We knew that Harper and civil liberties were like an oil spill and water. Nothing good could come of that combination. After all, it's what gave us C-51.
In no time it's been shown that C-51 has become a powerful suppressant of press freedom in Canada. CBC News has a report on La Presse journo, Patrick LaGace and how the Montreal police were able to use Harper's new police state laws to obtain 24-warrants this past year to monitor LaGace's iPhone.
"The new powers that the police have to survey Canadians are absolutely horrifying, they're basically limitless, there's very little oversight, and when that happens the system will be ripe for abuse, and this is just an example of how it's abused," said Tom Henheffer, executive director of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression.
LaGace says this was an exercise in pure intimidation:
Lagacé said police told him he was being used as a "tool" in an investigation into one of its own officers.
"I was flabbergasted because I thought that in this country it takes very, very serious motives to track and spy on a journalist like that — motives that are so serious that's it's never happened before," Lagacé said in an interview with CBC News on Monday.
"My metadata was transferred to the police. The police had the right to activate the GPS in my phone — to locate me at any time. I lived in this fiction that this could not happen in this country."
And there's more, much more:
At the same time, the RCMP has been trying to get a reporter from Vice News to hand over background materials used for stories on a suspected terrorist.
Last May, CBC News revealed that a rogue group of Mounties investigating the leak of a secret document spied on two Canadian journalists for more than a week without any authorization.
So, Justin, don't be a total dick. You've got the big majority. Fix this. NOW!
