canadian domestic organization has been listed as terrorist group.

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NY Daily News 30/04/2014 - Benamar Benatta says he still has nightmares about the nearly five years he spent at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn following the 9/11 attacks. Benatta is one of several men still fighting for the right to face former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft and former FBI Director Robert Mueller in court. He says he suffered humiliation, beatings and abuse such as sleep deprivation while he was locked up. Lawyers will argue the case Thursday before a panel of federal appeals court judges in Manhattan. The Muslim, Arab and South Asian men, noncitizens who were detained in the U.S. after 9/11 despite never being charged in connection with terrorism, sued over alleged religious profiling and wrongful detention. Last year, a Brooklyn Federal Court judge dismissed their claims against Ashcroft and Mueller while allowing their claims against the jail authorities to continue. Both sides are appealing.

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The Toronto Star 27/04/2014 - One elderly woman's only political act was to stitch together uniforms for armed rebels in Ethiopia, then ruled by a murderous tyrant named Haile Mariam Mengistu. Another man, now in his 60s, once donated the equivalent of $50 to the militant opposition in his country. Yet another man used to act as an informal contact for foreign journalists who were seeking interviews with anti-government guerrillas in El Salvador. None of these three people ever engaged in political violence themselves, and yet all of them - along with dozens and perhaps hundreds of others - face the threat of deportation on the grounds that they pose a security risk to the people of Canada, under a catch-all provision of this country's immigration law that many lawyers decry as unfair and excessive. "It's an extreme overreaction," says Ontario legal-aid lawyer Andrew Brouwer. "Their stories are so compelling. There's not a single allegation of ever being involved in any kind of violence, much less a terrorist act." Brouwer is referring to a class of thwarted would-be immigrants to Canada who have been caught in a legalistic snare that would very likely have prevented Nelson Mandela from gaining residence in this country, had he been forced to apply. Behold: Section 34 (1) (f) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, which has been in force since 2001.

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iPolitics 29/04/2014 - The RCMP has been tracking Canadians who they suspect may join foreign terrorist groups. On its own, that's just good police work. Unfortunately, our law enforcement agencies have been getting uncomfortably proactive in their pursuit of pre-crime. Once high-risk suspects are identified, law enforcement has been using the 'High-Risk Traveller Case Management System' to step in and disrupt their travel plans. Sometimes that's done by laying criminal charges or initiating immigration proceedings - uses of law enforcement power that at least begin legal proceedings and provide the suspect with an opportunity to respond to the case. But in other cases, the program has acted by adding suspects to the no-fly list, or by preventing a passport from being issued. Those two remedies are weird punishments that have little to do with the values of transparency and accountability we normally expect our law enforcement and judicial systems to uphold. The Canadian incarnation of the no-fly list, implemented in 2007, has operated for the past seven years under a veil of secrecy. According to the government, individuals may be labeled "specified persons" under the Passenger Protect Program - but individuals only qualify to have their names removed from the list if they have received an emergency direction from Transport Canada when they attempt to obtain a boarding pass. In other words, you could be added to the list without your knowledge and remain on it indefinitely - with no right to confirm whether you are in fact on the list, and with no right to appeal your possible presence on it until you're deemed a threat so imminent that the government decides to ground you.

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RCMP tracking 'high-risk' Canadians to prevent radicalized youths from joining foreign terrorist groups

Secrets revealed: The US government's no fly list arguments aren't flying

L'aide militaire américaine au Caire est bloquée au Congrès

Military aid for Egyptians loses support in the US Senate

NYT editorial: Political executions in Egypt

WaPo editorial: U.S. is abetting chaos in Egypt

Statement by the White House Press Secretary on mass trials and sentencing in Egypt