Experts Line Up Against Online Spying Legislation

New Mini-Doc Features Leading Legal and Privacy Experts

October 3, 2011 – Pro-Internet organization OpenMedia.ca launched a mini-documentary Monday entitled (un)Lawful Access. The film features leading legal and privacy experts who detail the dangers of the federal government’s impending "Lawful Access" legislation, dubbed "Online Spying" by Canadians. The documentary can be found online at http://www.themarknews.com/articles/6930-un-lawful-access

The mini-documentary is the latest in a series of educational tools hosted by OpenMedia.ca for the Stop Online Spying campaign, centered on the petition at http://StopSpying.ca. OpenMedia.ca began their crowdsourced public education campaign earlier this fall in order to raise awareness about the online spying plan.

"The government has thus far failed to inform Canadians about the privacy, data security, and economic implications of their impending invasive online spying bills," says OpenMedia.ca Executive Director Steve Anderson. "After empowering Canadians to learn about the bills and spread the word, we’ve learned that there is broad consensus that warrantless online spying is bad for law-abiding Canadians, and bad for online innovation."

(un)Lawful Access demonstrates that legal and privacy experts clearly agree with the 83 percent of Canadians who, according to a poll from the Office of the Privacy Commissioner, oppose warrantless online spying. The proposed online spying bills will allow authorities to access the private information of any Canadian, at any time, without a warrant.

Under the pressure of OpenMedia.ca’s 70,000+ signature petition and viral videos with over 100,000 views, the government omitted its online spying bills from the omnibus crime package at the end of September. The embattled plan could, however, be tabled in Parliament any day.

Andrew Clement—a professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, and one of the experts featured in the mini-documentary—said today: "The surveillance measures in the proposed Lawful Access legislation seriously threaten our free and democratic society."

Anderson adds: "It is now abundantly clear that passing this legislation would be irresponsible and reckless without safeguards for privacy and innovation. The government did the right thing by pulling this plan out of the omnibus crime bill, and we’re hopeful that they’ll continue to do right by Canadians by adapting the legislation so it is in line with experts’ and public opinion."

Extended interviews, expert bios, and more information can be found at www.unLawfulAccess.net.

(un)Lawful Access was produced in collaboration with The New Transparency: Surveillance & Social Sorting, and DigitallyMediatedSurveillance.ca.

About OpenMedia.ca

OpenMedia.ca is a non-partisan, non-profit public engagement organization working to advance and support an open and innovative communications system in Canada. Our primary goal is to increase informed participation in Internet governance.

About the Stop Online Spying Coalition

The Stop Online Spying campaign is supported by a group of public interest organizations, civil liberties groups, businesses, and concerned academics that have come together to encourage the government to reconsider "Lawful Access" legislation. The group points out that this type of legislation enables warrantless surveillance that is invasive, excessive and costly. Over 70,000 Canadians have signed the Stop Online Spying petition at http://stopspying.ca

-30-

Contact

Lindsey Pinto
Communications Manager, OpenMedia.ca
778-238-7710
[email protected]

More Information

The Stop Online Spying Campaign
http://StopSpying.ca
http://openmedia.ca/educate
http://openmedia.ca/mp
http://openmedia.ca/screening

Survey indicates vast majority of Canadians oppose warrantless online spying
http://www.openmedia.ca/blog/survey-indicates-vast-majority-canadians-op...

Techvibes: OpenMedia's petition wins battle against online spying but the war is far from over
http://www.techvibes.com/blog/openmedias-petition-wins-battle-against-on...

Globe and Mail: Conservative majority would hustle crime bills into law all at once
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/conservative-majority-would...

Joint letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper from academics and public interest organizations
http://openmedia.ca/letter-prime-minister-stephen-harper-response-lawful...

NDP MPs Angus & Sandhu write to Toews: Online spying bills are "disturbing"
http://openmedia.ca/blog/ndp-mps-angus-sandhu-write-toews-online-spying-...

Letter to Public Safety Canada from Canada's Privacy Commissioners and Ombudspersons on the current 'Lawful Access' proposals
http://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/2011/let_110309_e.cfm

More links: http://openmedia.ca/stopspying/resources#links

Expert Bios

Andrew Clement is a Professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto, where he coordinates the Information Policy Research Program, and is a co-founder of the Identity, Privacy and Security Institute. With a PHD in Computer Science, he has had longstanding research and teaching interests in the social implications of information and communication technologies, and in human-centered, participatory information systems development.

His recent research has focused on public information policy, internet use in everyday life, digital identity constructions, public participation in information and communication infrastructures development, and community networking. Among his recent projects is the IXmaps internet mapping tool, which helps unmask NSA warrantless wiretapping activities. Clement is a co-investigator in The New Transparency Research Initiative.

