[currentodysseys]

....it's achieved through education, tolerance, and genuine opportunities for anyone who is willing to put in the effort. It was not achieved by the decree of a police state.

Posted via CB10

Great point! to right a wrong you always have to follow a longer and more difficult path than the one resulting in its creation (my grandfather always said that).

another couple of points, regarding consequences of "police state" (as opposed to policing state) for consideration:

1. people may react as "suspicious" induced by fear and perceived intimidation (degree and acts that create such feeling vary from person to person). The more aggressive/ invasive or confiding the control methods, the more probable is the generation of sentiments of fear and intimidation, thus "appearing guilty" just because of getting nervous. That is the first step to perception of the state as abusive by some and in extension, if the phenomenon escalates in intensity, the state moves closer to what is perceived by many to be a "totalitarian" environment.

2. in conjunction to the above some people will react as they see the state acting in what they sense as an "attack". Initially this is expressed as disapproval with verbal condemnation and reaction but is prone to escalate from dissatisfaction and to reaction. Play with it too much and it can get a step further; you are endangering some individual or groups to perceive the state as their political enemy. From there the road is dangerous potentially in my opinion. I will not go too far into saying that you create "internal enemies" that perceive their society is been attacked but certainly the result is alienation of social structure and dynamics, at least in the political and social level.

This alone is something that can change the equilibrium of daily social life tremendously. I lived it in a way in Greece the past five years (this is another chapter of the issue, as an example of sociological aftermath of radical socio-economic changes, where police incited, institutionalised violence is used in excess). You reach a point where institutionalised violence escalates and is then creating the opposite effect i.e riots. Plenty of examples around and not only in Greece. Look at the US with the incidents of police shootings this last year.

And make no mistake, I come from a background that really makes me have great respect to law enforcement, as there are close family members in police forces and military.

Both sides lose from one point on and fight a war that is a loss-loss situation (referring to a potential breach in the relationship between the civilian public and the security forces).



Posted via CB10

[RH1Pearl]

For example if a visitor is trying to enter the country with a visitors visa and the customs officer asks this person if they have enough money to last for the duration of their stay, and they become evasive I see no problem for the officer to search that persons device to read texts and/or emails to find out if that person is entering illegally to work.

However in Canada section eight of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms protects us from unreasonable search and seizure, although not every form of examination constitutes search. A search within the meaning of section eight is determined by whether the investigatory technique used by the state diminishes a person's reasonable expectation of privacy. The focus of analysis is upon the purpose of the examination. A police officer who compels someone to produce their licence would not be invasive enough to constitute a search (R. v. Ladouceur, [1990][9]). Equally, an inspection of the inside of a car is not a search, but questions about the contents of a bag would be. (R. v. Mellenthin [1992][10]) It has also been ruled that the use of a police dog as a means to gain probable cause to search is also in itself a violation of Section 8, and that other factors must be present before a police dog can be used and a search executed. (R. v. A.M. [2008],[11] R. v. Kang-Brown [2008][12]) So if a customs officer has no probable cause to search your device you should have the right to deny their request for your password. Of course this has not been tested in court so I shall be following this case closely.

Then

Pedophiles with tons of pictures in their password protected phones can rest easy then before they cross the Canadian border

[Warlack]

In my job, I need to justify exceptions to rules and create a new precedent. Before I started, there have been many exceptions and little reason for them.
It might seem outrageous that I am challenging the Status quo so many times, but even in sales they appreciate it, since I provide solid ground for future decisions.

This case is no different.

Without clear legal footing, we are unable to make the right decisions for everyone

Posted via CB10

[Prem WatsApp]

allow me to hop in: the question you pose indeed would need an answer. To begin with, it is a huge subject to analyse in detail. That said, I will put forth some main issues:

1. Controlling people's phones does not necessarily secure or prevent any possible hostile action (it may disencourage certain profiles and for a certain time period, until they re-organise).
2. It may dis encourage some on some level but proportionally it is not effective: i.e a potential terrorist would have to be an ***** to lay out all their plans in their mobile (given that they would know the law got stricter and now in depth mobile phone searches are conducted): to put it simple, they will adapt
That brings us to number 3: while terrorists will adapt, the measures of control will remain, ultimately converting themselves to permanent measures that will in the vast majority (as in vast majority of people are not terrorists) of citizens, suppress their freedom and be ineffective at the same time.

