Rick Mercer: valuing online privacy doesn't make you criminal, it makes you Canadian

In this rousing video, Canadian comedian and commentator Rick Mercer adds to his earlier most excellent rant on Canada's bill C-30, a pending domestic spying bill that abolishes the need for a warrant when police (and appointed special investigators) want to spy on your Internet use.

RMR: Rick's Rant - Online Privacy (via Michael Geist)

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: c-30 • canada • Funny • happy mutants • privacy • surveillance • video • youtube

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ComradeQuestions

I have to admit, while the phrase “It makes you American” has a sort of patriotic ring to it, the phrase “It makes you Canadian” just seems kinda funny. Eh?
- exile
  
  Nah. Stuff isn’t always about America.
  - ComradeQuestions
    
    Well that’s just un-American.
    - http://twitter.com/incarnedine_v Dan Hibiki
      
      good?
  - teknocholer
    
    Now, exile, don’t be callous. Technically you’re right, of course, but many Americans are sensitive souls who get uneasy when reminded that they are surrounded by other “countries” and “people” pursuing God-knows-what agendas. We should never forget that we are guests here on America’s Internet, and temper our language accordingly.
thecommongood

Rick’s best rant yet!

I worry though — does enough of the general public really understand this similarity to a fingerprint, versus a phonebook? I think Rick makes an effective case, but does the public buy it?
Richard Croasdale

We absolutely need to call out politicians every time they use the tired old “nothing to hide, nothing to fear” argument. But for for the love of God will you please *stop* doing that with the camera?!
- EH
  
  These days I think the only reasonable counter to that argument is to ask whether they’re secretly gay.
Warren Grant

Mercer nailed it. Unfortunately thecommongood has a good point – many Canadians just won’t get it. What Toewes is missing apparently is that there already exists a mechanism to go after a suspected Child Pornographer – its just that it requires a warrant. The system works just fine now, there is no need for Draconian BigBrother legislation like C-30. No need for it, no justification for it, unless of course the real purpose IS to let the Conservative government peek into the privacy of citizens who upset it, criticize it, or disagree with it. If the real purpose is to monitor our lives and turn Canada into a Police State – then C-30 is perfect. If enough Canadians want a Police State, then let them vote in a referendum on it, but lets call a spade a spade here. C-30 is not “to protect the children” – existing laws serve that purpose just fine.
- http://noctilucent-studios.blogspot.com/ Noctilucent Studios
  
  that’s exactly what it’s for. Think of the dirty tricks and criminal activities that we KNOW of from politicians in the past ( the ones we found out about anyway) and then throw in the ease with which our modern tech permits snooping, legal and otherwise, and the temptation is going to be just far too great for them NOT to use it.
suburbanhick

It’s not surprising that “The Harper Government®” is pushing this. Our esteemed Prime Minister is a micro-managing control freak on a level that would make Josef Stalin look like a hopeless slacker. How better to keep tabs on us than by having our usage histories at their fingertips?

Oh, they’ll only be accessible under strictly-controlled circumstances, they say? Tell that to the vets and others who have ALREADY had their personal records ransacked by Harper’s minions, looking for dirt with which to discredit them.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m fully aware that the Liberals (NDP, Bloc, whoever!) have also been guilty of some pretty sketchy shenanigans to achieve their ends in the past. I am by no means a dyed-in-the-wool Grit. But pretty well anything you can dredge up against them pales into insignificance when measured against the gutting of our country that Harper and his goons are currently carrying out. I fear for our democracy, as this government is doing their damnedest to destroy it.
http://www.geekforce.com Hugh Johnson

But, I don’t want to be Canadian! Whaaa!
- teknocholer
  
  No one said this was going to be easy.
exile

“Convince a judge – get a warrant”. Sounds like an excellent system!
- http://burntheflag.ca Jardine
  
  “That’s child pornographer talk!” – Vic Toews
  
  When Rick says “The state has no business in the hard drives of the nation”, there’s a reason the audience laughs. He’s paraphrasing Pierre Trudeau’s statement ”there’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation.” when they decriminalized homosexual acts.
http://www.mechastewart.com/ Mark Stewart

So who is the guy trailing Rick at 1:10? Looks like this rant has gotten the attention of the wrong people… ;)
Careful Rick.Too funny.
Teller

I despise governmental intrusion as much as I despise private companies whose devices and online services are data-mining the crap out of us.
Baldhead

And what does that have to do with this act exactly? Nobody has said a word about copyright or online piracy here.
- Gene Poole
  
  Artists are child pornographers, clearly. They’re not getting their royalties when people share child pornography across the internet instead of paying for it, like regular folk.
teknocholer

Turing test fail.
Mike Polding

last time i checked, artists don’t make art to get rich, they do it ’cause they enjoy the creative process
http://www.epinardscaramel.com TokenFrenchDude

Great rant !
Where is he going ?
joeposts

Speaking of the ‘value’ of online privacy, this headline popped out at me this afternoon:

Online surveillance bill setup costs estimated at $80 million

Now keep in mind these are the figures coming from the Conservative government, so they probably intentionally lowballed it. More lies to cover their incompetence and corruption.

Another fucked part about this is that small ISPs with thousands of customers almost never get requests from the police to divulge customer info. In the USA, the large ISPs deal with hundreds of requests a month and have staff on hand to handle it all. If the government passes this stupid law and arranges to compensate the ISPs based on how many requests LEA makes, then small ISPs will lose a great deal of money buying and maintaining surveillance equipment that never gets used.

Big ISPs, meanwhile, since they receive lots of LEA requests, can actually make money off government snooping.
Paul Renault

“…it’s like a fingerprint..”

A UFIA-fingerprint.