A group of experts in internet and privacy law want the government to study provisions they say could drastically affect Canadians' privacy rights.

A group of experts in internet and privacy law want the government to study provisions they say could drastically affect Canadians' privacy rights.




The provisions, which critics call warrantless online spying, were included in three lawful access technical surveillance bills from the last parliamentary session, but are expected to be rolled into the omnibus crime bill the Conservatives plan to table this fall. The Conservative election platform promised to reintroduce the electronic surveillance provisions as part of the omnibus crime bill.



The provisions would give law enforcement agencies more power to take information from internet service providers and other private companies without a warrant, according to Open Media, a consumer watchdog group.



Open Media is asking that the provisions be properly examined by MPs and senators in committee before the bill gets passed. The Conservatives have promised to pass the omnibus bill within 100 days of Parliament's post-election return, which was June 2.



Open Media worries that won't be enough time when combined with all the other bills expected to be rolled together.



Tamir Israel, a staff lawyer at the University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic, says the potential for surveillance online is much greater than it was in a pre-internet era. CIPPIC is one of several groups and individuals who signed an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, which was distributed Tuesday along with a news release by Open Media.



Smartphones, for example, come with GPS devices that can be used to track a user's movements. Social networking sites make it easier to see who's connected.



"Everywhere we go, everything we do is recorded," Israel said. "It's becoming more the case with smartphones and facial recognition. We want to make sure that we're justifying that expansion [of law enforcement powers]."



"The overarching concern is its an erosion of civil liberties and online privacy with no real justification for it," he added.



The legislation proposed in the last session would allow police to get some information without a warrant and other information with something like a court order, but with a lower standard of proof, Israel said.



The group is also worried about a lack of oversight for the new powers.



Privacy safeguards

A spokesman for Justice Minister Rob Nicholson said while the law has to keep up with technology, there will be privacy safeguards in the bill.



"While technology has advanced rapidly in the past two decades, law enforcement and national security agencies have faced increased difficulty in protecting the safety and security of Canadians," Michael Aubie wrote in an email.

"Existing privacy safeguards in the Criminal Code will be maintained or enhanced under this legislation, including requirements for police to obtain prior authorization in the form of a judicial order or warrant. No information could be obtained by police without prior judicial authorization."



More details about the omnibus bill will be announced "in due course," he added.

Tory transport minister Denis Lebel was a member of the Bloc.

After a week of attacking the NDP for choosing a former member of the Bloc Quebecois as its interim leader, it has emerged that the federal Conservatives also have a high-level member with former ties to the separatist party.




Tory transport minister Denis Lebel was a member of the Bloc during his time working for various civic-minded organizations in his home town of Roberval, a small town on Lac Saint-Jean, about 260 kilometres north of Quebec City.




Rae doubts Turmel's Bloc explanation His office confirmed his past association with the party Monday evening, but released few other details. It did not respond to a query as to why Mr. Lebel joined the Bloc, and if he had been a separatist.



In a statement to Radio Canada he said he took out the membership in part to ingratiate himself with Michel Gauthier, a former Bloc leader who served as the area's MP. SRC reported that Mr. Lebel was a member of the Bloc from July 1993 to April 2001 and that he also donated hundreds of dollars to the party during the 1990s.



Mr. Lebel went on to serve as mayor of Roberval from 2000 to 2007, stepping down to succeed Mr. Gauthier as MP following a by-election. He served as a junior minister starting in 2008 and was elevated to the transport and infrastructure portfolio following the last federal election.



The revelation comes after days in which the Tories heaped scorn on interim NDP leader Nycole Turmel, who was a member of the Bloc for four years and still has a membership in Quebec Solidaire, a separatist provincial party, which she has said she will cancel. The former president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada was named to helm the party while leader Jack Layton is away battling cancer.



The NDP alluded to Mr. Lebel's association with the Bloc in a press release last week, in which the party also took aim at junior cabinet minister Maxime Bernier for serving as an aide to separatist Quebec premier Bernard Landry, arguing that the Tories were being hypocritical in criticizing Ms. Turmel.



“We wonder why politicians who live in glass houses are throwing stones,” the party wrote.



Mr. Lebel's spokeswoman wrote in an email Monday that Mr. Lebel “has been transparent with his constituents” about his Bloc past. She said he joined the Conservative Party in 2007 because of Stephen Harper's vision for the economy.

A group of Eritrean refugees rejected by an untrained visa officer in Cairo who quizzed them on the Holy Spirit are getting another interview and chance to come to Canada.

WINNIPEG - A group of Eritrean refugees rejected by an untrained visa officer in Cairo who quizzed them on the Holy Spirit are getting another interview and chance to come to Canada.



