Internet Privacy Top Priority for Nerd Party of Canada

Canadians both knowingly and unknowingly have been in losing their right to their personal online communications in the past few years in the name of national security.  The national government has been seeking to grant powers to the RCMP and CSIS to collect and inspect information about what Canadians are doing online without ever having to obtain a court warrant.  It is claimed that such warrantless search and seizure of Internet data is required to prevent terrorist acts or stop the distribution of child pornography. 

While these acts are abhorrent, and those who commit them should face a severe punishment, there has never been any evidence that warrantless data search and seizure prevents these acts from happening.  Making these agencies come to court and produce evidence of potential online criminal acts and then having an warrant issued based the evidence is a key part of balancing security and privacy rights of law abiding Canadians.  Postal mail intercepts and telephone wiretaps have played a key role in investigating crimes and bring perpetrators to justice but in order to access these tools law enforcement agencies had to get a court warrant to use them. 

Terrorism and Child Pornography distribution are easily two of the crimes that people want to stop and the national government use them to get the public to support bills that open up warrantless access to Canadians' Internet traffic, previous proposed bills would have opened up warrantless data search and seizure to any suspected criminal code offense.  Had bill C-30 had not been withdrawn in 2013 and become law it would have been a thin edge of a wedge that would have turned this country into a cyber police state.

A vote for the Nerd Party of Canada will defend your online privacy rights while continuing to bring criminals to justice that is consistent with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.  Any party of candidate claiming that access to the Internet activity of Canadians without the requirement of a court warrant is required to bring criminals to justice is just looking to sell out to foreign special interests.

Vote for the Nerd Party of Canada

In less than six months Canadians across the country will be choosing who whey want representing them in Parliament.  In the campaign running up to the vote in the election on October 19th the top issues are expected to be health care, infrastructure, taxes as they usually are in just about every election.  Just below the surface are the technological related issues that effect not just the younger voters but all of us as Canadians. 

Two decades after the Internet transformed our lives there is still a geographic divide between those living in cities who get top quality affordable broadband access and those in rural and remote areas who get expensive low bandwidth connections and some in those areas who still rely on dial up to get on the Internet. 

A growing issue effecting online life is what is known as Net Neutrality.  ISP's have been impairing the operation of online applications such as VOiP services and streaming video services because they conflict with other telephone and cable TV offerings.  Recently in the United States the Federal Communications Commission redefined broadband from an information service to a communications service and subject to tighter regulation to prevent impairment or blocking online services that conflict with other services the telephone and cable companies offer.

Access to information and communications services are most needed in times of emergency or crisis.  Recently the federal government and the broadcasting industry have revealed Alert Ready a single notification system to alert Canadians of many kinds emergencies through radio and television.  Great that we have it now but we have lagged behind the rest of the world by decades.  Conelrad, the first media emergency information notification in the United States was implemented in 1951.

As technological issues affect our lives they are not even on the road maps of the political parties.  Neither the Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and the Greens haven't proposed any policies or even taken a position to support Net Neutrality, close the digital divide, and maintain access to communications and information in times of crisis.

Governments both past and current have sold off the airwaves to the cellular industry while law enforcement agencies emergency services, emergency aid agencies and when needed the Canadian Forces still do not have a single interoperable communications system.  Under both Liberals and Conservatives Canada's media and telecommunications industries into just a few vertically integrated giants that in offer services that support other services.  Online access Canadians in rural and remote areas gets continue to lag behind those in urban areas regardless of which party is in government.

Canada needs a Nerd Party to ensure an open neutral Internet is available to all Canadians regardless to where they live.  Nerd Party MP's will also ensure that information and communications will be available in times of crisis.  Send a nerd to Ottawa to stand up for your digital rights.

Don't be a turd, Vote Nerd!!

'Select WiFi' Shows Canada's Net Neutrality Crisis

On a recent visit to the local ice cream parlour, my wife and I were going to connect to the free WiFi to share the latest pictures of our boys with their ice cream filled faces on our social networking accounts.  We found that the free WiFi the ice cream parlour was providing was replaced with 'Sasktel Select WiFi' a WiFi service available in public areas such as restaurants, hotels sports arenas, etc. that is only available to Sasktel's smartphones.  Since my wife and I are Telus subscribers, we were cut off at the ice cream shop.  

Providing what is supposed to be a free public service to subscribers of just one cellular provider is akin to building a highway on public land and then telling drivers that only Ford owners can drive on it.  By contrast WiFi hotspot services offered at Tim Horton's, McDonald's and at Candian Walmarts provided by Bell doesn't place any restrictions on who can access the Internet through their hotspots.   

Net Neutrality hasn't reached critical mass as a hot button issue, but as the days if being able to access anything on the Internet from anywhere from any device start to slip away, Saskatchewan is becoming Canada's Net Neutrality coal mine.  The canary must not be allowed to die.