Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
Benjamin Franklin
How does a government eradicate civil liberties? By creating an evil and then pretending to solve it, if only people could give up a little of their freedom. Little by little, one imaginary evil after another, we suddenly find ourselves devoid of the freedoms we once enjoyed, and we have – each and every one of us – become the evil that the government targets.
The strawmen of today are internet criminals: scammers, identity thieves, child pornographers. With the permeance of the internet, they have become the dark, mysterious, scary monsters of our time: a readily available excuse for the government to curtail its population’s freedoms.
The internet is an ideal setting to place draconian restrictions upon. It’s new enough that many people are still unfamiliar with its workings, and are easily fooled by techno-sounding gibberish that the government spews out. It’s intangible enough that many treat it as something separate from reality, making it an easy target as less people defend their online freedoms. Finally, the internet is old enough that it’s well established, and increasing amounts of people are sharing their personal details online.
If the government controls the internet, it can halt the free flow of information that has defined the internet to-date. In this way the government could prevent civil liberties from protecting our future, but it could also reduce what liberties we once enjoyed in a world of traditional media. As more and more of our activities are being replaced by online equivalents, the government has a chance to redefine the limits of freedom that we have taken for granted. Fundamental rights to liberty, freedom of expression, and privacy are all at stake.
Governments have long attempted to control new technologies. China is notorious for the great firewall, arguably the most successful at controlling the internet. Australia is implementing its own great firewall, despite widespread protests from all spheres. The United States under the Bush administration illegally spied on its own citizens for many years, and continuing to fight efforts to hold it accountable under the Obama administration. Here at home, Harper had added Canada – yet again – to the list of countries with draconian governments with the recently tabled bills C-46 and C-47.
The bills – if passed – would grant policing agencies unprecedented power to search and seize personal information, with or without suspicion, and with no judicial oversight. This includes basic subscriber information such as name, address, phone number, to IP address and even the contents of communication – which internet service providers would now be obligated to retain on the whim of the police. And how is this all justified? Because we need to catch those scary pedophiles, of course.
Ironically, the pedophiles and criminals are exactly the kind of people this law doesn’t hurt. Encryption and anonymization software is so readily available that locking the government out of spying is trivial and involves minimal technical knowledge. The criminals are going to continue scamming and stealing people’s identities, and the pedophiles are going to continue trafficking child porn. The grandmas and grandpas, however, suddenly lost every expectation of privacy they previously had. Common, law abiding citizens are the ones who have the most to lose from unchecked police surveillance powers. Think you have nothing to hide? Think again.
And what’s going to prevent corruption? Without judicial oversight the police can spy on anyone they want. Who’s to say their first targets won’t be the ones who are dissatisfied with the government, people who are planning a protest, or even just people with unpopular views? The great firewall of Australia was corrupt before it even went into service, censoring a massive range of websites from political to religious in nature, all while claiming to filter only child pornography.
If there’s one thing history has taught us, it’s that unchecked authority is always destructive to liberty. These bills aren’t about protecting us, they’re not about catching the criminals, they’re about spying on the population, controlling the population, and stamping out dissent. It’s not an extreme hassle to get a warrant, and it’s not going to jeopardize an investigation, but it will protect the liberties of the people, and it will preserve the freedom of society.
The government would also do well to avoid insulting the police with this kind of legislation, as if to suggest that the very capable people responsible for our safety are unable to do a proper job with proper policing procedures. This is ludicrous, the bills are ludicrous, and we shouldn’t step back and let the government chip away at our essential liberty.