I've ranted about this many times before, but it appears that the newly-elected Conservative government will include the so-called "lawful access" provisions in the omnibus crime bill they plan to shepherd quickly through parliament.
I couldn't agree more with Michael Geist (see below) that doing so is extremely problematic. The proposed provisions would give police and national security agents vastly expanded access to information about customers of telecommunications companies and internet service providers (that's everyone in Canada) even in the absence of any sort of investigation. This needs serious debate and should not be tucked into and camouflaged by other legislative initiatives.
Check out Michael's most recent op-ed on this topic: Tories aim to heighten web-surveillance powers.
