Should you be concerned?

Good Day Readers:

Being on the mailing list for the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation, a leading edge digital law research organization, we received the following. While it applies to the American experience we wondered whether a similar initiative should be undertaken in Canada. Today it was announced The Harper Government will attempt to fast track it's Omnibus Crime Bill through the House of Commons which, among other considerations, contains sweeping monitoring provisions for anyone using an electronic device.

Earlier this year, The Federal Privacy Commissioner and her Provincial and Territorial counterparts sent a letter to the Deputy Minister for Public Safety Canada expressing concern over the lack of checks and balances, as well as, judicial oversight if these changes to the Criminal Code are passed in their present form:

http://www.priv.gc.ca/media/nr-c/2011/let_110309_e.cfm

Should you be concerned? Yes, you should be very concerned.

Sincerely,
Clare L. Pieuk
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Don't Let Privacy Law Get Stuck in 1986: Demand a Digital Upgrade to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act

If the government wants to track our cell phones, or see what web sites we’ve visited, or rummage through our Gmail, or read our private messages on Facebook, it should be required to go to a judge and get a search warrant based on probable cause. Demand a privacy upgrade!

Sign now and we will add your name to this petition and also send a letter to your Representatives and Senators in time for the 25th anniversary of ECPA being signed into law:

Petiton language

The government should be required to go to a judge and get a warrant before it can read our email, access private photographs and documents we store online, or track our location using our mobile phones. Please support legislation that would update the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) to require warrants for this sensitive information and to require the government to report publicly on the use of its surveillance powers.

ECPA was forward-looking when it was signed into law in October of 1986, considering that the World Wide Web hadn't even been invented yet. But now, ECPA has become outdated. The privacy standards that it applies to new technologies are unclear and weak. For example, the law doesn't specifically address cell phone location tracking at all, and it allows the government to seize most emails without ever having to go to a judge. Meanwhile, no one is perfectly sure how it applies to newer online services like social networks and search engines.

This gap between the law and the technology ultimately leaves us all at risk. Add your name now to sign the petition supporting ECPA reform, and feel free to add a personalized introduction to the text below that will be sent to your legislators before the 25th anniversary of ECPA.