The bill would allow police to demand that Internet service providers hand over a wide range of information on the surfing habits of individuals, including on-line pseudonyms and whether someone possesses a mischief-making computer virus, according to a draft outline of the bill provided to the Privacy Commissioner of Canada.
After a speech to a police association in Ottawa, Mr. Cotler confirmed that his government will soon bring “lawful access” legislation to cabinet for final approval before it is introduced in the House of Commons.
The minister said the law is needed to replace outdated surveillance laws that were written before the arrival of cellphones and e-mail.
globe and mail
Ya know, were I a terrorist or a criminal I rather doubt I would be sending my emails in the clear.
Once again this is the appearence of legal concern without any actual substance or reality. The really bad guys have already figured out the the internet is a great communications technology but has to be used with a degree of caution. The shrubs who will be caught here are kids dumb enough to put up websites full of Warez and MP3’s.
Dumb.
Written by jay on August 19th, 2005 with 1 comment.
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Mr. Radler, the former publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times, has decided to co-operate and will plead guilty to the charges against him, the prosecutors said at a Chicago press conference yesterday.
This indicates, observers say, that Department of Justice officials may still be trying to build their case against Lord Black in order to file later charges against him personally.
globe and mail
This is awful news for Lord Black simply because if anyone knows where the bodies are buried it is Radler. And the only reason why he would plead guilty is on a plea bargain which will require full disclosure of those bodies.
Biggest mistake Black ever made was taking his companies public in the US. Had he maintained his Canadian and English presence and relied on those markets for funding the issues which are moving him rather closer to bankruptcy and potential jail time would not have arisen. But the US securities regime can be rather more sceptical of the excesses of “proprietors” than the Canadian or British regulators and prosecutors.
Written by jay on August 19th, 2005 with no comments.
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I wish I was as smart or funny as Tim Worstall. Over at TechCentralStation Worstall gives a purely practical set of reasons to become a libertarian. You have to go read the whole thing; but the summary is that a) government is not very good at what it does, from (a) it follows that government should do as little as possible as it will almost certainly cock that up.
Written by jay on August 19th, 2005 with 1 comment.
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Instapundit points to Gateway Pundit which features pictures of kilometer long gas lineups in Guangdong. The police are standing by.
One commentor ironically observes
I just don’t get it. China has a centrally-orchestrated energy policy, lots of bicycles and other efficient transportation, not too many SUV’s that I know of, no robber-baron oil companies to contend with, and isn’t the White Devil of the Muslim world. How could this be happening?
In fact, as many of the Gateway pundits observe, there are two major reasons. Gas is priced poltitically rather than by the market. Second, China uses energy 1/7th as efficiently as the US in its productive processes. A good deal of the Chinese economic miracle has been fueled by artificially low energy prices which, in turn, have meant there has been minimal incentive to use energy efficiently.
For a certain sort of declinist lefty China is the scary monster which will swallow the US whole. After all, the Chinese have so much US currency and are the largest buyers of US bonds. And the Chinese make things. Lots of things which the US no longer makes like televisions and dollar store merchandise.
In fact, China is a miracle of financial engineering hiding a hornet’s nest of unresolved problems. Making a lot of plasitic stuff with artificially low energy and feedstock input costs is possible; but it is not yet a full on market driven economy. Using politics rather than markets to set energy pricing is just one potentially disasterous Chinese policy.
Equally worrying is the fact China is almost out of water. Or that there is the potential for mass unemployment if the yuan rises more than the piddly .3 percent it was allowed to a month ago.
There are monsters under the bed no doubt - but China looks more and more like a paper tiger.
Written by jay on August 19th, 2005 with 1 comment.
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