Anonymous video threatens Canada's domestic spying minister with embarrassing disclosures

In this YouTube video, someone in Anonymous garb has threatens a massive, embarrassing document dump for Vic Toews, the Canadian MP and Public Safety Minister whose domestic spying bill will require ISPs to log information on Canadians' Internet use and to turn that to police and appointed inspectors over without a warrant (and which immunizes ISPs from liability should they voluntarily turn over even more information, like the contents of email). The Anon demands that Toews retract his legislation.

Toews is a "family values" candidate who has consistently stood on a ticket that opposed gay marriage and espoused other supposedly conservative ideals, and he was publicly embarrassed when an anonymous Twitter user going by @Vikileaks30 tweeted choice quotes from the affidavits in Toews's messy divorce (which was precipitated by an affair with a much younger woman, whom Toews impregnated, and led to what his ex-wife described as an abandonment of his previous family). If there were further embarrassments of this nature in Toews's closet, it might alienate the voters who elected him on the basis of his "sanctity of the family" platform.

"All this legislation does is give your corrupted government more power to control its citizens," a synthesized voice says in one of the videos still posted to the site Monday.

"We know all about you, Mr. Toews, and during Operation White North we will release what we have unless you scrap this bill," it states.

The RCMP has been called in to investigate apparent death threats against Toews as controversy swirls around the legislation. Police said Monday they haven't yet decided whether a full investigation will be launched.

Hacker group Anonymous threatens Vic Toews

• [TooGoodToCheck]

  kinda conflicted.  I’m all for reminding people of the importance of privacy, but this seems to have cross into unambiguous blackmail, which generally isn’t cool.

  I feel like it would actually be less shady if they just dumped whatever info they found on Toews, rather than doing this blackmail thing.

  Also, it occurs to me that, since they haven’t released any actual information, and since Anonymous has no formal membership or official press releases or anything, this could be some random dude in a mask, just trying to shake Toews up.  The video is currently down, but based on the description, it sounds like this could just as easily be a bluff.

  • [a_w_young]

    Something about it didn’t seem legitimate, but who knows.

    I am all for civil disobedience by people if it’s done effectively though after all other options are exhausted especially. Thankfully we’re starting to see a shift in what is really a virtual dictatorship in Canada. Harper and his CPC clowns need to be stopped.

  • [eh1eh]

     When people speak in public it is never a bluff. Seems you are too compliant and sheep like to understand the need to protect what freedom is available to the common man. Once lost it is not easily restored.
    Do you stand with the two faces hypocrite Toews or are you free?

    • [Joshua Barney]

      Do you neglect to use hyphens, or would you rather sacrifice THE VERY FREEDOM TO FORMULATE FALSE DICHOTOMIES?

      I leave it up to you. It’s an issue of conscience. I trust you will make the right decision.

  • [s2redux]

    this could just as easily be a bluff.

    I was thinking that, too… Surely at some point we’ve all discovered that shutting down the self-important partier who just won’t quit criticizing everybody else in the room can take nothing more than pulling her/him aside and whispering, “Have a care what you say, because I know your secret….” Works a treat in most cases, even if you’ve never met the fool before ;-)

  • [goopy]

    Agree, it’s manipulative; just dump it on internet already.

  • [machinestate]

    lets also rememebr anon’s attack on Harpaer more than likely includes multiple, decentralized agencies , acting on their own under the label “anno”, possibly sharing info, but acting on theit own interests, or what they deem to be “the peoples’ interests”.

• [Thelaughingman Fucu]

  Stephen Harper, John Baird, Rob Nicholson and Vic Toews should be tarred and feathered, then banished from Canada!

  • [IronEdithKidd]

    Better send them further north because we don’t need any more “conservative” asshats down here in the States.

• [gerardwhelan]

  I was just about to comment and then realized Anonymous is Big Brother now. Sort of.

  • [MB44]

    Or Little Brother?

