Consider: you don’t give a warrant to a wiretap subject. That itself is not that big a loophole. And therefore is unlikely to provoke change.

This makes police indistinguishable from thugs.

I'm not Canadian, but it seems similarly written to how laws in the US have been exploited to be used to spy on Americans. And despite not being Canadian, as an American I have a horse in this race, as the OP notes...

  | many of these rules appear geared toward global information sharing

  Investigative work *should* be difficult.

  | It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer.

This frame of thinking is critical with laws too! When the law fails how do you want it to fail? So you need to think about that when evaluating this (or any other) law. When it is abused, how does it fail? Are you okay with that failure mode? How easy is it to be abused? Even if you believe your current government is unlikely to abuse it do you believe a future government might? (If you don't believe a future government might... look south...)

A lot of us strongly push against these types of measures not because we have anything to hide nor because we are on the side of the criminals. We generally have this philosophy because it is needed to keep a government in check. It doesn't matter if everyone involved has good intentions. We're programmers, this should be natural too! It doesn't matter if we have good intentions when designing a login page, you still have to think adversarially and about failure modes because good intentions are not enough to defend against those who wish to exploit it. Even if the number of exploiters is small the damage is usually large, right?

This framework of thinking is just as beneficial when thinking about laws as it is in the design of your programs. You can be in favor of the intent (spirit of the law), but you do have to question if the letter of the law is sufficient.

I wanted to explain this because I think it'll help facilitate these types of discussions. I think they often break down because people are interpreting from very different mental frameworks. Disagree with me if you want, but I hope making the mental framework explicit can at least improve your arguments :)

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackstone%27s_ratio

I think warrantless access, deanonymising the internet, etc, are things that go together. If you want auto-governance (technocracy), to micro-manage every citizen, these are the foundations you need. As it is already determined that this is what will be happening, no amount of discussion will make a material change - the legislation is going in whether people want it or not. The individual justifications for each legal step in the construction are either going to be done with low visibility, or a trope like ('for the children/terrorists') will be wheeled out. Works every time, so why change?

I don't really see an issue with this section. A judge still needs to issue a warrant, they can also additionally waive the requirement that the cop gives you a copy right away, in special circumstances.

Like are you envisioning a "I totally have a warrant but I don't have to give it to you" type situation? I think it's fairly unlikely, and you would likely be able to get the search ruled inadmissible if a cop tried it.

How would a wiretap work if you sent the person notice you're listening to their phone?

Clearly some criminal investigations require not notifying the suspect.

It's not bad. Judges are not crazy and they'll require a reason for this. It could mean 'fraying at the edges' of the law but this is not bad at all.

You can tell where things will land with this generally it's not bad.

If it were Texas or the South where the justice dept. leans a different way it could be a problem.

Canada is a bit like Europe where they have statist mentality, kind of hints of lawful, bureaucratic authoritarianism - not arbitrary or political or regime driven, but kind of an inherent orientation towards 'rules' etc. where the system can tilt wayward, but that's completely different than regime, or 'deep institutional' issues and state actors that do wild things.

I've been in mainland China for the past year and I wish western politicians would get it through their skulls that most of the ccp model's upsides come from CCTVs in public areas and a police force that prioritizes stopping street crime.

Said leaders are only really democratic based on the literal name of the party they signed with when running for office. There's nothing democratic about these types of programs and I have to assume that a plainly explained referendum spelling this out on a ballot would fail miserably.

Look at what social media considers to be safe countries.

You are absolutely bombarded with messaging about how Dubai and Chinese cities are the safest places in the world. I have friends who live in each who consider North America and Europe crime ridden shitholes because theft is possible to get away with.

If society believes that crimes is utterly rampant despite it collapsing over the past few decades, there is nowhere else to go but mass surveillance to make sure that even the smallest of visible crimes are stamped out.

You missed 'warrentless' in your summary. It's sort of important.

The push by the government here is because Canada is the only one of the Five-Eyes countries that doesn't have these powers, and for the government that's a bad thing.

