Canada is about to suffer the indignity of private conversations being recorded for police and security use, Tim Lash writes. He appeals for international help to stop the spread of citizen surveillance by the state...but it's too late for Australia.

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Govt to bring in phone spying

The Canadian government is on track to set a bad precedent in an omnibus crime bill, Tim Lash writes from Toronto.

Within 100 days, he says, the national government will mandate state invasion of internet and cell phone privacy without a warrant, requiring telecoms to keep records accessible to the government, ignoring privacy recommendations.

"Now, the state cannot open our letters and read them unless a court approves that there is a valid reason. But letters are giving way to emails, so emails deserve the same privacy. The proposed legislation ditches it. It's against the unanimous advice of Canada's federal, provincial and territorial Privacy Commissioners. It hasn't been discussed in Parliament. With the 2 May 2011 election returning a Conservative majority in the House of Commons, debate in Committees and in the House may be just a useless formality.

"There are plenty of reasons why this is bad for Canadians of all political persuasions. It may even infringe Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"To put things in context, like Australia, in Canada's Westminster-style Parliamentary system we do not have many legal constitutional checks and balances on the executive powers of the Prime Minister – not like republican constitutions provide for their citizens among executive, legislative, and judicial arms of government. We depend on the Prime Minister respecting long-standing and workable conventions of accountability and responsibility to Parliament as the elected representatives of Canadians," he said.

"Mr Harper's government has been flouting these conventions, consistently weakening the structures of independent advice and access to information that make them work, and tightly controlling what his Cabinet and the public civil service departments say.

"The Prime Minister's government was dismissed by Parliament for illegally withholding information from it – for contempt of Parliament's decisions. Despite this, thanks to Canada's 'first past the post' electoral system and supremely well-targeted campaigning, 40% of Canadian voters on 2 May elected enough Conservative Party MPs to give them a comfortable ruling majority in the House of Commons.

"Canada is in a slow constitutional crisis. Please talk with your Canadian and other international counterparts on this. Internet privacy is a global issue, so please don't be shy about speaking to people and authorities in other nations.

"There'a reason for international concern: a Canadian precedent for surveillance of private citizens without a warrant will create a difficulty for champions of privacy and liberty elsewhere in the world," said Tim Lash,of the voices-voix coalition. http://voices-voix.ca/en/node/272

Editor's note: Too late for Australia, unfortunately. Phone/data authorities already record all transmissions to be available to police or security services, under anti-terrorism and organised crime legislation.