  • [Patrick Kanne]

    Yes? Because he’s always watching what you’re doing? Because he decides what can be said and what can’t? Because he picks you off the street for having thoughts?

    Really, big brother seems like the new Hitler or something. People should READ Orwell’s  1984 before saying these silly things. The only thing Orwellian in this whole circus is how the lobbyists and legislators behave.  Making us pay a fine for each casette/dvd/cd “just in case it’s used for recording copyrighted material” or threatening to cut you off from the internet (essentially from the whole world) out of some perceived injustice, without having to go to court..

    If anything, Anonymous is more akin to the resistance AGAINST big brother simply by calling out those hypocrites on their bullshit. 
    Anyone conservative professing about the sanctity of marriage should be IMMEDIATELY fired and shunned by the public after being in an affair. They are obviously lying sacks of shit and should never again be trusted.

    It’s just as insane as giving a rule set in stone “thou shalt not kill” and subsequently order the genocide of several tribes.

    Wake. The. Fuck. Up.

    And sorry I take it out on you, geraderwhelan,  but I’ve seen the term “big brother”  used a bit too often by people who obviously haven’t read the book..

    • [liquidstar]

       George Orwell’s work 1984 is probably off the high school curriculum now.  Can you blame him?  Besides he does have something of a point.  Anonymous does take a lot onto itself;  even if it is hard to take seriously.  Witness the recent DoS on Christopher Hedges.

      • [Patrick Kanne]

        Of course I can blame him.. I just did! ;D

        Partially true. But it would be nice if some terms stay reserved for those who REALLY deserve it. Don’t forget: Big Brother is North Korea. Anonymus is no where near. Plus, it is not a single homogenous group. They don’t take direction. That is their strength but at the same time their weakness.. I think you should see them as the offspring of Democracy mating with Anarchy

        and lastly.. I like how they make my life feel like I’m in some kind of surreal movie, so shut up! ;)

        • [gerardwhelan]

          yeesh. it was meant as a provocation… sure, at this point they are ‘hacktivists’ (if there IS a ‘they’, who’s to say there’s ANY coordinated theory/philosophy that they stand by? seems logical today, but in five years?)… the point I was making is that IF they ultimately hold the reins of technological control (as Toews would agree this morning) then they have A power over the rest of us – they might even be tracking my personal and boring life as a result of making a comment. that was the point.
          also, I did read 1984.
          also, things change over time, and the old concept of Big Brother  (written in 1949) will also change from ‘North Korea’ (which is still in 1949 from the photos I’ve seen) to bots acquiring data on you and me, for a start… and then… we’ll see. You can’t decide for all of us to not adapt the usage of a term to the modern era, sorry.
          anyway, take it easy. deep breaths, less knee-jerk reactions to phraseology, open the mind. it’s only a comment section, and one guy even thought I had touched on something, so…

• [Zhasu]

  Toews is definitely a piece of shit as a person and as a minister. Despite all that the death threats are not an acceptable means of achieving political goals. Beat them at their own game: if they claim they are doing something in the interest of family values, then show they don’t care about family values; if they are doing something to jeopardize our privacy then expose their dirty laundry; etc. Give them the taste of their own medicine, but don’t make any threats on life. Be above that.

  • [Dan Allard]

    I suspect that ‘death threats’ is a deliberate exaggeration from Toews’ camp or at best a misinterpretation.

  • [liquidstar]

     I find the whole “if it bleeds it leads” kind of thing Vik is trying to do here kind of funny for a hardline conservative.  Surely politicians at his level receive death threats every day.  But now we need to take some seriously. A very specific few.

• [Alex Megelas]

  hey Cory – Toews isn’t a candidate for anything at the moment nor was he personally elected. He is the Canadian Minister of Public Safety and is a member of Harper’s Conservative Party. Canada is not in elections mode at the moment.

  • [AVR]

    I suspect Cory knows that Toews was, in fact, personally elected, being the MP for the riding of Provencher, Manitoba in addition to a cabinet minister. You also appear to be Canadian, though, so why don’t you know how our electoral system works?

