Updates from February, 2012 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 14:43 on 2012/02/12 Permalink | Reply  

  A new Canadian law will oblige internet service providers to install equipment allowing police to patrol anyone’s internet usage, without the need for a warrant.

  Torture, citizen surveillance, the criminalization of dissent – I guess we needed to shake off that lame international reputation of being the good guys. I’ll be fascinated to see how low Canada falls.

  (Tweet I saw today: “The long-form census: a gross abuse of privacy. Requiring ISPs to monitor and record your Internet activity: no problem.”)

  Kate, Jack, Tux, and 4 others are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • Hamza 20:34 on 2012/02/12 Permalink

    the honest truth is i’ve never been closer to being a separatist than i have been now.

  • Matt 21:26 on 2012/02/12 Permalink

    @Hamza ditto.

  • Shawn 22:10 on 2012/02/12 Permalink

    Be interesting to see what the Liberals and NDP can do to capitalize on this. The libertarian part of the Conservative base is going to be pissed, too. Hard to reconcile the census-nonsense and the destruction of the gun registry files in the name of personal privacy, with this.

  • James 07:33 on 2012/02/13 Permalink

    @Hamza already switched here.

  • Tux 09:59 on 2012/02/13 Permalink

    In the United States, a lot of people in the government who supported SOPA actually had no idea what they were signing. I think it’s probably the same here. The citizen outcry should educate them.

    Aside from opposing draconian internet laws we should also support people trying to come up with a citizen-run communications infrastructure. The Open Mesh Project seems like a pretty good candidate! The internet’s open-ended structure makes it hard to control, but governments and corporations are the ultimate gatekeepers. We need something they can’t shut down, monitor, or censor. Personally I think unrestricted networking is essential to the future of the human race.

  • Jack 11:52 on 2012/02/13 Permalink

    Hamza one more Tory majority and I am with you, only hesitation living through 80-95 when the worst of what nationalism is was on full display, by both sides!. Anti-SOPA strategy was brilliant, even corporate newscorps had to report it.

  • Kate 14:42 on 2012/02/14 Permalink

    Justin Trudeau seems to be in agreement with some of us.

  Reply Cancel reply

  Required fields are marked *

  Name *

  Email *

  Website

  

• 14:15 on 2012/02/12 Permalink | Reply  

  Good piece by Nathalie Collard about the value of investigative journalism in a free society. I made a summary of earlier news about the proposed investigation of the Ian Davidson leak Saturday on OpenFile.

  Robert H, Kate, and Susana Machado are discussing. Toggle Comments

   

  • Susana Machado 14:52 on 2012/02/12 Permalink

    Indeed. And it is not like actual journalism is still really current these days…

  • Kate 14:58 on 2012/02/12 Permalink

    I disagree. Collard gives some good examples – the sponsorship scandal, the water meters scandal, the unearthing of all the corruption in the construction industry, all brought to the public eye by determined journalistic work. As she says, these things changed our political landscape.

    This blog depends on the primary work of career journalists. But I’m small beer compared to a juggernaut like the Huffington Post, which has made bazillions basically “curating” news actually ferreted out by journalists and researchers they don’t have to pay. So far from not being current, frontline journalists are not only keeping the public informed, they’re also generating material that sustains an awful lot of lives.

  • Robert H 22:16 on 2012/02/12 Permalink

    «Dans notre société, le journaliste représente le citoyen.»

    And in Quebec, they do it better than the elected officials. Nathalie Collard’s brief but substantive essay should be required reading for the province’s elite managerial polititians, Robert Dutil and Jean Charest foremost among them.

    «Au Québec, écrivait en 2010 le journaliste de l’AFP Michel Viatteau, le journalisme d’investigation est extrêmement combatif dans un pays où le refus de faire des vagues semble un trait marquant du caractère national.»

    This applies even more to your previous post about the Harper Regime’s disconcerting proposal on internet surveillance. It’s not only Quebec that benefits from investgative journalism and concerned citizens groups such as openmedia.ca. Let’s everybody make waves.

• 13:49 on 2012/02/12 Permalink | Reply  

  The last nine students still occupying the 6th floor of the James building were turfed out on Sunday morning after the university administration called in police.

   

• 11:24 on 2012/02/12 Permalink | Reply  

  A woman was stabbed to death in the city’s third homicide of the year Saturday night, and a man is in custody.