After taking the federal government to court and winning, the Canadian Council for Refugees learned this week that the 37 people she turned away will be interviewed again at the Canadian Embassy in Cairo in September.



``That's the most you can hope for - to strike down an incorrect decision and send it back to be heard by a different visa officer,'' said Janet Dench, executive director of the Canadian refugee advocacy group.



``You hope the next determination is soon and by a visa officer who is fully informed on the situation in Eritrea and understands properly (what she's doing).''



Even after winning in court, the group had to push the federal government for the refugees' cases to be heard in a reasonable amount of time, said Andrew Brouwer, the Toronto lawyer for the Canadian Council for Refugees.



``In the meantime, our clients continue to live in very difficult and dangerous circumstances in Cairo and Khartoum,'' he said.



Several of the refugees were being sponsored privately by Winnipeg's Pentecostal Eritrean Church. More than a year ago it complained to the federal immigration minister about a visa officer in Cairo. She was dismissing the Eritreans' cases because she didn't believe they were Pentecostal, the group said.



Others complained about her as well, and the Canadian Council for Refugees decided to challenge her decisions in the Federal Court of Canada.



This spring, the court ruled that the visa officer lacked adequate training and support. She made poor decisions in dozens of cases for more than a year - even after the Canadian Council for Refugees alerted Immigration Minister Jason Kenney's office to a troubling pattern at the Cairo office involving the officer.



Kenney ignored concerns raised by the ``reputable organization,'' the judge ruled.



``. . . Common sense and fairness leads me to conclude that the minister ought to have taken the complaint more seriously,'' Justice Judith Snider said in her decision. She awarded the refugee council costs, and the court ordered the federal government to deliver monthly updates on the refugees' cases to show they were being reviewed and moving forward.



``We were really very disappointed this had to come all the way to a federal- court decision,'' said Dench in Montreal.



``We had alerted federal government on a discreet, off-the-record basis . . . and thought that would be enough. When that did not lead to anything, we filed a report that led to nothing at all.''



So, the council took their concerns to federal court to have the refugees' cases reviewed.



Early on in the case, the visa officer in Cairo was cross-examined by teleconference. That was a ``watershed moment,'' the federal court judge wrote, when the ``magnitude and existence of some of the errors should have been apparent to the minister.''



The visa officer's lack of training was obvious, said Dench.



``Many of her answers made it very clear she did not understand her legal obligations,'' she said. ``It was quite astonishing.'' For instance, if the visa officer didn't believe an Eritrean was Pentecostal, she'd reject them on that basis alone without considering any other grounds, as the law requires, said Dench. ``Many of her answers made it very clear she did not understand her legal obligations.''



Instead of addressing the problem then and there and saving litigation costs, the federal government proceeded in court and lost, Dench said. It's added another year ``in limbo'' for the refugees who escaped Eritrea.



They're struggling to survive in chaotic Cairo waiting for the Canadian Embassy to deal with their cases.



``For the most part, refugees overseas do not have access to a lawyer to represent them at federal court,'' said Dench. ``If a visa officer is not properly trained and makes a bad decision it's usually never challenged.''



The 37 Eritreans whose cases were went to federal court are the fortunate few, said Dench.







Read more: http://www.canada.com/immigration+interviews+ordered+Eritreans+grilled+suspicious+visa+officer/5210877/story.html#ixzz1UQB35Ukw

the unproven CSIS leak in the Charkaoui and Abousfian Abdelrazik cases.

The report is chilling: a summary of a conversation intercepted by CSIS recounts two men plotting to blow up a plane flying from Montreal to France.




But with it comes questions. Both men successfully fought long court battles with the Canadian government, over allegations of terrorism links, and Ottawa never persuaded a court such plotting had occurred.



 
Lawyers for the two men insist the leak of the previously unreported summary to a newspaper this week is a defamatory smear using what was previously described as “unproven” information by a Federal Court judge, suggesting it was intended to undermine efforts of one of them to get his name removed from a no-fly list.




But Immigration Minister Jason Kenney argued that those who doubt the government’s pursuit of people alleged to have terrorist ties should be more skeptical about the suspects.

 
“I read the protected confidential dossiers on such individuals, and I can tell you that, without commenting on any one individual, some of this intelligence makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck,” he said. “I just think people should be patient and thoughtful and give the government and its agencies the benefit of the doubt.”




