Government attempts to shut down debate on Online Spying Bill show they’re running scared of public opinion, says OpenMedia.ca

Government could shut down Parliamentary debate on Bill C-13 as early as today

“This government is running scared of Canadians including those in their own party, and that’s why they’re trying to ram this bill through Parliament with as little debate as possible,” says OpenMedia.ca Executive Director Steve Anderson. “This is a disgraceful approach that is typical of a government with such a terribletrackrecord on privacy, and it’s no wonder that so many people, including many grassroots conservative supporters, are speaking out.”

Anderson continued: “Let’s be clear about what Bill C-13 would do. It would open the door to unprecedented warrantless surveillance of law-abiding Canadians. It would give government bureaucrats access to our private lives at any time without judicial oversight. It would even encourage telecom providers to hand over our private information without a warrant and without even telling victims that their privacy had been violated. Peter MacKay needs to listen to Canadians and rethink this dangerous legislation.”

Privacy expert Professor Michael Geist has highlighted how Bill C-13 “establishes a new system for voluntary disclosure of personal information that is likely to lead both to increased requests without court oversight and to increased disclosures”.

A hard-hitting video about Bill C-13 was launched recently by OpenMedia and rapidly went viral, getting over 12,000 views and securing the top two spots of Reddit Canada.

Tens of thousands of Canadians are calling for effective legal measures to protect our privacy from government surveillance at http://OurPrivacy.ca

About OpenMedia.ca

OpenMedia.ca is an award-winning community-based organization that safeguards the possibilities of the open Internet. We work toward informed and participatory digital policy by engaging hundreds of thousands of people in protecting our online rights.

Through campaigns such as StopTheMeter.ca and StopSpying.ca, OpenMedia.ca has engaged over half-a-million Canadians, and has influenced public policy and federal law.

About OpenMedia.ca’s privacy campaign

OpenMedia.ca led the successful StopSpying.ca campaign that forced the government to back down on its plans to introduce a costly, invasive, and warrantless online spying law (Bill C-30). Nearly 150,000 Canadians took part in the campaign. To learn more, see this infographic.

On October 10, 2013 OpenMedia.ca collaborated with over 40 major organizations and over a dozen academic experts to form the Protect Our Privacy Coalition, which is the largest pro-privacy coalition in Canadian history. The Coalition is calling for effective legal measures to protect the privacy of every resident of Canada against intrusion by government entities.

OpenMedia.ca and the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) recently announced they will work together to put a stop to illegal government surveillance against law-abiding Canadians. OpenMedia.ca has launched a national campaign encouraging Canadians to support a BCCLA legal action which aims to stop illegal spying by challenging the constitutionality of the government’s warrantless collection of data on Canadians’ everyday Internet use.

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Contact

David Christopher
Communications Manager, OpenMedia.ca
1-778-232-1858
[email protected]

More Information

• Bill C-13 would let authorities obtain private information without a warrant. Source: Michael Geist
• Supposed “cyberbullying” legislation will erode the privacy of Canadians. Source: OpenMedia.ca
• Canada's Lawful Access Bill Appears to Have Contained a Provision to Enable PRISM-Style Surveillance Source: Michael Geist
• Lawful Access back on the agenda this Fall? - Michael Geist.
• Data breach protocols deficient in 9 federal departments, watchdog finds. - [Source: CBC News]
• Internet Law expert Michael Geist on why Canadians should be concerned about government spying.
• In this article, The Globe and Mail describes the revelations about Canadian government spying as “disturbing and unacceptable”
• This document, obtained by The Globe through Access to Information, shows how Minister MacKay authorized a top secret program to data-mine global ‘metadata’ in 2011.