Canadian politician: My internet spying bill would help us catch serial killers like Luka Magnotta

The Toronto Sun today reports that "politicians and their aides in Ottawa have been shocked by the gruesome killing" attributed to Luka Magnotta. But not too shocked to exploit it for their own political gain! Buried in a story about how the missing accused murderer will face charges of "Criminal harassment" for sending dead body parts to lawmakers, in addition to all the murder and ass-cheek-eating and corpse-sexing stuff:

On Friday, Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said his so-called Internet snooping bill would help police investigate the shocking murder and dismemberment of a man in Montreal.

"Certainly, that's what the police have told me – that the powers in Bill C-30 are very relevant to this type of investigation in terms of either determining who the individual is, or determining the whereabouts of an individual," said Toews on Friday in Winnipeg.

Bill C-30 would force Internet service providers and cellphone companies to give police information about customers' online activity on request, creating a storm of privacy concerns that have left the bill stalled in the Commons.

As Cory wrote recently, the C-30 bill was a very very bad thing, and it appears to be dead.

Maybe police should reach out to Encyclopedia Dramatica for assistance.

Why, sure, Toews' argument that unprecedented warrantless surveillance would help us catch Awful Bad Guys makes perfect sense. BB commenter TMWaH says it perfectly:

Except that Magnotta made all of his sociopathic tendencies very, very public. He posted videos of animal torture, journals about necrophilia, and how-to guides for "vanishing" from police. He wore his evil on his sleeve, and yet, nobody tried to investigate him BEFORE he killed anyone.

Vic Toews is deluded if he thinks that a spying bill would stop people like Magnotta. What law enforcement needs is a better method for analyzing data and putting it to use, not terabytes of stolen e-mails to comb through.

And, while I refuse to link to über-exploitative rag The Sun, the tabloid reports that its reporters contacted police about Magnotta, after interacting with him and hearing him confess to having killed people, and vowing to kill more of them.

So, let me get this straight: publishing all sorts of material online documenting crime and confessing to crimes and promising to commit more crime isn't enough, and reporters contacting police about the same is not enough—we need pervasive, endless surveillance of non-criminals in order to catch criminals.

Got it.