The Montreal newspaper La Presse this week reported on a summary of an intercepted conversation in the summer of 2000 in which two men, Adil Charkaoui and Abousfian Abdelrazik, appear to discuss ways to blow up a passenger flight from Montreal. CSIS would not confirm the authenticity of the document, a four-page 2004 report to Transport Canada security officials, but asked La Presse to withhold the name of agents named in it, the newspaper reported.

 
The summary quotes Mr. Charkaoui as describing how six people could register separately for a flight from Montreal to France, taking different seats; then Mr. Abelrazik saying it would be “a problem” and is dangerous; and Mr. Charkaoui appears to suggest explosives could be planted in a pen in the form of a key-ring. “It’s something very pure, 100 per cent. Throw that in a plane and the whole thing blows up,” Mr. Charkaoui is quoted as saying, according to La Presse.




It’s not clear why, if the recording existed, it would not have been used in secret court hearings against Mr. Charkaoui. CSIS had a policy of destroying recordings and transcripts of intercepted conversations and keeping only summaries until ordered by the Supreme Court to change practices in 2008. Mr. Charkaoui won a six-year battle against detention and house arrest under immigration laws in 2009 after CSIS withdrew evidence rather than provide information that it considered sensitive to back it up.

In the case of Mr. Abdelrazik, a Canadian citizen stranded in Sudan for six years before a court ordered the government in 2009 to let him come home, it is the first public report of a specific allegation of terror plotting.




The United Nations released a summary of allegations that he provided “administrative and logistical support” to al-Qaeda. But they were based on his travels, including a claim, which he denies, that he attended an al-Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, and on his association with others, including Millenium bomber Ahmed Ressam, at whose trial he testified.



But La Presse reported that the document it obtained stated that a 2001 search of his car found traces of RDX, an ingredient used in high-tech explosives, as well as summarizing the conversation.



Mr. Abdelrazik’s lawyer, Paul Champ, said a decision is expected soon on efforts to get the United Nations Security Council to remove his client from a no-fly list. “All of a sudden this document comes out?” he said.



The conversation appears to been aired before, in Mr. Charkaoui’s case.




Mr. Champ and Mr. Charkaoui’s lawyer, Johanne Doyon, say it is the three-person conversation referred to in a 2007 La Presse story about Mr. Charkaoui and a man named Hashim Tahir – an account a judge called “unproven.” That 2007 story cited another secret document that indicated Mr. Charkaoui and Mr. Tahir discussed a plot to blow up a plane flying from Montreal to Europe.



Mr. Charkaoui, a Moroccan-born landed immigrant, was then fighting the security certificate under which he was detained from 2003 to 2005, and kept at home under bail restrictions such as a requirement to wear an electronic-monitoring bracelet, until 2009.


The Federal Court judge in that case, Mr. Justice Simon Noel, responded to the 2007 story by revealing in 2008 that “the court has unproven information concerning Mr. Charkaoui to the effect that, at a meeting in June, 2000, he discussed with two people hijacking a commercial aircraft for violent purposes.”




La Presse did not mention Mr. Tahir in the story published on Friday.



But Mr. Champ said he separately obtained a copy of the document, and it mentions Mr. Tahir. Mr. Charkaoui’s lawyer, Johanne Doyon, insisted it is the same 2007 allegation that Justice Noel referred to as “unproven.”

Canada's F-35 Can't Fly!

It seems that the F-35, the fighter jets that Canada is planning on buying to replace our aging F-18s, are running into more trouble.




The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that the plane's power systems are failing in ground tests forcing the entire fleet to be grounded. The story also points out that the planes have had two other serious delays in the last year.



In 2010, the government announced that it would be buying about 65 planes at a cost of about $9-billion. The cost could rise to $18-billion once a maintenance contract was included. But earlier this year, the parliamentary budget officer estimated that the cost of the planes would likely be much higher, closer to $30-billion. Canada's purchase of the F-35 became a major issue in the last federal election, with then-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff vowing to scrap the deal and hold a competition.







Critics have condemned the Canadian government for rushing into a contract for the jets without knowing the final cost.



"Like your [the Canadian] government's proposed purchase of F-35s before all testing is complete and all costs are known, the United States has been rushing to "buy" before we "fly" for decades. It has been a disaster." wrote Winslow T. Wheeler in Embassy magazine.



In the U.S. the plane's skyrocketing costs, estimates say it'll cost the U.S. government around $1-trillion or comparable to the annual GDP of Australia, have made the plane controversial. The plane was also touted as a one-size-fits-all replacement for the Army, Navy and Marines. In the end, it may have just doomed the plane to cost-overruns and reduced its performance.



