Gov't wants to inspect laptops, cellphones, and MP3 players

[SYS]

http://www.canada.com/theprovince/story.html?id=ac94392c-7e05-4e30-af00-f237e9c23a9d

OTTAWA -- The federal government is secretly negotiating an agreement to revamp international copyright laws that could make the information on iPods, laptops and other devices illegal, according to a leaked government document.

The deal could also force Internet service providers to hand over customer information without a court order.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would see Canada join the U.S. and the European Union in a coalition against copyright infringement.

Federal trade agreements do not require parliamentary approval.

Border guards and other public security personnel could become copyright police under the deal. They would be charged with checking laptops, iPods and even cellphones for content that "infringes" on copyright laws, such as ripped-off CDs and movies.

The guards would determine what infringes copyright.

The agreement says any copied content would be open for scrutiny -- even if it was copied legally.

"This will end up in the Supreme Court of Canada, if it goes forward," Darrell Evans, executive-director of the B.C. Freedom of Information and Privacy Association, said yesterday.

"Under the constitution, everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure.

"Where you draw the line to protect copyright is very dangerous. This would give security people, who could be designated as any policeman, more licence to pry into your data.

"If you're carrying a laptop in a cafe, a cop could look at it."

Beau Hunter, a director of IPSA International in Vancouver, which investigates the theft of intellectual property, applauded the news.

"Canadian laws are very lax," said Hunter. "Piracy results in lost revenues and jobs. The agreement would be a tool to punish folks for piracy."

People using their computers at downtown Vancouver coffee bars yesterday were skeptical of the government's motives.

"How are they justifying this?" asked Marc Terrien, 24, of Vancouver, a Simon Fraser University communications student.

"There is a need to preserve people's rights and not infringe on their privacy.

"This will make people not only fear the government, but question their motives."

Ryan Lam, 25, of Vancouver, another SFU student said: "Obviously, it's bad for any citizen because it's an invasion of our privacy.

"Of course, we want to keep things that are in our computers to ourselves and it's not for other people, especially the government.

"In a way, we live in a surveillance society already where our computers are monitored, phone lines are tapped. We don't need extra laws to further enhance their capabilities of surveillance.

"These extra powers would not be good for citizens. It's a bad idea."

The ACTA discussion paper was leaked online by Sunshine Media, which runs Wikileaks.org, a whistleblowing website created to help circulate secret documents.

Michael Geist, Canada research chairman of Internet and e-commerce law at the University of Ottawa and an expert on Canadian copyright law, blasted the government for advancing ACTA with little public consultation.

Details of ACTA's plans would not need to be leaked online if the process were open and transparent, Geist said.

In October, International Trade Minister David Emerson said Canada would help create ACTA.

"We are seeking to counter global piracy and counterfeiting more effectively," Emerson said at the time.

The new agreement will likely be tabled at July's meeting of G8 nations in Tokyo.

[Csonicgo]

Well Ain't that a bitch!

Cue the "well I ain't got nuttin' tae hide" arguments.

[SamBeckett94]

Sneaky bastards.

Fortunately, I'm not a resident of Canada.

[Technician]

This is bullshit! BULLSHIT!

[Graf Zahl]

Technician said:

This is bullshit! BULLSHIT!

Guess why it was leaked... ;)

[Enjay]

Personally, I don't have much, if anything to hide. However, this really pisses me off. The various media companies calling the shots as to how laws in countries should be made? The fact that they are powerful enough to do it? Disgusting. The DVD regionalisation thing was bad enough but this is awful. It's the kind of thing that makes me want to steal their stuff.

[myk]

SamBeckett94 said:
Fortunately, I'm not a resident of Canada.

In general it seems like a joint effort between Anglo-America (just to say I'm not sure what Mexico's position is) and Europe, though.

Enjay said:
It's the kind of thing that makes me want to steal their stuff.

Arguably, paying for their stuff directly finances their actions with one's money, and allowing it to be acquired only through purchase (such as by not distributing it otherwise) acknowledges their legal practices by making them easier to enforce.

[Quasar]

Utter insanity. I don't know what else to say.

[Lüt]

:O

So much for moving to Canada.