David Fewer is Legal Counsel and Director of the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, where he brings his considerable experience as an intellectual property and technology lawyer to CIPPIC's national advocacy on these issues. He has taught and written extensively on intellectual property and technology law, open source and Creative Commons licensing, and Net Neutrality. He is a frequent commentator in the media on such issues.

Prior to joining CIPPIC, Mr. Fewer practised intellectual properly and technology law with national firms in British Columbia and Ontario, and clerked with the Federal Court of Canada. At the University of Toronto, he wrote on intellectual property policy and the application of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms to copyright law. [Download the full video]

David Lyon is the Director of the Surveillance Studies Centre. He is an editor and author of numerous publications on Surveilance Studies, his major research area for the past 20 years and for which he is best known. His books have been translated into 13 languages. He is especially concerned with citizen registration and identification systems, and the social sorting capabilities of contemporary surveillance.

As a Canada Council Killam Research Fellow, Lyon's work investigating the rise of national ID card systems contributed to an understanding of contemporary biometrics-based ID systems. Lyon has been elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, awarded a Queen’s Research Chair and in 2007 received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Sociological Association Communication and Information Technology Section. [Download the full video]

David Murakami Wood is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology and holds a Canada Research Chair in Surveillance Studies. Before coming to Canada, he was a Reader in Surveillance Studies in the Global Urban Research Unit at Newcastle University in the UK, had an ESRC Research Fellowship for the Cultures of Urban Surveillance project, and was a visiting professor in Brazil and Japan.

David is a member of The Surveillance Studies Centre and The New Transparency. He is Managing Editor of Surveillance & Society, the international journal of surveillance studies, and co-founder of the Surveillance Studies Network. He coordinated the Report on the Surveillance Society for the UK Information Commissioner (ICO) and organised submissions to the UK House of Commons and House of Lords inquiries on surveillance. [Download the full video]

Dwayne Winseck is Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, with a cross-appointment to the Institute of Political Economy, at Carleton University. His research examines the political economies of communication, new media, communication networks and their relationship to markets, surveillance and national security, media regulation, as well as theories of democracy and globalization.

Dwayne has lived and taught in Britain, China, the United States and elsewhere. His work is often referred to by sociologists, historians, economists, political scientists and regulatory experts. He is currently involved in several intiatives, most notably the International Media Concentration Research Project. His latest book won the Canadian Communication Association’s G.G. Robinson Award for best book of the year in 2008. [Download the full video]

Ian Kerr holds a three-way appointment in the Faculties of Law, Medicine and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ottawa. He is one of Canada’s leading privacy scholars, and has published on the ethical and legal aspects of digital copyright, automated electronic commerce, cybercrime, nanotechnology, internet regulation and other issues. His current research includes directing On the Identity Trail - which examines the impact of authentication technologies on our identity and right to be anonymous.

Professor Kerr is a Canada Research Chair in Ethics, Law and Technology. He co-directs the Canada Research Chair Laboratory in Law and Technology, is guest editor for Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments (MIT Press), and sits on the Advisory Board of CIPPIC. [Download the full video]

Michael Geist is the Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law at University of Ottawa. He has written numerous articles and reports on the Internet and law, and is an internationally syndicated columnist on technology law issues. He is the editor of several technology law publications, and the author of a popular blog on Internet and intellectual property law issues.

Dr. Geist serves on the Privacy Commissioner of Canada’s Expert Advisory Board, on the Canadian Digital Information Strategy’s Review Panel and theElectronic Frontier Foundation Advisory Board, among others. He has received numerous awards for his work including the EFF's Pioneer Award and Canarie’s IWAY Public Leadership Award for his contribution to the development of the Internet in Canada. [Download the full video]

Nathalie Des Rosiers is General Counsel of the Canadian Civil Liberties Association,  a national organization which advocates for the protection of human rights and freedoms. She advises policy makers and government on the effects of legislation and public policy on civil society, including in the emerging sphere of online civil liberties. Previously, she was Vice-President for Governance, Dean of the Civil Law Section and president of the Federation of Social Sciences and Humanties at the University of Ottawa. She is also a past president of the Law Commission of Canada.

Ms. Des Rosiers is Past President of the Association des juristes d'expression française de l'Ontario (AJEFO), from which she received the Order of Merit, and of the Canadian Law Teachers Association. She was the receipient of the medal of the Law Society of Upper Canada. [Download the full video]

Ron Deibert is Professor of Political Science, and Director of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies and the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. He is a co-founder and a principal investigator of the OpenNet Initiative and Information Warfare Monitor projects. He is the recipient of several teaching and research awards, and was a Ford Foundation research scholar of Information and Communication Technologies.

Deibert has published extensively on technology, media, and world politics. He was co-author of Tracking Ghostnet, documenting a cyber-espionage network affecting computers in 103 countries, and Shadows in the Cloud, which analyzed a cloud-based espionage network. He has been an advisor to governments, international organizations, and civil society on issues relating to Internet censorship, surveillance and information warfare. [Download the full video]