"The F-35's critics have long argued that its performance is compromised by having to fulfil too many roles and that an over-complicated design lashed to an over-optimistic schedule was asking for trouble. In the past 18 months, as delays have mounted and costs escalated, even some of the plane's ardent fans have become alarmed," the Economist wrote.



In May, the Atlantic wrote about how engineers scrambled to develop a second alternate engine for the plane, a move that could actually cost more money in the long run.





"What's remarkable about this is that the Pentagon doesn't event want a second engine, having already contracted one from Pratt & Whitney. In 2006, the Pentagon decided to stop funding the development of the second engine for the aircraft, citing a spiraling price tag. For the next five years Congress overrode the DOD's wishes and spent billions of dollars on this extra engine anyway," Joshua Foust and August Cole wrote on the magazine's website.



There's also some question as to whether the planes are even necessary. Whether it's worth the expense to build an expensive stealth-fighter when the days of the Cold War are long gone and threats like terrorism, piracy and failed states are more common.



"The world has changed. The odds of great power war have declined dramatically. We still need a deterrent capacity against China and Russia, but how much is enough? In a decade's time, the United States plans to have 15 times as many modern fighters as China, and 20 times as many as Russia," writes the Atlantic's Dominic Tierney.

Guantanamo prisoner Omar Khadr has hired two Toronto lawyers known for their work in national security and constitutional law and fired his long-time Canadian attorneys, who twice argued his case before the Supreme Court.

Guantanamo prisoner Omar Khadr has hired two Toronto lawyers known for their work in national security and constitutional law and fired his long-time Canadian attorneys, who twice argued his case before the Supreme Court.




A press release Thursday announced that John Norris and Brydie Bethell would represent the 24-year-old war criminal in Canada, where he will be transferred sometime during the next three months to serve the remainder of an eight-year sentence.



The news came as a shock to Edmonton-based lawyers Nathan Whitling and Dennis Edney, who learned about the firing through the press.



Whitling had left the case earlier this year after changing law firms, but Edney had been in Guantanamo visiting Khadr just last month.



“I wish him all the best,” Edney said.



Khadr wrote in a statement to the lawyers: “I wholeheartedly recognize the extraordinary commitment you have shown in everything that you have done for me . . . . Although I feel deeply indebted to you for your dedication, changing counsel at this time is in my best interests.”



Khadr will be transferred to a Canadian prison sometime before Oct. 31, according to a plea deal reached last fall.



Khadr confessed to five war crimes, including “murder in violation of the laws of war,” for throwing a grenade in during a 2002 Afghanistan firefight that fatally wounded U.S. soldier Sgt. Christopher Speer.



In return for his plea, he was given one additional year in Guantanamo and a promise from the Canadian government to bring him home for the additional seven years.



Khadr’s legal representation has been one of the side stories of the nine-year-old case as Khadr fired, re-hired or replaced the phalanx of U.S. civilian or military lawyers.



But Edney and Whitling, who have fought the case pro bono (as will Norris and Bethell), have been a consistent presence.



Canadian lawyers were not given official status at the Guantanamo proceedings but known instead as “foreign attorney consultants.”



Pentagon-appointed lawyers Lt.-Col. Jon Jackson and Maj. Matthew Schwartz remain on Khadr’s case.

Gustaf Reinfeldt, the 18-year-old son of the Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has secured a job at US hamburger chain McDonald's

Gustaf Reinfeldt, the 18-year-old son of the Swedish prime minister Fredrik Reinfeldt has secured a job at US hamburger chain McDonald's, using his Twitter feed to invite friends in for a grilled patty, according to news website Nyheter24.se.









A little work will be fun! Feels really good," Gustaf, the eldest son to the PM and his wife Filippa Reinfeldt, said on his Twitter feed.




The junior Reinfeldt continued to confirm that he is to ply his trade at the Kungsgatan branch of the global fast-food chain, offering Stockholmers the chance to be served by a member of one of the most well-known families in Swedish society.



"Drop by and have a hamburger," he urged one of his Twitter followers.



Tuesday's announcement of his impending McDonald's employment is not the first time that Gustaf Reinfeldt's online activities have thrust him into the public eye.



In February 2009, he joined a Facebook group "Free The Pirate Bay", taking a highly publicised stand in favour of the controversial founders of the popular file sharing site ahead of their trial for copyright violations.



He is also a member of the Moderate Party's youth league Muf, an organisation which supports the de-criminalisation of file-sharing for private use.



Despite the press attention and possible PR value of having recruiting the PM's son, McDonald's Sweden has played down the significance of the appointment.



"It doesn't matter who you are or what you are called. He is a team member and we don't comment on these things," said Frida Berg at McDonald's Sweden to Nyheter24.