Stop Online Spying Media Round-Up
It’s been a pretty eventful couple of weeks for the Stop Online Spying campaign. The campaign has certainly come a long way with an amazing 105K signatures and counting! As Bill C-30 heads to committee for some more debate, it’s the perfect time to tell MPs and Ottawa that the legislation needs a lot of work. In case you missed out or need to catch up on where the Lawful Access bill and the Stop Online Spying campaign stand, here’s a summary of key developments and a compilation of articles we’re in: The Hon. Minister of Public Safety, Vic Toews’ declaration that Canadians “either stand with us or with the child pornographers” certainly sparked some outrage across Canada. Adding more fuel to the fire, was the online spying bill’s name change (“Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act”… yes this actually happened). Media outrage and social media backlash across Canada ensued as did Twitter hashtags, Internet memes, and even fake twitter accounts.
Subsequently, a couple of Conservative MPs broke party rank and voiced their concern and uncertainty over the Bill’s privacy-invading nature. Vic Toews retracted his infamous ‘with us or with the criminals’ statement and explained that his party would‘entertain’ changes to the Bill by sending it to committee for some more debate.
Also, Vic Toews has since told Canadians that he simply did not know about some of his legislation’s most questionable and invasive contents (seriously?).
Here’s a round-up of some of the articles we’ve been in recently:
- Winnipeg Free Press: Foreign online surveillance regimes underscore need for caution, critics say by Jim Bronskill on February 20, 2012
- Globe and Mail: Anonymous targets Toews over ‘lawful access’ bill by Kim Mackrael on February 19, 2012
- Macleans Blog: It’s target practice in the Commons over the Conservatives’ ‘snoop and spy’ legislation by Gustavo Vieira on Feb 15, 2012
- Georgia Straight Blog: Petition against Internet surveillance bill tops 90,000 signatures by Stephen Hui on February 15, 2012
- Montreal Gazette: Love children? You must hate privacy by Jason Magder on February 14, 2012
- Vancouver Sun: Conservative snooping bill spin fails to defuse backlash, Conservatives “entertain amendments” by Gillian Shaw on February 15, 2012
- National Post: A Licence to Snoop February 14, 2012
- National Post: Online surveillance bill ‘a gold mine’ for hackers: Ontario privacy commissioner by Allison Cross on February 14, 2012
- Financial Post: Police ‘scrambling’ to justify lawful access laws by Jameson Berkow on Jan 18