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Canadians #TellVicEverything In Response To Bill C-30 84

First time accepted submitter beerdragoon writes "In order to protest the government's new Internet snooping legislation, some Canadians have started a somewhat unorthodox protest. Vic Toews, the minister responsible for tabling the legislation, has had his twitter account bombarded with tweets regarding the boring, banal aspects of regular Canadians' lives. The idea is that since Toews wants to know everything about your personal life, we should oblige him and #TellVicEverything."
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Canadians #TellVicEverything In Response To Bill C-30

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  • by allaunjsilverfox2 ( 882195 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:06PM (#39081099) Homepage Journal
    It might work too, If it weren't so easy to separate signal from noise. People like to pretend that they are random, Unpredictable. When in actuality it's rather easy to assign points to activities. A perfect example is the recent story of target sending advertisements for baby related things. Enough people had contributed enough data to anticipate a teenagers pregnancy needs before her father even knew.
    • Email as well (Score:5, Interesting)

      by arthurpaliden ( 939626 ) on Saturday February 18, 2012 @12:34AM (#39083275)
      In addition people were emailing him about what they were doing, cc'ing him on all their emails and emailing him their web browsing histories. In fact so much data was coming into the parliaments servers they were taken or knocked off line.
  • It gets better ... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:11PM (#39081137)

    The snippet is interesting but not the big news.

    He let the cat out of the bag as he is asking the speaker to investigate this protest. (which means RCMP or CSIS presumably) Does any sane populace want to put more surveillance power in the hands of a person that would abuse his office to simply satisfy his curiosity as to who is tweeting him?

    • by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:18PM (#39081179)

      He isn't asking the speaker to investigate the protest. He is asking for an investigation into one particular account, Vikileaks30 or something, which is releasing *his* personal information (details of his divorce, etc) on twitter. Apparently the tweets on the account were made from an IP address from the House of Commons.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Which is a demonstration that there's actually no need for this bill. They isolated an IP, and if there's enough to show a crime is connected a judge would issue an order for an ISP to hand over relevant records.

      • by green1 ( 322787 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:27PM (#39081273)

        Heaven forbid a politician be subject to the same loss of privacy they wish on the rest of us!

      • by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:38PM (#39081361)

        Publicly accessible court documents being copied should not warrant a parliamentary inquiry.

      • by euxneks ( 516538 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @08:14PM (#39081627)
        It's not private information. Divorce records are public. All the things I have read on that twitter account are PUBLIC record.

        Who cares if the IP is from the house of commons? It's just highlighting his hypocrisy.
        • by Suddenly_Dead ( 656421 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @11:17PM (#39082887)

          Notice that, if this account was posting on a Canadian website post-C-30, the RCMP or CSIS would be able to compel the site to reveal the poster's private IP/email address, and the ISP then compelled to provide an address and name.

          There's a reason why this bill should not pass. A chilling effect on dissenting speech is not a good thing.

          (Yes, the Twitter account attacking Toews and his divorced wife is tacky, but Toews himself has been extremely tacky and hypocritical in general, and is outright threatening Canadian's privacy and freedom right now. Plus, all of this stuff is in the public record, so I fail to see any legal issues here.

          As it is right now, all we know is that a newspaper says they've tracked it to the House of Commons, and they did that on their own using the ol' "send them a link to your server, then watch the logs for an access" trick. If it is a criminal problem, a judge can issue a subpoena, as far as I can tell.)

        • He is trying to show that a government employee used government resources for non-government purposes contrary to IT policy, likely in an effort to get them fired.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        Doesn't anyone notice the degree of technological ignorance this kind of law reveals? Not only do they not understand that any serious criminal (terrorist, predator or whatever) will have the sense to spoof, anonymize, etc. so as not to be easily traced through his real-name ISP account; they don't get it that ANYONE can get access to public documents, legally, and face no penalties for using that information. Mr. Toews is upset that messy details about him were quoted from public sources. What he's accusin

        • I did send him a couple of links to teach him why invading the privacy of all Canadians is not a good way to stop cybercrime.

          I think that's the point there. I don't think they had any idea whatsoever that the Canadian populace may have gotten good at this "internet thing" and might just have a thing or two to say about it. Never thought I'd say that I'm with the pedophiles.....

