To Wiretap Or Not, Isn’t The Question

The Ottawa citizen reported last week that 57% of Canadians surveyed by the Association of Canadian Studies believed police should have the right to use wiretaps. While it is encouraging that despite the implementation of drastic and sometimes senseless national security measures since 9/11 Canadians continue to put unquestioning faith in the system, such confidence should be treated delicately.

Although Canada currently does not have separate legislation regulating Lawful Access, wiretapping mandated by a warrant is a legal tool used by law enforcement agencies. There should be nothing startling in this revelation. Indeed, many democratic countries have used wiretapping as an investigative tool for decades, Canada included.

What is alarming with regards to the current discussions around Lawful Access in Canada is not the need for special legislation regulating the use of wiretapping but the lack of disclosure around data supporting the need for increasing the scope of such capabilities. While there are few that would dispute the need for strong Lawful Access legislation, the shape such a measure should take remains contentious without disclosure of current wiretapping usage statistics.

To date there has been no public provision of data documenting the following:

1. The number of times wiretapping or requests for customer information are being made, broken down by requesting organization as well as type of request;
2. Whether the request for a warrant or customer information was refused and why;The nature of crime or circumstance why such requests are being made;
3. Type of technology being intercepted and whether the surveillance attempt was successful; &
4. Direct correlation as to the usefulness of the request with closing the investigation as well as prosecution of the target.

Until such time as the above data is made publicly available any talk of Lawful Access legislation in Canada is baseless.

Canadian legislators should weigh in very carefully around the issue of Lawful Access. Although Canadians today are supportive in enabling law enforcement, long term implications of poorly designed security measures can significantly alter current attitudes. Despite being responsible for upholding the law, some Canadian police officers have proven to be just as human as the rest of us. Such innate flaws need to be seriously considered before sweeping new measures are implemented. Even normally subdued and law abiding Canadians can be compelled to take matters into their own hands if they feel that their interests are not being protected by the system.

This entry was posted on September 17 2007 at 00:16 and is filed under Wiretapping & Surveillance, North America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.