[Texas Libra]

Do I have to bring back to life the whole argument that the whole point of "pirating" stuff in the first place isn't to necessarily keep it, but to sample it to make sure it's worthy of spending money on?

[Lüt]

No, unless you suspect the Canadian government is watching, I think everybody's pretty much in agreement that they've gone insane.

[Texas Libra]

I hear ya, man. I couldn't have picked a better time to change my ways and be glad to come from where I do.

[Butts]

i thought canada was really relaxed about everything.

[DooMAD]

Sounds scary in theory, but I sincerely doubt it would be practical to have someone on the border checking everyone's laptop/mp3 player/etc. Airport security, for example, is retarded enough as it is already. I'm sure it's just to give them greater powers when they feel the urge to "make an example of someone", but yeah, more totalitarian bullshit.

[Creaphis]

Weird.

I don't really think that this is going to fly.

And Canada still has its benefits.

For example, it isn't the USA.

...yet... *sigh*

[GreyGhost]

The powers-that-be down here are prepared to involve us in this insanity. Probably won't tell us the bad news until after we're committed.

[Kid Airbag]

I'm still eligible for Irish citizenship if it gets bad enough in this hemisphere.

[deathbringer]

Ireland is in the EU, though, and they said a "joint effort with the European Union".

So, China's where itz at. By the sound of things you have a hard time finding legitimate products there

[Siggi]

We'll take over the world one small electronic device at a time.
This plan is flawless!
Muhahahaaa!

[Coopersville]

...Yeah, that's a too much invasion of privacy for my tastes. I don't want to go down because some CP landed in my temp files via 4Chan, or something.

[Csonicgo]

Coopersville said:

...Yeah, that's a too much invasion of privacy for my tastes. I don't want to go down because some CP landed in my temp files via 4Chan, or something.

OR ANY SITE. I've done an experiment myself- shit gets on the cache such as porn from ads that do rotation but never do it, etc-- and it looks as if I were visiting a porn site when all I visited were the Times and some Search sites. It's really bad out there.

[Death-Destiny]

I couldn't tell you what the purpose of such an act would be. Don't companies already hire mathmaticians who factor the frequency of pirating into their equations when setting the price of a product so that they still make as much money as they want to? Besides, this act isn't as much preventative as much as it is punitive, now is it?
It looks like this gov't wants to declare itself more power...

[alexz721]

Welp, looks like CCleaner is my new friend.

This has already been going on in the US for some time. My friend's company disallows all employees from storing any documents on laptops,, only on the company's central servers, and regularly cleans the caches, history, cookies, etc. from them. They're contractually required to protect customer privacy, and they can't even do that unless they wipe their hard drives whenever they travel. Even though laptops are being searched for other things, they have access to private documents also. What use is a laptop on business trips if you can't fucking store anything on it? The people who allow this kind of crap should be kicked square in the testicles.

Edit: The excuse is to search for kiddie porn and terrorist-related shit, but if you're dumb enough to put that shit on a computer and take it on a plane, well, it's just an inconvenience for everyone else who has to blank their laptops.

[deathbringer]

What use is a laptop on business trips if you can't fucking store anything on it?

...them USB flash drives are getting pretty big these days aint they, though *puffs pipe*

Saw a 16 gig one on Ebay the other day for about £17, though i did buy a 4 gig one from a shop for £20 (cheap for that size from a shop) and it was really crap and you could only save one file to it at a time or it'd crash. And sometimes even then...

[fraggle]

Kid Airbag said:

I'm still eligible for Irish citizenship if it gets bad enough in this hemisphere.

But Ireland and America are in the same hemisphere.

[exp(x)]

fraggle said:

But Ireland and America are in the same hemisphere.

Perhaps he wasn't talking about northern and southern hemispheres. You can cut Earth in half infinitely many ways. :P

[YMB]

I sure hope Janitor doesn't make up a quote about me in the next post :(

[Patrick]

YMB said:

I quit the internet :(

seems to be a trend with you

[Xenaero]

Janitor said:

seems to be a trend with you

He'll never beat my record. G G

[myk]

fraggle said:
But Ireland and America are in the same hemisphere.

And they are also both in the Western Hemisphere. Rather than hemisphere, Kid Airbag seems to have meant continent.