        • by AdamWill ( 604569 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @09:50PM (#39082321) Homepage

          well, you can look at it that way. the other way you can look at it is this:

          the police can already access all the records in question if they have just cause, by getting a court order. obviously, getting a court order isn't a terribly onerous thing in the context of a really serious crime - terrorism, child abuse, whatever. offences of that nature are rare enough and serious enough that there's no problem getting a court order where one is warranted.

          it follows that, whatever the justification publicly offered, it doesn't make any sense that a law which removes the requirement to obtain a court order is truly targeted at very serious crimes. no, it only makes sense in the context of much less serious offences. say you're looking at, oh, to take a COMPLETELY random example, file sharing. you've got hundreds of thousands of potential offences, and probably little in the way of decent investigative evidence in any of them.

          now THAT'S a case where it 'makes sense' to remove the requirement for a court order, because it really is going to cost of a lot of resources to go out and get a couple hundred thousand court orders, especially if your evidence is pretty weak.

          So, yeah, we can ignore the rhetoric, and instead ask the question 'in what circumstances does it really benefit the police not to have to go and get a court order to look at these records?' And the answer to that question is very different to the rhetoric you hear from the Cons surrounding the bill.

          • by Phrogman ( 80473 )

            Oh I have zero doubt this is about filesharing and getting the Canadian Government to foot the bill on behalf the MAFIAA. The entertainment industry has put a lot of effort (and money) into getting government support to change our laws concerning file sharing to be more draconian. I am sure the bribe money has been quite effective, although admittedly this government seems willing to do whatever business - or the US administration - tells it to do.
            Nonetheless, the Canadian public seems fairly opposed to thi

      • But hey, if he has nothing to hide, he should have nothing to fear, right?

      • by Anonymous Coward

        The information about his divorce was taken from the public records. Specifically, the affidavits that mentioned that he was, among other things, banging his sister-in-law's babysitter for 7 years, then banging his own babysitter for 3 before getting her pregnant and leaving his wife.

        And let's not forget - this was the guy who was dubbed the "Minister of Family Values" because of his defense of conventional marriage and opposition to gays and lesbians. He really should have been called the "Minister of Fa

  • Goals (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Nerdfest ( 867930 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:16PM (#39081165)

    I'm still quite surprised that nobody is connecting the online surveillance to the media companies. People still seem to believe that it's just a misguided child predator act.

    • Re:Goals (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:21PM (#39081205)

      No one believes it's about the children. There is no mention of "the children" anywhere in the bill. Heck, it was called "Lawful Access" before being hastily renamed at the last minute.

      That it's an attempt at the government to spy on us, or that there is some bigger agenda in the background, it doesn't really matter. The issue is about our privacy and that's why it's taking a lot of fire.

      • This is the same Vic Toews that said that if you are against this legislation you are for child porn.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by BergZ ( 1680594 )
          The mockery and rejection that Vic is being subjected to (for his use of a vitriolic false dilemma) is what George Bush should have gotten for his: "Either you are with us [in support of warrantless wiretaps, invasion of privacy, and Iraq war 2], or you are with the terrorists."
    • How about this. We are allowed to snoop on what police are doing.
  • by kawabago ( 551139 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:17PM (#39081169)
    Every day the Conservative government drifts a little farther from true Canadian values and into some kind of dream world where Leave It To Beaver is a reality series.
    • by dittbub ( 2425592 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:52PM (#39081461)
      Gun Owners = Law abiding citizens. leave them alone! don't pre-judge them! innocent until proven guilty! Internet Users = Potential pedophile. More than potential. If you're reading this right now you probably are a pedophile. The RCMP have been contacted and will be there shortly to arrest you.
    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Flammon ( 4726 )

      Stephen Harper has always been very far from Canadian values. It's more apparent now because he has a majority government.

  • Vikileaks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Grieviant ( 1598761 ) * on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:25PM (#39081253)
    Vic has been part of some rather amusing drama as of late. Apparently, the "family values" man was divorced after knocking up his parliamentary assistant, as disclosed on a Twitter account with handle 'Vikileaks' who had access to the divorce proceedings. A local Ottawa newspaper then sent a twitter message with a honeypot link to Vikileaks in an attempt try to ascertain the IP address behind this account, and it led back to a Canadian parliament IP address. The Conservatives are now accusing the NDP of a smear campaign. I notice that Wikipedia has been sanitized since last night to remove any mention of Vikileaks.

    http://www.metronews.ca/ottawa/canada/article/1101662--toews-and-twitter-tit-for-tat-turns-tawdry [metronews.ca]

    http://blogs.canada.com/2012/02/15/vikileaks-attacks-vic-toews-on-twitter/ [canada.com]
  • by Anonymous Coward

    The latest twist is that a trap was set to catch the IP address of the source Vikileaks30 of the original smear campaign on Minister Vic Toews. It was traced back to the House of Parliament IP address and one that has been used to edit material on wikipedia.org in reference to pro-NDP stances. References are here:

    Vikileaks Twitter account on Vic Toews linked to ‘pro-NDP’ address in House of Commons
    http://news.nationalpost.com/2012/02/16/vikileaks-house

    • >Shows that the internet as it is, is never really anonymous.

