Your isp emails you that they are terminating your account.
You phone gets disconnected.
You call them and helpdesk doesnt have a clue why.
You try to sign up for new services and they refuse and wont say why.
All because a politician has decided it 'reasonable' to disconnect you from the internet; and he can order complete secrecy and there's no judicial oversight.
Perhaps you showed up at the wrong protest? Note how they seized the bank accounts of protestors and even an entire small bank only a few years ago.
> If the Governor in Council believes on reasonable grounds that it is necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation [...]
...
Factor
Before making the order, the Governor in Council must consider
(a) its operational impact on the affected telecommunications service providers;
(b) its financial impact on the affected telecommunications service providers;
(c) its effect on the provision of telecommunications services in Canada; and
(d) any other factor that the Governor in Council considers relevant.
...
No compensation
(8) No one is entitled to any compensation from His Majesty in right of Canada for any financial losses resulting from the making of an order under subsection (1).
I think the problem with most average left of center people who want to be agreeable and civic minded is they have total incredulity at the government would actually do anything really screwed up, especially as they are so "moral" with their performative political correctness. How can someone who cares about the rights of minority groups act so tyrannically? There's always a glitch though somewhere, and people assume pious in one dimension, pious in all dimensions.
The argument made here seems to be that the power to prevent unlawful access or threats is somehow required to keep us all safe. But if someone was an actual threat, do we really think they’d be using the internet with their own identity? Like if someone is willing to hack into a power station or some other critical infrastructure, they’ll be simultaneously stupid enough to use their own credit card?
Illegal things are already illegal. Safety and security mechanisms already exist. We dont need additional, punitive, and opaque laws that can be abused.
This argument is often unsuccessfully used in other areas; gun rights jumps to mind.
Often the new laws only affect those who are already following the laws. Those who are willing to break the laws will ignore and/or find ways around them (see: Chicago, DC, etc).
Yes, illegal things are already illegal. But, if you alter the law, you can create new areas to monetise or ways to extract private information from legally minded citizens. In other words, these laws are nothing to do with preventing illegality, they are about control. They are co-ordinated across different legal jurisdictions too.
The Leviathan cannot be controlled. It hungers for power and control. People in positions of power are deceived into thinking that if they just had a little more power they could fix so many things. The Leviathan grows. The people are crushed.
Our desire for power feeds the Leviathan. To prevent this power must be diffuse.
This is worse than the EU's ChatControl, or the UK's Online Safety Act. This will pave the way for total online censorship and surveillance in Canada. The Canadian government will be able to target any user or service provider it doesn't like, silently.
They don't even have to pass laws to ban VPNs or read private chat messages or enforce identity verification, or whatever other unambitious attempts other governments are making. This will do it all:
Knock knock, it's the Chinadian government. You host a web service that uses encryption? Great. Now provide a backdoor for us or we'll ban you. Oh and don't tell your users. We'll ban you for that too.
---
Hello user, we noticed that you've shared some concerning information online, and you're also using this E2EE chat service that we can't monitor. A friendly reminder from the government: continuing to use such services and spreading such harmful information online may cause your Internet connection to malfunction.
I'm finding it interesting (after spending time in the EU where ChatControl is front and center in the news) that there's been this resurgence of interest in electronic surveillance and information warfare suddenly in countries that 10 years ago spent a significant amount of the news cycle decrying the US's NSA and China's internet police. What's changed?
I support prohibiting people from accessing the internet IF they're proven to be dangerous to others if they access the internet. But this applies to any public space or commons, internet or otherwise, and we already have the means of accomplishing this... With a due process.
Why would it makes sense to remove that process, while introducing an incredible opaque decision-making process in its place, which totally bars anyone from knowing why they were excluded from accessing the internet? It even prevents wrongfully excluded individuals from receiving compensation.
For example, I could be cut off from the internet which I need to do my job. Say I'm unable to work for a week or two and then it's determined that I can access the internet because an error was made... Well, as far as I can tell, I'd be SOL. That doesn't seem right...
