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Canada’s federal court rules intelligence service bulk data collection illegal

387 points by based2 10y ago

noodles23 10y ago
Considering how hard it is to explain how Google Analytics works to the standard business owner, I imagine it wouldn't be hard to obscure all manners of data collection programs from oversight. In times like this, the importance of civics education is highlighted. The very idea that people in law enforcement think it's acceptable to treat judges and the legal system with such contempt is scary. Even if you disagree with a certain law or system, you still need to respect it as a public servant.
- throwwit 10y ago
  There's precedent in pushing the envelope in law enforcement since Sir Robert Peel (if you read up on it). It's not surprising an analogous methodology has been promulgated. Hopefully a more appropriate solution is worked out.
formula1 10y ago
So this seems to be more about the retention of data than it is about the collection. Where the retention of all data is not as important as a select few that pertain to national security. I'd love to play devils advocate here and claim that the agency requires all the information or court oversight of a spy agency is ludicrous. But I dont think any one branch should be judge jury and executionor. I wonder how much of this is symbolic? I know here in the US we are lucky to even hear about a segment of what happens. But I can certainly argue that many questionable deeds are done in the interest of the american citizens
- adekok 10y ago
  > I'd love to play devils advocate here and claim that ... court oversight of a spy agency is ludicrous. We could add rubber-stamp oversight: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/what-you-need-know-about-fisa-court-and-how-it-needs-change https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/what-you-need-know-abo... That court approves essentially all requests. Secret courts, secret laws, warrant-less searches. There's one set of rules for the people in charge, and another set of rules for the people being charged.
riprowan 10y ago
The only questions I have are: why is it taking so long for the legal system to catch up to where we were 15 years ago and how will we ever keep Constitutional protections ahead of accelerating technology?
- mark_edward 10y ago
  People make these technologies for the government, and many private firms do much of the work as contractors or by selling products as had been documented in many Snowden leaks. In addition i doubt any of the employees who do this are conscript. Simple venality and maybe a dash of patriotism suffices for us to always lose this game. Nobody has managed to roll back the arms merchants' profits and influence, hell some of our governments (US, Canada) are the biggest arms dealers around. I see no reason why we'd be able to hold back this monster (profiteering and control through complex and often secret surveillance) when we can't hold back profiteering and control through mind numbingly obvious stuff like bombers and guns. Hell Trudeau talks a game about lgbt people and human rights and turns around and sells arms to the KSA to help bomb Yemen into hell. The military industrial complex won, don't see why the surveillance industrial complex won't either.
pjc50 10y ago
"But there is no apparent fallout from this for CSIS yet. While the spy agency says it will stop analyzing the contentious data, there are no indications that it will destroy the data." It's not really illegal if there's no enforcement, is there?
- adekok 10y ago
  Ignorance of the law is no excuse. ... for me. Not for them, apparently. If the people enforcing the law aren't required to know or follow it, why am I required to?
  - DanBC 10y ago
    They're not claiming to be ignorant of the law. They're claiming they made every effort to obey the law; they thought they were obeying the law. It turns out they were wrong. Many crimes require both actus reus (guilty act) and mens rea (guilty mind).
    - adekok 10y ago
      Try telling that to a cop. "I honestly thought that the speed limit was 55. I didn't see any signs saying it was 35." The cop's answer? "Too bad. Ignorance of the law is no excuse".
    - ENGNR 10y ago
      So if I take a law, and secretly reinterpet it beyond reason, then do my best to prevent anyone from finding out my reinterpretation... then it's all good, no criminal charges for me
      - MichaelBurge 10y ago
        As long as you can convince the prosecutor or jury you're not guilty, you can shoot someone on the street in plain sight with video evidence and get off free or without charges. It's up to the prosecutor whether he'll be persuaded by your elaborate scheme. I'm sure he's heard worse.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
known 10y ago
Govt will always find a work around in the pretext of patriotism :)
hbt 10y ago
You'd have to be a fool to trust lawmakers or law enforcement with your data and privacy by this point. They will always find some loophole in the language. Illegal to collect but not illegal to access what has been collected by allies (aka the Five Eyes). Just encrypt everything, use VPNs and whatever you push in plain/text may as well be public. Trust open technologies you understand, not politicians.
- appleiigs 10y ago
  I'd extend it to: you'd be a fool to trust anyone with your data and privacy. At least law enforcement is working under the premise of the good of society (albeit, implemented poorly), compared to Google and Facebook which is working to monetize you.
  - skybrian 10y ago
    They are working to monetize you by (ideally) showing you ads for things you actually want to buy. Connecting willing buyers and sellers is generally considered good in a capitalist society. Of course we're all familiar with the ways consumers can gamed and all the ways adtech makes the Internet suck, but the argument about good intentions works at least as well as it does for law enforcement. (Maybe better because it's not about coercion.)
    - appleiigs 10y ago
      Yes, good point. Google and Facebook aren't going to throw me in jail.
      - colejohnson66 10y ago
        But they could cause your car insurance rates to go up (just not this time) http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/facebook-scuppers-algorithmic-car-insurance/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/facebook-scuppers...
    - AlexandrB 10y ago
sandworm101 10y ago
For any non-Canadians reading this, understand that Canadians have a very different relationship with CSIS than say Americans do with the NSA or Brits with GCHQ. We have not seen the bulk use of this data for purposes of general law enforcement. It isn't being used to nab drug dealers or child pornographers. CSIS is rather oldschool in it's approach: intel assets are for intel purposes, not law enforcement. At least that is what we have seen so far. The trust has yet to be broken as it has elsewhere.
- RRRA 10y ago
  Except they are on the same campus as CSEC and this happened (among other things): http://www.cbc.ca/news2/pdf/airports_redacted.pdf http://www.cbc.ca/news2/pdf/airports_redacted.pdf I'm pretty sure that CSEC dragnet-snooping on airports, including all Canadians, doesn't magically disappear from CSIS storage. Either way, the government is spying on its own citizens and trust is broken.
  - sandworm101 10y ago
    Nobody thinks they aren't doing the spying. Canadians just trust that the spying is limited to the expected terrorism/cold war espionage/boarder security stuff, that they aren't letting the RCMP trawl the data to discover who is talking to whom. As recent news tells us, the RCMP have to resort to their own means for that.
- CamperBob2 10y ago
  We have not seen the bulk use of this data for purposes of general law enforcement. It isn't being used to nab drug dealers or child pornographers. Yeah, they told us the same thing. Do some reading on a concept known as "parallel construction."
brahmwg 10y ago
Interesting timing for this post, given the lecture Snowden gave at McGill earlier this week. https://youtu.be/4x8ZI0IaInE https://youtu.be/4x8ZI0IaInE
- MidoAssran 10y ago
  Yeah it was a great talk! Thousands of students waited for hours on the McGill campus to attend Snowden's talk -it's an important issue that a lot of people care about.
fatdog 10y ago
The thing nobody really talks about is that the agency in question is a "domestic" security intelligence agency. It has no foreign intelligence mandate (unless that's changed recently.) Reporters call it "Canada's CIA," but it is mandated by the government in canada to spy only within the country. They are not a police force and cannot arrest their targets. Canada has a bunch of police intelligence agencies. It is hard to see what democratic function a domestic spy agency plays. Maybe there are good arguments for them.