      Umm no it shows that social media "savvy" people are retards, Who the hell would follow a link sent to an email address when they are shit disturbing with that address.

      • by MeNeXT ( 200840 )

        Unless someone forwarded that address to someone in the hose of commons with a message such as watch this.

        Or maybe not...

    • 'traced back to someone who appears to be sympathetic to the NDP' is more accurate. and, well, bleeding obvious. you don't need an IP address to figure that someone tweeting embarrassing but entirely factual things about a Conservative politician is quite likely to be an NDP (or, I suppose, Liberal) sympathizer.

    • by mykepredko ( 40154 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @10:07PM (#39082429) Homepage

      First off, the "Ottawa Citizen" claims that the IP address of the VicToews30 comes from a block used by Parliament. The newspaper alleges that it sent a web link to the twitter account and monitored the IP of who looked at it.

      I wouldn't be surprised if somebody didn't do a Google search on "spoof ip address" and thought it would be funny/in their best interests to put in a Government of Canada IP address - again, another Google search on "parliament of canada ip address" yielded 192.197.82.0 – 192.197.82.255

      So, it could be interesting to see our various political parties, the RCMP, CSIS, Ottawa police chase their tails looking for somebody that actually lives in Bumfuque Saskatchewan and is laughing his ass off.

      Regardless, Mr. Toews is an absolute hypocrite (just in case you forgot, he's the guy who said that anybody who was against our version of SOPA is in league with pedaphiles), all while dealing with the fallout of a divorce because he got his babysitter knocked up (who may have been underage when the affair started). So, there's a good chance that we will see his resignation come Monday morning as part of the Harper Government's damage control.

      myke

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward

      one that has been used to edit material on wikipedia.org in reference to pro-NDP stances.

      Not just pro-NDP stances. Also pro-Conservative ones.

      It's the public-facing address of a NATted internal network. It could be any one of hundreds of different people.

      Of course, the Conservatives and their apparent lapdog, the Ottawa Citizen, don't care about that.

      • one that has been used to edit material on wikipedia.org in reference to pro-NDP stances.

        Not just pro-NDP stances. Also pro-Conservative ones.

        It's the public-facing address of a NATted internal network. It could be any one of hundreds of different people.

        Of course, the Conservatives and their apparent lapdog, the Ottawa Citizen, don't care about that.

        This right here. It's a House of Commons address, there's probably several people using it. The rest of it is baseless conjecture. One of the linked-to articles is from the National Post, which is about the closest thing we have to a FOX News or Wallstreet Journal here in Canada.

  • Some background (Score:5, Informative)

    by Lev13than ( 581686 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @07:33PM (#39081319) Homepage

    Toews is Canada's version of Newt Gingrich with a bit of John Edwards thrown in for good measure. When he tabled an invasive citizens spying bill this week he declared that citizens were either with him or with the child pornographers [slashdot.org].

    Toews campaigns on family values and "worships the ground that his wife walks on" (more on that below). He is a devout Mennonite and runs on his faith. He is on record for being anti-same sex marriage, anti-abortion and pro-gun. So, what does a fine, upstanding anti-pedophile Christian like him do on his days off? Why, he knocks up his family's teenage babysitter [conspiracy-cafe.com], of course. In Canada the age of consent is 16, but goes up to 18 when the younger party is in a position of trust - such as between a babysitter and employer. The girl in questions is believed to have been 17 when the affair started, so it's just plain sleazy on any level.

    The Vickileaks site (rumoured to be from a Parliament Hill staffer) has been publishing the (public) records of his ugly divorce. What Toews is missing here is that information, once collected, takes on a life of its own. The parallel between his public divorce file and the impact of his proposed snooping legislation is a delicious irony, especially considering that the remarkably fertile prick is himself basically a child molester with better PR.

    • Re: (Score:1, Offtopic)

      by Mashiki ( 184564 )

      Considering the Conservatives are the equivalent of democrats in the US, wouldn't you say he's closer to Teddy Kennedy? Even "right wing" politics in Canada is still far to the left of American.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward

        You must know jack shit about Canadian politics. The Liberals are basically Democrats (centre-left). The NDP are the left wing party, and the Greens are far left.

        The Conservatives are Bush-style neocons.

        • Re: (Score:1, Troll)

          by Mashiki ( 184564 )

          Skipped your basic politics courses in highscoo...oh wait they don't teach that in Canada anymore do they.. NDP are far left. Liberals are left. Many of the conservatives policies fall centreish or even left of centre even though they a 'right wing' party in politics in Canada. They align more closely to the democrats than to republicans, or even bush 'neo-cons'. Liberals align more closely to the lunatic fringe of the democrats. The NDP more closely to the american greens.

