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Yes. Unfortunately over the last several years the national post has shown its right wing bias to an increasing extent. It's not usually as obvious about it as

Yes. Unfortunately over the last several years the national post has shown its right wing bias to an increasing extent. It's not usually as obvious about it as a Fox News, but the intent of pieces like this is clear.

hungryforcodes 5y ago
Wait, the GP is claiming expanded new surveillance behaviors should be normalized. This is like Fox news.
- arcticbull 5y ago
  It seems like GP is claiming that this is not new, and also does not represent meaningfully expanded surveillance.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  Yeah. Why is trusting government supposed to be the default? Any organization with power should be continually distrusted, required to constantly and endlessly prove itself. In a democratic situation, the price of power is the responsibility to prove yourself trustworthy and competent enough to hold it. The whole point is that power is granted contingent to the will of a people for the good of the people. You should never trust government. If your democracy is working, you can sometimes trust that government actions were good and competent after the fact. Trusting up front is abdication of your responsibility to guard against abuses as a citizen. Every tiny step towards surveillance and acquisition of data that can be abused should be resisted and assumed to be motivated by the worst possible incentive. It's up to the agency or bureau to prove, up front, to the satisfaction of representatives and citizenry that a tool or power is necessary. "But it's not illegal" is a weasel move, and heads should roll.
  - Retric 5y ago
    If your government is untrustworthy the correct action is to replace the government not simply accept this as normal.
    - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
      I'd like to know how we can vote out the NSA.
      - ls15 5y ago
        Same. Also, I am not a US citizen that is not living in the USA. How can I affect US policy that is affecting me?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - caenorst 5y ago
    Despite downvotes this comment is very true. A modern constitution (the foundation of a country) is all about citizen rights to counter power, if you think government should just be trusted without actions to require more safeguard and transparency then you are pretty much waving your rights, and you probably don't deserve them.
- tremon 5y ago
  How did you come to that conclusion? The GP only states that the public health agency used already-available information, I don't see where they express any opinion on whether the availability of that data is a good thing or not.
arcticbull 5y ago
It's a fair criticism that substantially all of Canada's non-CBC media is owned by fairly right-leaning American entities (at least, right-leaning by Canadian standards). I'm not sure this is something that even most Canadians are aware of. National Post is owned by Postmedia, which is in turn 66% owned by American media conglomerate Chatham Asset Management. I'm not claiming that has anything to do with this specific article - I don't know enough to - just hoping to provide some color around parents comment. With that in mind, I think this is a completely reasonable use of anonymized data by PHAC and the article does feel heavily sensationalized. I assume all the major insurers in the US are doing this - and far worse - but being private entities we have zero insight into it whatsoever. I would much rather PHAC have this data than a federated Kaiser-type entity that has my financial and physical health by the short-and-curlies so to speak. There's a lot of interesting things for HN to talk about, but for the general public this should be a non-story.

hungryforcodes 5y ago

Wait, the GP is claiming expanded new surveillance behaviors should be normalized. This is like Fox news.

arcticbull 5y ago
It seems like GP is claiming that this is not new, and also does not represent meaningfully expanded surveillance.
robbedpeter 5y ago
Yeah. Why is trusting government supposed to be the default? Any organization with power should be continually distrusted, required to constantly and endlessly prove itself. In a democratic situation, the price of power is the responsibility to prove yourself trustworthy and competent enough to hold it. The whole point is that power is granted contingent to the will of a people for the good of the people. You should never trust government. If your democracy is working, you can sometimes trust that government actions were good and competent after the fact. Trusting up front is abdication of your responsibility to guard against abuses as a citizen. Every tiny step towards surveillance and acquisition of data that can be abused should be resisted and assumed to be motivated by the worst possible incentive. It's up to the agency or bureau to prove, up front, to the satisfaction of representatives and citizenry that a tool or power is necessary. "But it's not illegal" is a weasel move, and heads should roll.
- Retric 5y ago
  If your government is untrustworthy the correct action is to replace the government not simply accept this as normal.
  - inkblotuniverse 5y ago
    I'd like to know how we can vote out the NSA.
    - ls15 5y ago
      Same. Also, I am not a US citizen that is not living in the USA. How can I affect US policy that is affecting me?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- caenorst 5y ago
  Despite downvotes this comment is very true. A modern constitution (the foundation of a country) is all about citizen rights to counter power, if you think government should just be trusted without actions to require more safeguard and transparency then you are pretty much waving your rights, and you probably don't deserve them.
tremon 5y ago
How did you come to that conclusion? The GP only states that the public health agency used already-available information, I don't see where they express any opinion on whether the availability of that data is a good thing or not.

arcticbull 5y ago

It's a fair criticism that substantially all of Canada's non-CBC media is owned by fairly right-leaning American entities (at least, right-leaning by Canadian standards). I'm not sure this is something that even most Canadians are aware of. National Post is owned by Postmedia, which is in turn 66% owned by American media conglomerate Chatham Asset Management. I'm not claiming that has anything to do with this specific article - I don't know enough to - just hoping to provide some color around parents comment. With that in mind, I think this is a completely reasonable use of anonymized data by PHAC and the article does feel heavily sensationalized. I assume all the major insurers in the US are doing this - and far worse - but being private entities we have zero insight into it whatsoever. I would much rather PHAC have this data than a federated Kaiser-type entity that has my financial and physical health by the short-and-curlies so to speak. There's a lot of interesting things for HN to talk about, but for the general public this should be a non-story.