  • [elix]

    Can you explain how Harper appoints cabinet ministers if not from the members of his party sitting in parliament? I obviously got the wrong Social Studies textbooks in high school, it seems…

• [Kit Rothschild]

  dear anonymous- please help us, the citizens of canada, depose harper.  don’t you have some dirt on him?  come on… he’s got to have some skeletons in his closet that would tear the rug out from his all too comfortable conservative feet…  

  • [davidasposted]

    Not as difficult as you might think, Kit. The Canadian Press do not often publish the details of politicians’ private lives until they explode (e.g. the Maxime Bernier biker-girlfriend-has-access-to-secret-NATO-documents scandal). But that does not mean they are unaware of the private scandals of Canadian politicians, including the prime minister himself.

  • [liquidstar]

     Well there is the whole Northern Foundation thing.  But I haven’t been able to effectively verify the story as yet.

• [Bangorian]

  If nothing else, these Anonymous guys are seriously ballsey.

• [Christopher Lee]

  A conservative, anti-gay-rights politician? What scandal could he possibly ****COUGH****TROLLINGFORTWINKSINABUSSTOPRESTROOM****COUGH**** be involved in?

  • [goopy]

    Looking for sex in public washroom? 

• [Mordicai]

  No threats, just dump.

• [Ted Brennan]

  Do something policy-wise or else we destroy you is basic blackmail. If this were being done by a conservative organization against a liberal politician there would be nothing but a great outcry over this. 

  I dislike Toews and the policies of the Harper government on many issues, but blackmail is a crime, and those who engage in blackmail are criminals. These sort of acts are as bad as what they are fighting against. You should be disgusted by Toews, but if one is not disgusted by blackmail you have serious moral issues.

  • [James]

    Speaking of blackmail.

    “He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers,” – Some dude.

    Funny how quickly these things come full circle.

  • [Patrick Kanne]

    though I agree with you for the most part, we, as a public, have been trying to address the hypocrisy and downright criminal behavior of our politician for ages now. To no avail. 
    They say the most outlandish shit, and get away with it. They go completely against what they themselves hold up as strict moral values, and they get away with it. And on the rare occasion one IS called on his bullshit, they get away with a golden handshake…

    Worst of all, with the current information age it’s not like they can hide it anymore, yet they still seem to think they can. And act accordingly. Which isn’t only vile, it’s also incredibly insulting to OUR intelligence.

    I think we’re now at a point in history where we, as public, should say: ENOUGH. Get your act straight or we’re going to fuck you over twice as hard as you obviously tried to fuck us.If we COULD solve it any other way, this behavior would have been gone ages ago.  But we can’t beat them at their own game, so we need to change the rules.Not pretty, not something to be really proud of, not even something I would like to teach my kids, but oh so necessary.

  • [foobar]

    Those who want everyone else to live in glass houses should probably buy some windex.

  • [teapot]

    By this stage the powers that be have worn me down to an almost-silent ‘meh’ when it comes to worrying about them being blackmailed. I just don’t care. They fuck with our freedoms and then, when they retire, they will laugh their fat asses all the way to the bank as they cash in their lifetime pension, courtesy of the taxpayer. They have desensitised me to callous disregard for self-interested people through their actions over the last decade.

    • [Greekster]

      A few changes of your words here and you could easily sound like a conservative who is angry over the support of Planned Parenthood. Indeed many conservative who think abortion is murder feel the same sentiment of  ”there’s nothing left to do…” as you do.  

      Though it hasn’t really happened yet (that I know of), there’s nothing stopping a conservative version of anonymous from forming and hacking progressive institutions. Were that to happen, would it be covered in the same way or reacted to similarly on a blog like this one? I wonder.

      I think this vid was a fake, but while anonymous may have attacked institutions that I think have abused power, their tactics, if proven effective enough and succeed often enough, will likely be copied by those whom you may not like or agree with. 