          • Re:Some background (Score:4, Interesting)

            by vladilinsky ( 1071536 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @09:05PM (#39081987)
            Acording to Political compass the NDP are almost exactly in the centre the Liberals are to the right and the Conservitives are far right, According to that site everyone has moved substantial to the right, to the point that the NDP are nearly where the Libs were 10 years ago and the Libs are where the Cons were 10 years ago. Intrestingly, it actually puts the Liberals right of Barak Obama.

            http://politicalcompass.org/canada2011 [politicalcompass.org]
      • by Anonymous Coward

        Canadian Conservatives make Democrats look like right wing whack jobs. And I ain't no Conservative lover either. US political parties are scary fooked.

      • Re:Some background (Score:5, Informative)

        by davecb ( 6526 ) <davecb@spamcop.net> on Friday February 17, 2012 @08:38PM (#39081799) Homepage Journal

        The Progressive Conservatives were the equivalent of centrist Republicans, but they joined with Reform to become the just-plain Conservatives, who are roughly the Tea Party Republicans. Reform in Canada was pretty much the same as Ross Perot's Reform in the 'States.

        --dave
        [Full disclosure: I partnered with Perot Systems in my Siemens days: Ross' company was cool]

      • Re:Some background (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday February 17, 2012 @08:48PM (#39081867)

        That used to be true. The old Progressive-Conservatives (Tories)aligned roughly with the right wing of the Democratic Party, while the Liberals aligned with its left wing. However, that alignment went haywire during the Mulroney-Reagan era, when Mulroney espoused the sellout of Canada under the FTA and (most of) the Liberals opposed it-- in other words, swapping the positions they would have held if they really believed in their principles. Then the Liberals won and went hell-bent-for-leather into globalization, restrained (ironically enough) by both the old-style Tories and the NDP (social democrats). Then the Liberals imploded due to a corruption scandal while the Tories were still weak. The new upstart right-wing Reform Party had gained quite a few seats in the West and the Conservatives were down to a minority except in Ontario (most seats) so they figured their chances would be better if they merged. The resulting party was supposed to retain the old Tory principles (national sovereignty included) but that promise was immediately broken and most of the PCs quit in disgust. What was left was what I call the Reform-A-Tories--named Conservatives but actually the same narrow-minded, mostly undereducated bunch who hate easterners on general pinciples, Quebecers in particular, and also feminists, environmentalists, artists, First Peoples, and practically anyone not in the oil business. Most are eager to implement Dubya's policies here and/or sell of the 20% of our economy we still own. Politically I'd put them somewhere between Gingrich and Ron Paul. Consider Toews the Canadian Gingrich and you won't be far off.

        • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward

          so they figured their chances would be better if they merged.

          Actually it was a hostile takeover. The Reformers (calling themselves the Alliance) launched the 2cards campaign, where Reform members would pay for a membership in the Progressive Conservatives to vote for merger. It wasn't even wasting any money since the Tory bank accounts went to the new party after they merged. Canadian political parties have since changed their internal bylaws to stop anything like that happening to them.

    • by bunhed ( 208100 )
      Man, if I had mod points I would give them all to you!!
    • Re:Some background (Score:4, Interesting)

      by tlhIngan ( 30335 ) <slashdot@worf.ERDOSnet minus math_god> on Saturday February 18, 2012 @02:16AM (#39083621)

      The Vickileaks site (rumoured to be from a Parliament Hill staffer) has been publishing the (public) records of his ugly divorce. What Toews is missing here is that information, once collected, takes on a life of its own. The parallel between his public divorce file and the impact of his proposed snooping legislation is a delicious irony, especially considering that the remarkably fertile prick is himself basically a child molester with better PR.

      The whole reason Vickileaks was created was in response to the legislation. It wasn't a well-timed thing, it was a response. Basically saying that since the government wants the information, perhaps their information should be made public as well.

      In another twist, a Liberal MP has asked for the surfing histories of all politicians and staffers, saying if it's good on the Canadian public, it's good on Government as well.

    • by Anonymous Coward

      In Canada the age of consent is 16, but goes up to 18 when the younger party is in a position of trust - such as between a babysitter and employer. The girl in questions is believed to have been 17 when the affair started, so it's just plain sleazy on any level.

      s/just plain sleazy on any level/statutory rape/

  • by zAPPzAPP ( 1207370 ) on Friday February 17, 2012 @08:18PM (#39081667)

    Wouldn't that result in an endless loop of "Posting on Twitter right now"..?

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