Sounds like a Canadian version of CALEA to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications_Assistance_for_...

Silence? Didn't Canada's prime minister give some very loud speeches regarding the US and the changing geopolitical landscape, and start making deals in response to such?

Letting a few cold feet throw away your relationship with the US is absolutely just as stupid as Trump throwing away the US's relationship with Europe/whoever.

Yep. Everyone can have their own “AI FBI agent” following their every move.

Yup, it makes living in stalinist Russia seem like a libertarian paradise

People don't seem to understand how incredibly oppressive society is becoming

Maybe there need to be some adjustments but we also have to acknowledge that the world has evolved and there have to be some response to that.

In the "old days" when all we had is telephone law enforcement could wiretap your phone with a warrant. As I understand it with an order from a judge your phone could be tapped or your mail could be read. You wouldn't (obviously) be served that warrant or even be aware of it. This was part of a few existing laws/acts. I.e. that's the status quo. If we were a surveillance state back then, we'll be that again.

The other difference from the "old days" is that some of the communication companies are global and not Canadian. I.e. your encrypted conversations go perhaps [to] a Meta data-center in California.

If we remove the ability of law enforcement to monitor and access evidence of criminal activity with a warrant from a judge we are increasing the ability of criminal organizations to operate and coordinate. That is the balance here.

It is true there are other important differences. E.g. the amount of information, its persistence, the ability of hackers and other actors to potentially access it. This isn't easy. But doing nothing is also not great?

I'm also Canadian and I have to admit I haven't been following the details here. It's hard to separate signal from noise and it seems everyone cries wolf all the time over everything. I will read it in more detail and try to form an opinion.

I think it's a preparation for wildly unpopular measures in the next ~10 years. There will be dissent, and they need a way to catch dissidents at scale.

Imagine people you disagree with, politically and ideologically, have come into power and they intend to abuse this new capability to harm you directly. That’s where you should want to draw the line at government restraint. Expect abuse and ill will, and you’ll see where the boundaries ought to be. Even if you agree with those in power now, expect power to shift and define potential for harm on that basis.

It isn't as if the non-globalist affiliations are any less interested in this kind of control. This is frankly ad-hominem.

Seriously, and more than that, "by the people and for the people" are increasingly becoming hollow words contrasted with the reality of daily life. Corruption is increasingly rampant, and it's "rules for thee but not for me" everywhere you look (where thee are normal citizens, and me is corporations and government).

They don't pride themselves on those values though. Claims of democracy, tolerance, freedom, and rule of law are selectively used as justifications for whatever crap Western governments want to do. If they actually believed in these things they would act differently.

Government overreach isn't far-fetched dystopic speculation and privacy is important to freedom.

The "just" is underplaying how invidious this is.

Correct.

+1, democracies really need to start establishing some serious red lines that are not to be crossed. Mass surveillance of citizens by any means (including purchasing it from corporations or obtaining it from other governments). Corporations should not have the rights of citizens, monopolies should be dismantled, and politicians should be able to be ejected and tried for crimes when they're committing them in office (qualified immunity should not only not be an excuse - but we should hold anyone working for the government to a HIGHER STANDARD, not a lower one!). As a start!

You mean when Justin Trudeau froze the bank accounts of protesters? It's not even something you have to imagine, it already happened in Canada.

It’s being pushed all the time

Thanks! I've moved that link to the top and put https://www.parl.ca/DocumentViewer/en/45-1/bill/C-22/first-r... in the top text.

Why do you say that, did Meta sponsor similar legislation in another country? It doesn't seem like they have strong incentives to push for this. How does it make them more money?

It's not just me thinking this. I do want more data on this though. It is in their financial statements in terms of a revenue source?

You forgot to add /s!

As a foreigner, It would be near impossible for one company to ask every govt in that world to make this happen (with current political weather conditions).

HN people will always find someway to connect this to their most hated companies (be it Meta, Google, Microsoft)