Communications Security Establishment Canada and Spying

We are posting an item by OpenMedia.ca about the Communications Security Establishment Canada, one of the government agencies that is involved in spying on Canadians, in particular monitoring private electronic communications of Canadian citizens, including emails and text messages, phone conversations and video chats.

Government tracking of protests

Newly released documents show that the federal government has tracked some 800 demonstrations across Canada and around the world since 2006, including “uneventful protests” and public university lectures.

These surveillance reports, in some cases provided by CSIS or the RCMP, were collected centrally by the Government Operations Centre, an agency ostensibly assigned to prepare the federal government’s response to emergencies. Some reports on international protests were collected by Foreign Affairs, but the majority focused on domestic events, especially First Nations protests and environmental activism, the Toronto Star reports.

Spying on Canadians: Harper dictatorship seeks to increase arbitrary powers of warrantless access to private information with Bills C-13 and S-4

Bill C-13, An Act to amend the Criminal Code, the Canada Evidence Act, the Competition Act and the Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act passed third reading in the House of Commons on October 20 and then passed first reading in the Senate on October 21. Also known as the Protecting Canadians from Online Crime Act, and informally called the cyberbullying bill, it was first introduced on November 20, 2013 by Justice Minister Peter MacKay.