Worse still is that this seems about as technically competent as using an IP address to determine a person's location. Any serious threat vector, human or otherwise, will find other ways to access the internet or perpetuate their threat if they care to. If they're a serious threat, why wouldn't prison be a better solution than... Calling their ISP and banning them from the internet?
All of this seems very short-sighted, undemocratic, and naive.
And while the 'human or otherwise' phrase I used might seem odd (I know someone's dog isn't shit-posting on X), what I mean to say is something like... What if an LLM is posting from an unsuspecting person's computer and was placed there as a virus? Once it's cut off from that poor person's computer, it's very likely it will eventually or already be functioning from some other unsuspecting person's computer, server, or whatever other device. Their toaster. My point is that we live in an age where there are non-human agents causing harm online. The machine they operate from will not always be OpenAI's or Anthropics, and indeed, will probably rarely be so.
This was already the case with human actors, but it made much worse with the advent of AI-based agents.
> proven to be dangerous to others if they access the internet.
What exactly would this entail? Some people nowadays seem to have a very broad conception of "safety", broad enough to cause serious concern on the part of advocates for freedom and privacy.
In modern society it's pretty much impossible to live without using the internet. You can't apply for a job, you can't apply for a rental. You can't even order a burger at some restaurants without scanning the QR code.
Anyone too dangerous to be allowed any access to the internet probably just needs to be in jail. What would be the point in leaving someone to their own devices while preventing them from participating in society at all?
> proven to be dangerous to others if they access the internet
What does this even mean? What kind of crimes can people commit using the internet that justifies bypassing due process for public safety?
There are rules on the books in Canada that allows bypassing due process to confiscate firearms from a potentially violent or mentally unstable person, but I think that is a bit — just a little bit — more justifiable as the crimes that can be committed with a gun are much more serious than the crimes you can commit with the internet. Also, the internet is almost a necessity to be a part of functioning society whereas guns are not.
We live in very confusing times.
Democratic countries start acting more and more like big brother.
Its also concerning to read the quote: “necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation.”
Where Canadian telecommunication is almost a duopoly and had major outage a few years ago without any claims of bad actors.
In China you expect this because you get 5% GDP growth every year, housing that actually gets more affordable, government-subsidized growth industries and jobs. In Canada you get all the totalitarianism with GDP growth less than inflation, skyrocketing housing, and a zip line directly from Waterloo to Market Street.
So it has been on the upswing recently but my understanding is that in the US we have been doing pretty much as much surveillance as technology (and also generally the 4th amendment) practically allows since at least WWII, and especially during the Cold War. Many law abiding people opposed to government policy (e.g. civil rights leaders or anti-war activists) have always been surveilled with dubious cause.
It always starts with the left, not the right. Read "The True Believer". It's not the poor folk that start a revolution. They are too busy trying to survive to do anything else. No, it's the idle bourgeois. They are the most unhappy as what they seek is just out of their reach.
It's not confusing at all. It's the same trend we've been having for ages and that most people have cheered for because they were usually dunking on their political rivals, the "evil enemy (TM)" or "protecting the children/against covid misinformation", etc.
Only when people start recognising that was all bullshit and demand their freedom can we collectively fight back. Resist your impulses to go with the propaganda and call every dissenter a conspiracy theorist.
Recognize authoritarianism is extremely common and it happens in "democratic" countries which are absolutely shielded in bureocracy.
Do you criticize the government too much? You're now a "specified person". Sure, the court may overturn the decision eventually, but for the next 3 years your life is ruined. This is the COVID trucker protest response playbook, now applied to the internet.
If you think but I don't like the COVID truckers, well that's fine for now. Wait until there is something you vehemently disagree with the government about. Freedom of speech must be protected, regardless of how much you like the content or the speaker.
ETA: What might be the justification for censorship in this bill? The telecom network is critical infrastructure. You're spreading mis/dis/mal-information, according to the government. Therefore you are harming the integrity of the telecom network.