Imagine it as if each measure is a crack in a window and you want to prevent dust from coming in. Instead of developing a dust prevention measure you close the cracks. Finally, with every step you reduce air coming in, the dust particles will keep entering and at the end the air in the room will be more of a problem, while you never got rid of dust.

Finally, for every "sacrifice" of freedom in the name of protection we concede, we give more and more room to possible exploit of such measures, more control of political structure over private life, thus more power to the government and less to the people. and while for the people the constant argument is transparency (if you have nothing to hide, why are you annoyed), the same does not apply for politicians (deplomatic immunity, lobbies etc). So in the end, we have: adapting potential terrorists that reorganise, a police state with more authority to the government (i.e arrest without cause in the name of national security), less transparency for politics and full disclosure -enforced- for the people. The mix does not feel very democratic at the end does it?

another issue is regarding "if you have nothing to hide" that is an argument by many: I may have nothing to hide as of in criminal activities, of course that is the case with most of us, myself included. but having nothing to hide in that respect and deciding what I want to share from my personal life, are two totally different things.

Final remark: the fact that more and more changes in privacy disclosure are applied in a general idea of safety and those are so much fragmented (as under "police controls", has two main effects:
a) public or personal presumption of an individual's guilt due to opposition in giving in personal human rights -as protection of personal data (such guilt by association is itself a breach of the right of innocence until proven guilty -and it even appeared in this thread as an issue)
b) in conjecture with a) and the above, police officers, who are human and prone to error, are given power institutionaly, that extends to personal data scrutiny based on "developed techniques" as the Canadian border security agency claimed. This creates a question if we open the door to abuse based on each officers perception. This is an issue discussed officially (search the net for relevant associations and committees) and also begs the question if such search results offensive, abusive, terror inciting, bullying. You see, this is another (totally different of course from the global) form of terrorism but institutionalised.

so how do we prevent terrorists from blowing up and killing innocents like it happened today in Nigeria? I wish I had the answer, but by policing and reducing our freedoms, each time we do so, I personally feel that the terrorists have won an inch, because it is terror incited by them, actually just the idea of terrorism, that makes us strip democracy from basic, fundamental values little by little, just in the idea of "what if they blow up in our neighberhood"; if the idea of them being able to act leads us to reduce our democratic freedoms, then in my opinion, terrorism is winning, not the gun war, but the perception war; once an ideal dies, the structure based on it dies a little... so we are mutilating our selves imo.

Posted via CB10

Result in the end is:
terrorists help power-hungry politicians, clans and elites cement their power, dismantle democracy as a system of participation of people with VERY different opinions, views and approaches, and eventually the very reason to protect "the free world" is no longer there, because that "free world" is no longer free... * :-(

This view makes the "conthpirathy" theory that 9/11 could have been an 'inside job' or at least with government participation or them "turning a blind eye" seem so much less "out there"....

Power-hungry pollies and gov'ts win, terrorists "win", too, because they can pull off what they want once they've adapted to the new "rules of engagement", whether committing atrocious acts makes sense or not (sure it does not!).

"We, the People" lose, which ever way... :-(

Our phones and data are OURS, regardless of whether we've "got nothing to hide"...

------

* free to live, work, consume and pay your bills, ... (otherwise, shut up!)


�   "Oh Classic, you are the fairest here so true. But Passport is a thousand times more powerful than you..." (no offense, Classic is a great device, when it's charged)   �

[Raestloz]

Then

Pedophiles with tons of pictures in their password protected phones can rest easy then before they cross the Canadian border

Frankly, a pedophile with only pictures in their phones is much more benign than a customs officer that read out loud your private messages in front of the public merely because you didn't sleep enough

Z10STL100-1/10.3.1.2243

[RH1Pearl]

Frankly, a pedophile with only pictures in their phones is much more benign than a customs officer that read out loud your private messages in front of the public merely because you didn't sleep enough

Z10STL100-1/10.3.1.2243

Benign. Awesome. You probably hang out a lot with your neighbors' kids.

[currentodysseys]

Then

Pedophiles with tons of pictures in their password protected phones can rest easy then before they cross the Canadian border

I would refer you to my previous two posts, answering the "what would you say if they blew up your neighbourhood".

the same basis as your question. What such questions fail to do, is tackle the issue on practical intervention vs degeneration of core principles that have direct impact in the organisation and day to day life of the society we have / want to have/ claim to have.