387 points by based2 10y ago

Considering how hard it is to explain how Google Analytics works to the standard business owner, I imagine it wouldn't be hard to obscure all manners of data collection programs from oversight. In times like this, the importance of civics education is highlighted. The very idea that people in law enforcement think it's acceptable to treat judges and the legal system with such contempt is scary. Even if you disagree with a certain law or system, you still need to respect it as a public servant.

throwwit 10y ago
There's precedent in pushing the envelope in law enforcement since Sir Robert Peel (if you read up on it). It's not surprising an analogous methodology has been promulgated. Hopefully a more appropriate solution is worked out.

formula1 10y ago

So this seems to be more about the retention of data than it is about the collection. Where the retention of all data is not as important as a select few that pertain to national security. I'd love to play devils advocate here and claim that the agency requires all the information or court oversight of a spy agency is ludicrous. But I dont think any one branch should be judge jury and executionor. I wonder how much of this is symbolic? I know here in the US we are lucky to even hear about a segment of what happens. But I can certainly argue that many questionable deeds are done in the interest of the american citizens

adekok 10y ago
> I'd love to play devils advocate here and claim that ... court oversight of a spy agency is ludicrous. We could add rubber-stamp oversight: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/what-you-need-know-about-fisa-court-and-how-it-needs-change https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/08/what-you-need-know-abo... That court approves essentially all requests. Secret courts, secret laws, warrant-less searches. There's one set of rules for the people in charge, and another set of rules for the people being charged.

riprowan 10y ago

The only questions I have are: why is it taking so long for the legal system to catch up to where we were 15 years ago and how will we ever keep Constitutional protections ahead of accelerating technology?

mark_edward 10y ago
People make these technologies for the government, and many private firms do much of the work as contractors or by selling products as had been documented in many Snowden leaks. In addition i doubt any of the employees who do this are conscript. Simple venality and maybe a dash of patriotism suffices for us to always lose this game. Nobody has managed to roll back the arms merchants' profits and influence, hell some of our governments (US, Canada) are the biggest arms dealers around. I see no reason why we'd be able to hold back this monster (profiteering and control through complex and often secret surveillance) when we can't hold back profiteering and control through mind numbingly obvious stuff like bombers and guns. Hell Trudeau talks a game about lgbt people and human rights and turns around and sells arms to the KSA to help bomb Yemen into hell. The military industrial complex won, don't see why the surveillance industrial complex won't either.

