Harper's Latest Crime Bill

It's been a strange day here in the frozen north.

It started when I read a column by Globe and Mail columnist Margaret Wente - for likely the first time in history I agreed with her. Had it not been for a staff meeting at the office I might have stayed home and rested in a dark, quiet room all day.

A furor has arisen over the Harper Conservative's latest crime Bill -  the Protecting Children From Internet Predators Act. As Wente points out it really should be called Licence to Snoop Law. That’s because the bill would give police the power to acquire detailed information about who you are online, without answering to anyone about why.

I suppose if the police were models of virtue and never abused their legal authority it would be all well and good; they'd only be searching out bad guys and gals. Well kids, I hate to break it to you but there are loads of examples where police acted improperly for their own self-interest. I don't want the police being able to view my e-mails, internet usage data, etc with unfettered access.

As with everything Harper does the timing is off just a smidge. Harper, tough on crime, rammed through legislation banning the gun registry since it was an unnecessary intrusion into the lives of innocent Canadians.

Legislation allowing authorities to access all of your private internet actions whenever, wherever, without any oversight apparently is just fine.

Of course the government has introduced this bill with their usual divisive and hamfisted manner. The other in Parliament the Justice Minister Toews declared that 'you're with the government or you're with the child pornographers' when questioned about the bill. He has come to regret accusing all those who oppose the bill child pornographers.

With their usual creativity, anonomyous Canadians have taken to the internet to protest the bill. A new twitter account was created and it's been streaminginformation about Toews non-stop for days. Sordid information - cheating on his wife, a love child, convictions, expense accounts, and on and on. This sharing of private information about elected officials is not normal here in the land of the frozen tundra.

Then some wag started a new hashtag #TellVicEverything and invited Canadians to tweet inane posts since Vic thought our lives should be an open book to the authorities . . .

The subversive logic of the protest runs like this.

If Vic Toews wants to know everything about us, perhaps we should just tell him.

All day long, Canadians coast to coast have been tweeting Toews ‘s own Twitter account with the most banal, mundane details of their lives.

Here is a sample of some tweets:

That cashew I lost this morning turned up in my bra. It smelled like perfume, but I still ate it. @toewsvic #tellviceverything

Hey @toewsvic, I used black beans even though the recipe called for kidney beans. #tellviceverything

Hey, @ToewsVic, ovulating. #TellVicEverything

@ToewsVic Why do I always get stuck changing the toilet paper? #TellVicEverything

I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico. #TellVicEverything

.@ToewsVic My puppy pees when she's excited and now my husband has to change his pants. We're going to be late for band! #TellVicEverything

@toewsvic Always assume a 3 year old licked the cookie dough when buying bake sale goodies #TellVicEverything

I could post more but it is the number on trending hash tag in Canada right now - more than 1000 tweets popped up while I was writing this post.

I hate bullies and love Canadians who are standing up to these pinheads.

Comments

[girasoli]

A similar bill tried to make it through the Hawaii State Legislature recently. People here also went ballistic on twitter. Isn't it great how twitter is keeping these idiots in check? I love the way your fellow Canadians reacted. Very clever!

[JDeQ]

It's neat in a way to watch protest take to the internet1 :-)