Supreme Court’s historic decision on warrantless disclosures is huge win for Canadian privacy, places big question mark over constitutionality of govt’s Bill C-13

Supreme Court’s historic decision on warrantless disclosures is huge win for Canadian privacy, places big question mark over constitutionality of govt’s Bill C-13

Responding to the news, OpenMedia.ca Executive Director Steve Anderson, said: “This is a historic decision that will protect countless law-abiding Canadians from being unjustly spied on by the government. Tens of thousands of Canadians have worked tirelessly to raise the alarm over how this government has been conducting warrantless surveillance of law-abiding citizens on a massive scale. All along we’ve said the government’s online spying Bill C-13 is reckless and irresponsible and today’s ruling vindicates those concerns. Now the government will finally have to take heed and withdraw their extreme spying provisions from their bill.” In an article on his website, privacy expert Prof. Michael Geist, said: “The government's plans for expanded voluntary, warrantless disclosure under Bill C-13 must surely be reformed as it is unconstitutional. Just yesterday, Conservative MP Bob Dechert relied on R. v. Ward to support the C-13 approach with respect to immunity for voluntary disclosure. The court has effectively rejected the Ward decision and Dechert's defence of the provision no longer stands.” Tens of thousands of Canadians have spoken out against the spying provisions of C-13 at http://OurPrivacy.caAbout 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. Contact David Christopher Communications Manager, OpenMedia.ca 1-778-232-1858 [email protected] 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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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.