pjc50 10y ago

"But there is no apparent fallout from this for CSIS yet. While the spy agency says it will stop analyzing the contentious data, there are no indications that it will destroy the data." It's not really illegal if there's no enforcement, is there?

adekok 10y ago
Ignorance of the law is no excuse. ... for me. Not for them, apparently. If the people enforcing the law aren't required to know or follow it, why am I required to?
- DanBC 10y ago
  They're not claiming to be ignorant of the law. They're claiming they made every effort to obey the law; they thought they were obeying the law. It turns out they were wrong. Many crimes require both actus reus (guilty act) and mens rea (guilty mind).
  - adekok 10y ago
    Try telling that to a cop. "I honestly thought that the speed limit was 55. I didn't see any signs saying it was 35." The cop's answer? "Too bad. Ignorance of the law is no excuse".
  - ENGNR 10y ago
    So if I take a law, and secretly reinterpet it beyond reason, then do my best to prevent anyone from finding out my reinterpretation... then it's all good, no criminal charges for me
    - MichaelBurge 10y ago
      As long as you can convince the prosecutor or jury you're not guilty, you can shoot someone on the street in plain sight with video evidence and get off free or without charges. It's up to the prosecutor whether he'll be persuaded by your elaborate scheme. I'm sure he's heard worse.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

known 10y ago

Govt will always find a work around in the pretext of patriotism :)

hbt 10y ago

You'd have to be a fool to trust lawmakers or law enforcement with your data and privacy by this point. They will always find some loophole in the language. Illegal to collect but not illegal to access what has been collected by allies (aka the Five Eyes). Just encrypt everything, use VPNs and whatever you push in plain/text may as well be public. Trust open technologies you understand, not politicians.

appleiigs 10y ago
I'd extend it to: you'd be a fool to trust anyone with your data and privacy. At least law enforcement is working under the premise of the good of society (albeit, implemented poorly), compared to Google and Facebook which is working to monetize you.
- skybrian 10y ago
  They are working to monetize you by (ideally) showing you ads for things you actually want to buy. Connecting willing buyers and sellers is generally considered good in a capitalist society. Of course we're all familiar with the ways consumers can gamed and all the ways adtech makes the Internet suck, but the argument about good intentions works at least as well as it does for law enforcement. (Maybe better because it's not about coercion.)
  - appleiigs 10y ago
    Yes, good point. Google and Facebook aren't going to throw me in jail.
    - colejohnson66 10y ago
      But they could cause your car insurance rates to go up (just not this time) http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/facebook-scuppers-algorithmic-car-insurance/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/11/facebook-scuppers...
  - AlexandrB 10y ago

sandworm101 10y ago

For any non-Canadians reading this, understand that Canadians have a very different relationship with CSIS than say Americans do with the NSA or Brits with GCHQ. We have not seen the bulk use of this data for purposes of general law enforcement. It isn't being used to nab drug dealers or child pornographers. CSIS is rather oldschool in it's approach: intel assets are for intel purposes, not law enforcement. At least that is what we have seen so far. The trust has yet to be broken as it has elsewhere.

RRRA 10y ago
Except they are on the same campus as CSEC and this happened (among other things): http://www.cbc.ca/news2/pdf/airports_redacted.pdf http://www.cbc.ca/news2/pdf/airports_redacted.pdf I'm pretty sure that CSEC dragnet-snooping on airports, including all Canadians, doesn't magically disappear from CSIS storage. Either way, the government is spying on its own citizens and trust is broken.
- sandworm101 10y ago
  Nobody thinks they aren't doing the spying. Canadians just trust that the spying is limited to the expected terrorism/cold war espionage/boarder security stuff, that they aren't letting the RCMP trawl the data to discover who is talking to whom. As recent news tells us, the RCMP have to resort to their own means for that.
CamperBob2 10y ago
We have not seen the bulk use of this data for purposes of general law enforcement. It isn't being used to nab drug dealers or child pornographers. Yeah, they told us the same thing. Do some reading on a concept known as "parallel construction."

brahmwg 10y ago

Interesting timing for this post, given the lecture Snowden gave at McGill earlier this week. https://youtu.be/4x8ZI0IaInE https://youtu.be/4x8ZI0IaInE

MidoAssran 10y ago
Yeah it was a great talk! Thousands of students waited for hours on the McGill campus to attend Snowden's talk -it's an important issue that a lot of people care about.

fatdog 10y ago

The thing nobody really talks about is that the agency in question is a "domestic" security intelligence agency. It has no foreign intelligence mandate (unless that's changed recently.) Reporters call it "Canada's CIA," but it is mandated by the government in canada to spy only within the country. They are not a police force and cannot arrest their targets. Canada has a bunch of police intelligence agencies. It is hard to see what democratic function a domestic spy agency plays. Maybe there are good arguments for them.