Privacy Commissioner Sounds Alarm on Sweeping Anti-Terrorism Legislation (Bill C-51)

[inanna]

Published on Friday, March 06, 2015 by Common Dreams

'Excessive and Unprecedented'

'In a country governed by the rule of law, it should not be left for national security and other government agencies to determine the limits of their own powers.'—Daniel Therrien

Canada's Privacy Commissioner has criticized proposed anti-terrorism legislation for affording government "excessive" powers to sweep up information from all Canadians with neither due oversight nor the necessary privacy safeguards.

The legislation, Bill C-51, was introduced in January and has been met with fierce criticism by those who say it was introduced through fear-mongering, threatens to chill legitimate political speech and will face limited debate.

In his op-ed published Friday, Commissioner Daniel Therrien writes the the bill "does not strike the right balance" between privacy and security.

"The scale of information sharing between government departments and agencies being proposed in this bill is unprecedented. The new powers that would be created are excessive and the privacy safeguards being proposed are seriously deficient," he writes.

"The Bill would provide 17 federal government agencies with almost limitless powers to monitor and profile ordinary Canadians," 14 of which face no independent oversight.

cont'd...

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/06/excessive-and-unprecedented-privacy-commissioner-sounds-alarm-sweeping-anti

The Globe & Mail Op-Ed by Daniel Therrien here.

[blkmusclmachine]

1. Big Brother, eh. Welcome to "THE FAMILY," Canada. It's only just begun...

[shockedcanadian]

2. Mr Therrien accomodates the security apparatus

I have had personal email interaction with him, lengthy interaction with his office which ended with the basic and arbitrary conclusion that "CSIS and the RCMP can essentially withhold information from you, we didn't write the law so unfortunately we can't force them to hand it over". Really courageous people, way to go to bat for Privacy and your constituents.


Daniel was appointed for a reason, he understands the law and what they can get away with. Actions speak louder than words, to date that is all he has provided, words; empty words and zero promises to the public. I have little to no respect for the man, I am sure there will be many like myself who will come to the same conclusion when they seek out various forms of information from his office.

In the end who does he serve? If you want his email I can provide and you can ask him yourself.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

3. "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house." n/t