      Illegal and dirty is still illegal and dirty. 

      Be careful what you wish for…

• [SCAQTony]

  I believe the derivation of the word hypocrite is “Actor” or one who pretends to be what they are not! - Accurate brand for this guy, don’t you think?

  Either governments have become so afraid of losing their regimes or perhaps more likely they are using the 3,o51 Twin Towers deaths on 9/11 to gain more control and solidify their power. 

  I say that because in the US no politician seems to be jumping up and down frothing at the mouth trying to make cars safer after we lost 38,000 people alone to car accidents.

• [irksome]

  Nice try but Newt Gingrich’s track record has permanently solidified his place as spokesman for the Sanctity of Marriage™.

  • [Efemmeral]

    Perfect.

• [AVR]

  I’m torn, because I don’t like Anonymous or their obnoxiousness for the most part, but Toews is an asshole. He did bring it on himself, to be fair.

• [Jacob Ewing]

  I have not yet had the opportunity to watch the video, so I may be misunderstanding the nature of it.  Going by the description though, this sounds like something that would have an effect very much the opposite of what is desired.  I imagine that if someone in a public position is publicly threatened with personal embarrassment upon continuing their course of action, they would be inclined to buckle down and redouble their efforts.  Playing the “bring it on” tough guy would have better political face than bowing to the demands of a group that already has poor repute among many.

• [Hakuin]

  or perhaps Harper is a ruthless, calculating user and manipulator.  Perhaps an ambulatory boil like Toews is expendable and already near the end of his political usefulness.   Perhaps there are smokescreens within smokescreens and the real conspiracy lays in the frenetic gathering of names and preparation of secret kangaroo courts that is quietly and furiously going  on in the background.   What would  serve Harper and his corporate owners?  You can be quite sure that they are content to let Canadians play with their toy “democracy” and distract themselves from the larger, profitable matters.  After all, a nation of children that happily slept while their very nation was thieved out from under them is hardly a threat now, is it?

  • [Patrick Kanne]

    You mean as in how “the laughing man” was hijacked by the police officials in “Ghost In The Shell: stand alone complex”?

    :D

• [teapot]

  Watching Toews squirm will be even more enjoyable now. I like the Anon vids but I think this one would have had even more impact without the Hollywood-style dramatic soundtrack. The words speak for themselves and the voice alone would have been more terrifying.

• [That_Anonymous_Coward]

  Toews is pushing a bill that would allow exactly what is happening to him to happen.
  The difference is they (Government or appointees) would gather the information quietly and use it to bend people to their will or destroy those they see as threats to themselves.

  I fully believe these Anons have something, but it might not be as earth shattering as one might hope.  They are engaging this fool in a game of chicken.  Toews is undoubtedly wracking his brain trying to remember EVERYTHING he ever did wrong, and given how he presents his image (and what we have seen about people like that historically) its a long freaking list.

  The press really can not ignore what is happening, Anonymous has thrown down the gauntlet and trying to pretend its not happening will not work.  The press will have to cover the threat and answer the question of why would Anonymous do this… oh it might have something to do with that bill that lets us get copies of all your emails.  The genie is out of the bottle, even if they do a half assed bit of coverage, people will Google Anonymous and Toews and find stories like this.

  The sad part is Toews will be trying to decide how to discredit Anonymous, a group already pilloried as the evil vile scum of the interwebs.  Sure they might have shut down actual CP trade, sure they might have encouraged people world wide to stand up for whats right, sure they might have sent strippers and pizzas to some dude who was stupid online… but Mr. Toews… they have a better public perception than you have.

  Your stupid to pursue this bill any further, and you might get someone else to lead the charge… but unless they never had an email account they will fall as well.  Withdraw the bill and pray Anonymous keeps it word…
  Because it would be lulzy to have your secrets released anyways and watch you flailing trying to explain away what they have… and what others will find once they start looking.

