Andrew Coyne: Same old bill, new hysteria

[styky]

Andrew Coyne: Same old bill, new hysteria

Andrew Coyne Feb 20, 2012 – 8:03 PM ET | Last Updated: Feb 20, 2012 10:03 PM ET
When the Liberal government of Paul Martin introduced the Modernization of Investigative Techniques Act in November of 2005, it received comparatively little attention. As the columnist Thomas Walkom described it in the Toronto Star, the bill would require Internet and telephone companies “to install equipment that would allow the state to monitor all of their customers… [I]t would give police … the power to demand, without the need for court warrants, any information that [these] companies keep on their customers — including addresses, passwords and credit card information.” The public safety minister at the time, Anne McLellan, was quoted to the effect that the police needed the new powers to go after terrorists and child pornographers.

In other words, more or less the same legislation, supported by more or less the same arguments, as Bill C-30, whose purported horrors have convulsed the nation this past week. Yet it caused nothing like the same fuss. For that matter, neither did an earlier version of the current bill, C-52, introduced in the last Parliament: concern, yes, but not the all-consuming fireball that C-30 detonated.

None of this is to defend the legislation. Privacy advocates make a convincing case that it gives too many people too much personal information with too little justification. Neither am I arguing the Liberals are necessarily hypocrites to oppose it (though that’s certainly possible), or that their own sins cancel those of the bill: that other parties, and other countries — similar legislation is already on the books elsewhere — may have been willing to erode their citizens’ liberties in this way is not an argument for doing so in the present case, nor does the long list of surveillance powers to which Canadians are already subject make the case for adding another.

I’m just interested in the discrepancy. Why has this bill, this invasion of privacy, aroused such heated opposition, where others haven’t? When did we all become such civil libertarians?..................http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/201 ... rew-coyne/

[Julian]

Is Andrew Coyne really that dim witted or is he just trying to use fodder to fill his column for a day?

Why wasn't there an outrage over section 13 in 2005? Why wasn't there this or that or the other?

Because in 2005 we didn't know about it, that's why. We still trusted government to be looking after Canada in the interests of Canadians. Because OpenMedia.ca didn't exist then, because "the new world order" (by all of it's various names including globalism) was still the stuff of tin foil hat conspiracy kooks then, we know better now and the fact that the U.N. and the socialists want one world government is an accepted fact by the majority today. It is no longer deniable that the kooks of yesterday were, for the most part, correct.

[Angleland]

Some people, such as Connie, have been banging the pots ever since this piece of garbage surfaced.

It kept get derailed by elections and perogations.

Only now does Over Group Leader Toews pronounce that all are suspects and under permanaant investigation of being perverts. Of course My Sir Toews conveniently exempts himself from investigation along with underlings such as Head Man Hodgson.

[Connie Fournier]

Obviously Coyne hasn't been paying attention.

[styky]

I hope readers realize that when I post this crap it doesn't mean that I agree with it.

[Julian]

I hope readers realize that when I post this crap it doesn't mean that I agree with it.

yep! It's interesting stuff all the same.

[Hodgson]

Harper has a majority, that's the variable.

Hate Harper is the new response to everything.

[Connie Fournier]

Harper has a majority, that's the variable.

Hate Harper is the new response to everything.

Yep. That's all this is. Nothing to see here. Move along.

[Angleland]

Harper has a majority, that's the variable.

Hate Harper is the new response to everything.

Schiklgruber has posted something. Are you reporting all your internet activities to Over Group Leader Toews, Schiklgruber?

[Peter O'Donnell]

I'm not too troubled by Coyne or Ezra Levant with their muted or shall we say nuanced criticisms of the legislation.

The fact that they are not just cheerleading and marching lock-step with the PMO is probably just as noteworthy around the halls of power as the general sense of outrage among less connected conservatives (that's the understatement of the decade in my case). And what Coyne says is true, the opposition to this legislation is more than just an eruption of long-hidden civil libertarian love for privacy, there is a ritualistic aspect to the left's opposition to all things Harperian that can trigger a new round of full-court conservative-bashing on an epic (if only Canadian) scale.

We made our point, the legislation may now be rewritten. So let's wait and see what the rewrite looks like and go from there. Vic Toews is neither the evil schemer that the twitterverse wants us to believe, nor is he a knight in shining armour. He turns out to be a rather flawed package of contradictions, which seems to me like the perfect symbol for this government, a little more style than substance at times, and a lot more dedication to the idea of spin than the concept of reason.

I know we could do better than this, and still maintain an ideological clarity. We don't have to go around the country hating everyone who disagrees with us or demonizing them. Just let them speak freely and they will accomplish it without our help.

[Ben Kenobi]

I used to work for Ezra Levant. If he has a nuanced position on a sack of garbage - then he needs to get a wake up call and fast.

[Peter O'Donnell]

Sorry to use the word "nuanced" -- it is meant to be ironic given my well-known distaste for all things liberal. But I will stick with my thesis that the powers-that-be will notice a bit of moderate criticism from the likes of Coyne and Levant and I think we all know that if active friends of the government go off the reservation, there is no way back on, so at this point, it's better to have some interaction between the rather tightly controlled world of the PMO and Cabinet and some form of independent conservative commentary, than to have everyone in our position of being non-persons damned forever for our critical attitudes. It does us no real good to have Levant or Coyne out here in the wilderness, in fact it's just two more mouths for the dwindling supply of fresh game. Let 'em stay cordial with the inner sanctum and perhaps some day if a more opportune time arises, they will get more to the point.

Anyway, I shouldn't trouble myself about the affairs of a foreign country like Canada, it's not like I would ever be a citizen or spend any time there, now that I reside in cyberspace and work on matters that concern weather in distant lands. But sometimes a big country (in the political sense) listens to its dissidents, ya never know, Canada could one day become like that. About seven hundred years after I'm dead and buried, I would imagine.

Harper will only listen when he's kicked out of 24 Sussex Drive, and loses his big entourage of yes-persons, as in yes we should do more of what we've been doing, wave a flag, have a Tim's and pass a law, no matter whether it's good or bad or in between. Oh and everything that was red is now blue.

[Connie Fournier]

The Opposition is SUPPOSED TO oppose stuff like this. It is their job. The fact that they are doing it to loudly and clearly is because it is TERRIBLE LAW. And, Coyne is missing the point if he dismisses the outrage as a partisan movement because there aren't many conservatives who are willing to go out on a limb and defend this garbage, either.

And, I don't want to sit around and wait for them to rewrite it and try to sneak it through. It needs to be scrapped.

[Hodgson]

No point in throwing the whole thing out if there's value to be salvaged.

[Connie Fournier]

No point in throwing the whole thing out if there's value to be salvaged.

There isn't. Nobody has made a compelling case that any of this is necessary in order for police to do their jobs.