Applying for jobs has almost entirely moved online these days. And this is just one of many such things. Does whoever wrote that bill understands that? Or do they just naively think that "it's just time out for people who break the rules".
> In the House of Commons last week, Anandasangaree, the public safety minister defended Bill C-8 as a means to crack down on hackers and ransomware fraudsters.
> “Malicious cyber-actors are breaching our country’s IT systems, accessing sensitive information and putting lives in danger,” he said.
> Anandasangaree added that “hostile state actors are stealing information and gaining access to systems that are critical to our national security and public safety.”
... and these hostile state actors are doing this from their checks notes home in Ottawa, using a Rogers internet connection they're paying for?
Americans like to say the first amendment relies on the second amendment, or as Mao Zedong put it, political power grows from the barrel of a gun. When I was younger I thought it was exaggerated, but now it seems like there really are fewer and fewer countries where you can criticise your government online without facing legal repercussions. If things continue at the current rate, in 5-10 years America might be the only English-speaking country with freedom of speech (as long as you don't criticise Israel).
If this was to become an actual law, that could ruin a persons life. what if they depended on the internet infrastructure for their work or profession. They'd literally have to leave Canada.
There is no such thing as rights or a constitution in Canada. The government can waive them away with a “notwithstanding” clause and then they can do what they like.
It's the provincial governments of Ontario, Quebec, Alberta and Saskatchewan that have been abusing the notwithstanding clause to further their political (conservative) agendas. The feds have not once reached for it. The career loser Poilievre had threatened to used it as soon as possible had he somehow clawed his way to power.
That's an absurd overreach. I can't figure out what the real motivation for this is.
> hostile state actors are stealing information and gaining access to systems that are critical to our national security and public safety
If they're hostile state actors, they've got internet access from elsewhere. It's a global network.
I am not dismissing cyber-threats, but perhaps I would weigh them differently. To me, the largest issue is the cultural influence and political meddling affected by the increasingly hostile state - Canada's southern neighbour.
A much better defence would be to quarantine or outright block access to the large social media platforms, and make space for homegrown alternatives. On balance, these players do more harm than good, and they're massive vectors for foreign political interference.
77 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 84.6 ms ] threadYour isp emails you that they are terminating your account.
You phone gets disconnected.
You call them and helpdesk doesnt have a clue why.
You try to sign up for new services and they refuse and wont say why.
All because a politician has decided it 'reasonable' to disconnect you from the internet; and he can order complete secrecy and there's no judicial oversight.
Perhaps you showed up at the wrong protest? Note how they seized the bank accounts of protestors and even an entire small bank only a few years ago.
https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-8/first-re...
Anyone familiar enough with Canadian law to know how much bearing this condition might have in practice?
At this point authoritarian pushes are the best case scenario - I’m fearing it’s preparation for wartime.
Illegal things are already illegal. Safety and security mechanisms already exist. We dont need additional, punitive, and opaque laws that can be abused.
Often the new laws only affect those who are already following the laws. Those who are willing to break the laws will ignore and/or find ways around them (see: Chicago, DC, etc).
Our desire for power feeds the Leviathan. To prevent this power must be diffuse.
They don't even have to pass laws to ban VPNs or read private chat messages or enforce identity verification, or whatever other unambitious attempts other governments are making. This will do it all:
Knock knock, it's the Chinadian government. You host a web service that uses encryption? Great. Now provide a backdoor for us or we'll ban you. Oh and don't tell your users. We'll ban you for that too.
---
Hello user, we noticed that you've shared some concerning information online, and you're also using this E2EE chat service that we can't monitor. A friendly reminder from the government: continuing to use such services and spreading such harmful information online may cause your Internet connection to malfunction.
Why would it makes sense to remove that process, while introducing an incredible opaque decision-making process in its place, which totally bars anyone from knowing why they were excluded from accessing the internet? It even prevents wrongfully excluded individuals from receiving compensation.
For example, I could be cut off from the internet which I need to do my job. Say I'm unable to work for a week or two and then it's determined that I can access the internet because an error was made... Well, as far as I can tell, I'd be SOL. That doesn't seem right...
