Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

michaelgeist.ca

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 374 posts

Re: Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

#191

Post by eucyclos »

throwawaysleep wrote: post #161
eucyclos wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Eh, if you see the reaction to Flock Safety, people object to that one as well.

Not familiar with that conversation, but is the concern that it will be used to raise ticket revenue from victimless crimes without doing much to prevent the other kind?

Re: Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

#192

Post by cwillu »

Nobody who needs to see this will see it, unfortunately, but as a (woefully incomplete) bar: if you're an american who wasn't aware of the “not withstanding clause”, and its use, in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, you have no business talking about this bill.

Re: Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

#194

Post by cwillu »

emkoemko wrote: post #63
TutleCpt wrote: post #34

[flagged]

"That the country's lack of a self-defense law.".... what on earth are you talking about

An excerpt from a story that takes place in the UK, which is illustrative to an american audience that frankly doesn't know much about how things work in the rest of the world.

“““

[…]

But this is the United Kingdom, and a muggee can't straight-up kill a mugger in self-defence and simply return home to unified rapturous applause. Very large, very serious questions have to be asked, questions to which "But he was trying to kill me!" doesn't qualify as an acceptable answer.

When her solicitor first explains this to her, Laura sits there in the chair unable to actually comprehend what he is telling her, incapable of even a bewildered "Huh?", let alone a full sentence of rebuttal.

They are found guilty, of course: the two-and-a-half people who were left after she'd finished with them. They go away, very quickly. But there is a serious chance that she has broken the law in turn, by having been a victim of attempted murder.

"No. That's not how it is. You've broken no law. That's something you're going to have to keep a firm grip on. It's just going to take a little time and effort and preparation and training to get to the point where a court of law is convinced. It's going to take some reasoning.

”””

--https://qntm.org/sufficiently

[replied to you only because the comments I want to reply to are dead, but still readable, and their nonsense needs response]

Re: Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

#195

Post by augment_me »

r2vcap wrote: post #142

It feels like many democratic leaders are starting to think the CCP model—mass surveillance of citizens—is the right direction, with growing demands for chat control, facial verification, age verification, and more. Fxxk any politician who thinks they are above the citizens in a democracy.

I believe that's it's sadly a necessity for control of the population when you have other superpowers employing this.

If you are Europe, and you have democratic elections, you have an informational power asymmetry towards the states that have mass surveillance and control. You are (as we saw last year with the Romanian election that was swung to 60% in 2 weeks over TikTok) susceptible towards influence of other superpowers. Even if you want to keep democratic elections, you need to somehow make sure that the citizens are voting in their interest. If the citizens at the same time are victims of the attention economy, their interest will be whatever foreign superpowers want it do be.

One well-tried solution is to engage and educate the population. However, this takes years, not weeks as the campaigns take, and takes immense resources as people will default to convenient attention economy tools.

Other option is to ban platforms/create country-wide firewalls. It's a lot harder in democratic societies, you ban one app and a new one takes it's place. Cat is kind of out of the bag on this one.

Last and easiest option is mass surveillance. Figure out who is getting influenced by what, and start policing on what opinions those people are allowed to have and what measures to take to them. Its a massive slippery slope, but I can clearly see that it's the easiest and most cost-effective way to solve this information-assymetry

Re: Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

#196

Post by cwillu »

dang wrote: post #10
newsclues wrote: post #9

https://www.michaelgeist.ca/2026/03/a-tale-of-two-bills-lawf...

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.

I'm somewhat concerned with the level of discourse in these comments; there's frankly a _lot_ of, well, ignorant americans talking about the civics of a country they clearly know nothing about. Would there be any chance of having a short note in the top text to the effect of “please keep in mind when you comment that you're discussing a foreign country that, in spite of the cultural similarity, does not work the same way as the US does.”?

Perhaps it's too late for this particular submission, but something to keep in mind in the future.

Re: Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

#197

Post by b112 »

sunir wrote: post #120
emptybits wrote: post #27

Regarding warrantless searches and access ... reading the text of the bill (OP link) warrants seem to be required. Simple, right? Well, no, this is a recently inserted block of text in the bill (confirm at the link above): Exception (2. 7)(b) However, a copy of the warrant is not required to be given to a person under subsection (2. 6) if the judge or justice who issues the warrant sets aside the requirement in respe…

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.

I don't even understand the concern here. Perhaps the parent thought this meant "a warrant is not required", which is absolutely untrue. Instead, the judge still creates the warrant, and any trial/arrest/action must have a warrant.

(Finding out what ISP a user belongs to, isn't really that private. If you look at the US comparatively, Homeland has a list of every single credit card transaction ever. The US doesn't need to ask an ISP if someone is a customer. What this does is simply confirm, and then the judge can create a warrant specific for that ISP.)

Such as compelling the ISP, or what not, to take action. The ISP is not the subject here. And obviously hiding the warrant from the ISP makes zero sense, as they're going to know who the person is anyhow.

This is stuff that goes back to phone taps. Nothing new here.

Re: Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

#198

Post by jeroenhd »

rdevilla wrote: post #103

I don't actually see a problem with this bill. Law enforcement should have access to as many tools as possible to improve their solve rates. In Canada, the police can walk you to the shipping containers confirmed to contain your stolen vehicle, but do not "have the authority to open the containers." [0] I am all for expanding the authority of law enforcement if it means justice is served and people get their (for exa…

I can only imagine the delays and damage that police officers opening random shipping containers without a warrant would if it became normalised. Saying "it's definitely one of those" is a rather big claim for someone who hasn't experienced the extreme unreliability of GPS and other radio systems on container yards. I feel bad for the yard personnel needing to re-sealing (and convince the shipping container owner that the seal was broken for a good reason) every single container in that GPS dead zone because there's an air tag beeping somewhere.

The story ends with the police indicating that they do actually have the power to retrieve the car, the officers just didn't want to use their powers in that case.

Nothing in your anecdote would go any differently with these new powers. The police officers refusing to take timely action would still refuse to take action, but now they also know the kind of porn you like. Good for them, I suppose?

I can make sweeping generalizations and baseless accusations too. Everyone in support of this bill is a filthy pervert with a voyeuristic relationship with their government, wishing to push their weirdness onto the rest of the population.

Re: Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

#199

Post by b112 »

verisimi wrote: post #186
emptybits wrote: post #27

Regarding warrantless searches and access ... reading the text of the bill (OP link) warrants seem to be required. Simple, right? Well, no, this is a recently inserted block of text in the bill (confirm at the link above): Exception (2. 7)(b) However, a copy of the warrant is not required to be given to a person under subsection (2. 6) if the judge or justice who issues the warrant sets aside the requirement in respe…

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 leg…

There is no warrantless access to data here though. None. It's merely showing the warrant to the person being 'searched'. As mentioned elsewhere, the same has been true for decades with someone's phone being tapped.

The ISP can see the warrant. The judge creates a warrant. The court sees the warrant.

Re: Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act: Dangerous backdoor surveillance risks remain

#200

Post by shevy-java »

Here you think Canada would be opposing the USA - then suddenly you realise how suspiciously the laws are all the same. This here is not the age verification sniffer, of course, but it falls into a very similar problem domain. Governments increasingly have an addiction to sniff after everyone, without a reasonable suspicion. Everyone is now suspicious to a government. And private companies profit.
Post reply on HN