Posted via CB10

[RH1Pearl]

I would refer you to my previous two posts, answering the "what would you say if they blew up your neighbourhood".

the same basis as your question. What such questions fail to do, is tackle the issue on practical intervention vs degeneration of core principles that have direct impact in the organisation and day to day life of the society we have / want to have/ claim to have.



Posted via CB10

Tell that to a Border Official or Customs officer and see what he says. They're concerned with doing their jobs instead of debating on impractical babble. Take it up with your political parties and change the system there. The Pan Am days are over, we now live in hypersecurity World.

[currentodysseys]

Tell that to a Border Official or Customs officer and see what he says. They're concerned with doing their jobs instead of debating on impractical babble. Take it up with your political parties and change the system there. The Pan Am days are over, we now live in hypersecurity World.

Apparently you fail to see the difference of structured applied policies and their direct impact on people's lives, or I am not able to transmit the message in a way that is clearly explained and understandable.

If you consider this to be impractical babble, I am sorry to say but you are missing the forrest my friend. Finally, I have no debate with Border Officials; they are not the problem, the problem is the structure of the policies that translate to orders these people are given and to which they must abide in order to do the work in the way they are asked to. The debate is on how the state is and should be formulating these orders and control/ dictate the procedures and profesional behaviours the officers have to follow in fulfilling their duties.

anyway, each can have their opinion, but I for one would appreciate a bit of more respectful way of addressing me, in practical terms, instead of calling things I propose for dialogue as "impractical babble" that has to be taken to "our political parties" and change the system "there"...

"there", is the place where the decisions shaping your everyday life are taken and then applied. Ignore that and your view is as global as looking through a microscope.

thanks.

Posted via CB10

[Raestloz]

Benign. Awesome. You probably hang out a lot with your neighbors' kids.

Laugh. Trying to cast me as a pedophile won't help your case. Pedophiles with pictures at least only take pictures and don't actually make others' life miserable, unlike the good citizens that did not have anything in their phone but shoot randomly at schools. Trying to put benign pedophiles in the same threat level as crazy people with guns demonstrates lack of priority, it's similar to putting porn watchers in the same threat level as actual rapists

Z10STL100-1/10.3.1.2243

[skibnik]

Really good and balanced debate on CBC radio

Canada's border agent requests smartphone password, debate ensues - March 13, 2015 - The Current - CBC Player

[currentodysseys]

Interesting debate, thanks!

thought I might transcribe some of it here for people that might not feel like or are not able to listen to it

Former federal privacy commissioner
"it is [your cell phone password]the gateway to revealing potentially a myriad personal details of your personal life. It ranges from your banking information, your investment sums, your medical data, conversations you may have had with your doctor, communications with your wife, your spouse, children, their school activities...your password unlocks access to all that information"

Rob Carey (if I spelled that right), Director of the Law and Technology Institute of the The Schulich School of Law /Dalhousie University comment:
"That's exactly right and that is not only practically and functionally correct, but that is our understanding under the law, that is the supreme court's understanding, that this is a gateway to a great deal of private information and therefore it is treated differently under the law and the privacy interest, thus far has been assessed differently under the law..."


"it is one thing for the police to have the power to inspect your phone or your device, which they do at the moment, entirely another thing for them to compel you to help them with the search. That flies in the face of the principle of self incrimination which is the basic fundamental principle of the entire common law system that we [Canada] share with the US and with other countries"

then they go on discussing that those that have nothing to hide would not self incriminate as result BUT that "very disturbing uses of data CAN be made" and mistakes are made and data is shared inappropriately by government agencies sometimes, so people need to be quite concerned and quite protective...so there should be rules that protect entry of contraband in border as well as protect the personal data and some of this data might not even be in Canada, which means the border oficials would be accessing information that is not even in Canada and it is very questionable wether they have the authority to do so...!! "if you are asked to give out the password of your phone, what is the next step...?"



Posted via CB10

[Alain_A]

Really good and balanced debate on CBC radio

Canada's border agent requests smartphone password, debate ensues - March 13, 2015 - The Current - CBC Player

the program at cbc.ca does not have a video just voices

[byex]

the program at cbc.ca does not have a video just voices

It was a radio show I believe.

Posted via CB10

[Alain_A]

It was a radio show I believe.

Posted via CB10

ah! I C