Worse still is that this seems about as technically competent as using an IP address to determine a person's location. Any serious threat vector, human or otherwise, will find other ways to access the internet or perpetuate their threat if they care to. If they're a serious threat, why wouldn't prison be a better solution than... Calling their ISP and banning them from the internet?
All of this seems very short-sighted, undemocratic, and naive.
And while the 'human or otherwise' phrase I used might seem odd (I know someone's dog isn't shit-posting on X), what I mean to say is something like... What if an LLM is posting from an unsuspecting person's computer and was placed there as a virus? Once it's cut off from that poor person's computer, it's very likely it will eventually or already be functioning from some other unsuspecting person's computer, server, or whatever other device. Their toaster. My point is that we live in an age where there are non-human agents causing harm online. The machine they operate from will not always be OpenAI's or Anthropics, and indeed, will probably rarely be so.
This was already the case with human actors, but it made much worse with the advent of AI-based agents.
... which means what? They espouse ideas "you" don't like?
What exactly would this entail? Some people nowadays seem to have a very broad conception of "safety", broad enough to cause serious concern on the part of advocates for freedom and privacy.
Anyone too dangerous to be allowed any access to the internet probably just needs to be in jail. What would be the point in leaving someone to their own devices while preventing them from participating in society at all?
You are literally part of the problem. "Dangerous to others" is a meaningless phrase that can be twisted to mean anything you want.
What does this even mean? What kind of crimes can people commit using the internet that justifies bypassing due process for public safety?
There are rules on the books in Canada that allows bypassing due process to confiscate firearms from a potentially violent or mentally unstable person, but I think that is a bit — just a little bit — more justifiable as the crimes that can be committed with a gun are much more serious than the crimes you can commit with the internet. Also, the internet is almost a necessity to be a part of functioning society whereas guns are not.
Its also concerning to read the quote: “necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption or degradation.”
Where Canadian telecommunication is almost a duopoly and had major outage a few years ago without any claims of bad actors.
This isn't the best wiki article I've ever seen but it has some examples of the US surveillance over the last century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_the_Unite...
Only when people start recognising that was all bullshit and demand their freedom can we collectively fight back. Resist your impulses to go with the propaganda and call every dissenter a conspiracy theorist.
Recognize authoritarianism is extremely common and it happens in "democratic" countries which are absolutely shielded in bureocracy.
If you think but I don't like the COVID truckers, well that's fine for now. Wait until there is something you vehemently disagree with the government about. Freedom of speech must be protected, regardless of how much you like the content or the speaker.
ETA: What might be the justification for censorship in this bill? The telecom network is critical infrastructure. You're spreading mis/dis/mal-information, according to the government. Therefore you are harming the integrity of the telecom network.
> “Malicious cyber-actors are breaching our country’s IT systems, accessing sensitive information and putting lives in danger,” he said.
> Anandasangaree added that “hostile state actors are stealing information and gaining access to systems that are critical to our national security and public safety.”
... and these hostile state actors are doing this from their checks notes home in Ottawa, using a Rogers internet connection they're paying for?
The notwithstanding clause is about ensuring Parliament remains supreme.
That kind of threat mostly comes from overseas anyway, so this doesn’t actually solve any real problems.
Case in point: the recent Salt Typhoon incident (spoiler: it was China) https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/salt-typhoon-canada-cyber-s...
Just another authoritarian attempt by the Liberal government.
> hostile state actors are stealing information and gaining access to systems that are critical to our national security and public safety
If they're hostile state actors, they've got internet access from elsewhere. It's a global network.
I am not dismissing cyber-threats, but perhaps I would weigh them differently. To me, the largest issue is the cultural influence and political meddling affected by the increasingly hostile state - Canada's southern neighbour.
A much better defence would be to quarantine or outright block access to the large social media platforms, and make space for homegrown alternatives. On balance, these players do more harm than good, and they're massive vectors for foreign political interference.