  Anonymous did you a favor, they showed you exactly what this bill would let happen.  They just didn’t let you keep yourself immune to it, makes you feel safer doesn’t it?

  • [Patrick Kanne]

    Also, what people fail to notice.. Anon isn’t one person. It isn’t even one single homogeneous group. From where I’m standing I see only three base principals:

    - they are fed up with their intelligence being insulted
    - they clearly have the means to push back
    - they use the Anon proxy both to give it credence and get credence from it

    A bit like how al quaida is said to be organised, but then with information in stead of explosives, a truly mythical figure-head and even more relentless..

• [teapot]

  Hahaha – unrelated, but anon just announced that they’ve taken down http://ministryofjustice.gr/

  I wonder if IT is on the chopping block of austerity?

• [Peter]

  I kinda wish a major ISP would have said, “We certainly will comply with any law passed.  In fact, in advance of this proposed law, we have already started saving and recording all IP traffic coming from MPs who support this bill, and are, as of this moment, willing to release it, without a warrant, the moment any law enforcement officer anywhere requests it for any reason.  We will continue this policy as long as this bill is looking likely to pass.”

• [machinestate]

  In responsoe to video:
  Sorry, but “prying the internet from your cold dead hands” isn’t a factor.  Unless they take up older technologies en masse (e.g. BBS, radio & SSTV) “anonymous” ceases to exist without a C&C structure, and without public internet.  If “the opperssors” want to destroy “anon”, it’s a mere matter ofunplugging a few-hundred server cables for a year or so.

  • [That_Anonymous_Coward]

    Yes because to cut off the entire internet would not annoy anyone but Anons.
    There would not be public outcry and swelling numbers of people who would end up behaving exactly like Anons….
    Not like anyone with Anon type sympathies has ever considered building self contained mesh networks to use in repressive countries… oh wait… they have.

    The genie… well out of the bottle…  to attempt to cram it back in not going to work…

  • [Patrick Kanne]

    What a great plan! Lets completely bring society as we know it to a standstill to root out a few undesirable elements. Brilliant!!!

    What was that? These elements are exactly the type of persons to recreate the internet from scratch if they need to? Ah, but then we’ll just track down every wifi signal and nuke those from orbit! It’s the only way to be sure!

    What are you? A cartoon?

    • [elix]

      What was that? These elements are exactly the type of persons to recreate the internet from scratch if they need to?

      Looked at it in this perspective, Anonymous is the Internet-age equivalent of an entire army (of indeterminate size) of MacGuyvers.

• [Mantissa128]

  Well, it’s bringing this bill back into the public consciousness at least, and that’s a good thing.

• [Hanglyman]

  Anonymous really needs a more intimidating voice. One that sounds like SHODAN would be ideal.

  • [Patrick Kanne]

    That would just turn me on…

    …what?

• [Ryan Lenethen]

  The more I hear, the more I think this is all conservative ideology mixed with incompetence. I believe Vic when he said he had no idea that section not requiring a warrant was in the bill. I doubt Vic actually read the thing. Some crime lobby wrote the bill to give more powers to the police. Vic just accepted it at face value as it aligns with crazy conservative dogma. This is exactly like the copyright scandal a few years back (which continues today), where it was found that the EXACT wording was found in documents produced by a US lobbyist and passed off as produced as Canadian government. So stupid and incompetent while being blindly ideological, is slightly better than willfully evil trying to subvert freedom. In other words he is just a right wing idiot, not an evil mastermind. Surprisingly the public and the opposition did a rather good job of pointing this out, which is a good thing, democracy at work (assuming it gets altered significantly or dies, and isn’t just snuck through, in which case that would be willfully evil).  Of course there is noting preventing something else from slipping past under the radar. I guess these days people just have to be more vigilant about there rights and freedoms than they did perhaps in the past. (by that I mean rather than trying to gain more, you have to watch that you aren’t losing any all the time).