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Dear Jennifer Stoddard: Quit Screwing Around

Jennifer Stoddard, Canada’s “Privacy Commissioner” (charged with protecting the public’s privacy) is apparently doing a “heck’uva job,” having identified Google Street View as potentially impinging on Canadian’s privacy, while in the meantime Industry Canada has convened a secret panel to overturn internet wiretapping laws:

“It is extremely disappointing to see that the departments continue to believe that ISPs should be required to hand over potentially sensitive personal information without a court order or other judicial oversight.”

“Public Safety Canada and Industry Canada have quietly launched a semi-public consultation on one element of lawful access. The new consultation, which concludes on September 25th, asks for comments on the provision of customer name and address information by telecommunications companies to law enforcement. The consultation has not been posted on the Internet and I was asked not to post it online.”

[from Michael Geist]

So - here’s an open, short letter to Jennifer Stoddard:

Dear Jennifer Stoddard,

Please do your job. Canada has an obligation to our citizens and history to provide for a future free from authoritarianism, persecution, and fear. Your office was in part tasked with protecting this future - acknowledging that “privacy” comes from the willing participation of the public body, private industry, and government.

Standing by while government departments willfully erode Canadian’s privacy without citizen or judicial oversight is not permissible. This was not what I voted for; this was not what anyone voted for.

Please do your job.

Regards,
–Rod

Well, super. Let’s see how quickly Jennifer Stoddard finds this article in either Technorati or Google Blogsearch, because I’m sure that as a good public servant, she has persistent searches set up in both to let her know when the Canadian blogosphere starts buzzing about an issue she’s supposed to be managing.

Oh wait. Government. Canada. Might as well have scrawled this on a notepad, crumpled it up, and thrown it in the trash. A bloody waste of time.

canada, jennifer stoddard, privacy wiretapping

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