OpenMedia.ca joins with BC FIPA and CIPPIC to call for senior intelingence officials testify under oath at Monday Senate hearing

Call comes in response to shocking revelation that CSEC spied and tracked movements of thousands of Canadian air travellers

Explaining the move, OpenMedia.ca Executive Director Steve Anderson, said: “Last night’s revelations fly in the face of repeated government and CSEC assertions that Canadians are not being targeted in spying activities. Now we know that thousands of law-abiding Canadians had their personal data spied on and their movements tracked over a number of weeks by CSEC. Canadians deserve to know the truth about what’s being done in their name, with their tax dollars. That’s why we’re asking CSEC and other senior intelligence officials to testify under oath on Monday.”

OpenMedia.ca, the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association and the Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic are members of the Protect our Privacy Coalition, which is working for effective legal measures to protect Canadians’ privacy from government spies.

Over 27,000 Canadians have pledged their support to OpenMedia.ca’s campaign aimed at stopping all illegal spying on Canadians, with more signing on every day at http://OurPrivacy.ca

About OpenMedia.ca

OpenMedia.ca is a network of people and organizations working to safeguard the possibilities of the open Internet. We work toward informed and participatory digital policy.

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.

Earlier this year, OpenMedia.ca launched its Secret Spying campaign, to demand answers and immediate action from the government after it was revealed that a secretive government agency has been spying on the telephone and Internet activities of individuals, including law-abiding Canadians.

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

• New Snowden docs show U.S. spied during G20 in Toronto. Source: CBC News
• Five highlights from the Canada-Brazil spying revelations. [Source: The Globe and Mail]
• Privacy watchdog on spy agency’s data collection: ‘We want to find out more’. [Source: CBC News.mail.com/news/politics/privacy-watchdog-on-spy-agencys-data-collection-we-want-to-find-out-more/article12459998/">The Globe And Mail]
• Canada’s spy agency may have illegally targeted Canadians: watchdog. [Source: National Post]
• Inside Canada's top-secret billion-dollar spy palace. [Source: CBC News]
• Data breach protocols deficient in 9 federal departments, watchdog finds. - [Source: CBC News]
• Lawful Access back on the agenda this Fall? - Michael Geist.
• The secretive CSEC agency has a staff of more than 2,000 and a budget of about $400 million. [Source: CBC News]
• Surveillance expert Ron Deibert on the threat spy agencies pose for citizens.
• Internet Law expert Michael Geist on why Canadians should be concerned about government spying.
• Privacy commissioner Jennifer Stoddart says there are significant concerns about the scope of information that CSEC are reported to collect. [Source: CBC News]
• 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.