Yesterday, the CBC’s national security reporter filed a story about the NSICOP report into lawful access, which was frankly a poor piece of journalism. The story merely quoted from the report without any outside comment, but more than that, the focus and entire framing of the story was more on the frustrations of police and CSIS that they don’t have lawful access tools—and by lawful access, we mean the ability of police or intelligence services to access your digital online history and movements, usually without a judicial warrant. This is very bad. In fact, it’s so bad that the Supreme Court of Canada has twice ruled that it’s unconstitutional, and that police can’t even get your ISP information without a warrant because it offers too much access to the “digital breadcrumbs” of your online life that it can and will violate your privacy.

This is not mentioned in the CBC story. The report talks extensively about the Supreme Court’s definition of privacy and why it’s important, and why it’s important to try and find pathways for information that still require a judicial warrant, and so on. But how was this reported in the story? A single sentence: “It dives into one of the most controversial issues in national security: balancing the individual right to privacy while safeguarding public safety.” If that’s not soft-pedalling one of the major problems underpinning this whole report, I’m not sure what is. And then the story goes back to enumerating the complaints about how hard it is to access that data.

I do think that the NSICOP report’s findings are a problematic in places because it essentially wants Parliament to thread that needle in a way that makes it sound easy.

In the Committee’s view, the primary way the government could facilitate and enable national security investigations while at the same time protecting Canadians’ right to privacy would be to modernize lawful access legislation, based on clearly articulated principles that reaffirm the requirement for a legitimate need for exceptional, targeted and judicially authorized access emphasize privacy and cybersecurity protections, and define transparency and oversight mechanisms. In light of the complexity of the lawful access challenge, the Committee suggests that the government implement an incremental approach to allow for meaningful engagement with stakeholders and a diversity of input.

I also question the wisdom of encouraging a comprehensive data-sharing agreement with the US, given that they are no longer a functional democracy and it’s probably a very bad thing if their authorities have easy access to Canadians’ data for their own purposes. And these are real problems that Parliament needs to confront, in both the (terrible) omnibus border bill C-2, which has lawful access provisions in it, or how it and the cyber-security bill, C-8, can try and force companies to put in backdoors to their encryption (which at least the NSICOP report says is a bad idea). This is a very problematic area of law, but that CBC story did absolute injustice to it, and most especially about the absolute importance of privacy rights, and why we shouldn’t make it easy for police to access our data whenever they claim it’s necessary (especially because CSIS has a history of not being candid with the courts about why they need information or warrants).

Ukraine Dispatch

Ukraine has hit Russian oil infrastructure in both the Bryansk and Samara regions, which is widening the fuel crisis in that country. Under the theory that Trump repeats whatever the last person he was speaking to says, he was saying that Ukraine can win the war and reclaim their territory with NATO help.

Good reads:

• At the UN General Assembly, prime minister Mark Carney pledged $60 million for stabilisation in Haiti, contingent on the UN approving an American plan for police.
• Also at the UN, Carney met with the Chinese premier, and says he’ll meet with president Xi “at the appropriate time.”
• Carney confirmed that the government is only looking for one submarine contract and two, as had been suggested.
• Carney rejected calls to fire Gary Aanandasangaree, saying he has confidence in him. (He can’t fire him, or it looks like Carney had poor judgment).
• Anandasangaree announced that the pilot phase of the gun buyback programme would take place in Cape Breton.
• Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem says Canada waited too long to reduce its economic dependence on the US, and is paying the price now.
• The federal Privacy Commissioner and several of his provincial counterparts found TikTok violated privacy and didn’t keep children off their platform. (You don’t say!)
• There are concerns that Russia testing NATO airspace has more to do with the Americans starting the process of pulling back from European defence.
• Irish rap trio Kneecaps says they have been given no formal notice about being banned from entry into Canada, and the minister won’t talk about it.
• MPs gave mixed reviews of proposed CFL rule-changes.
• Doug Ford wants to make speed cameras illegal, because he doesn’t want to be tough on traffic crime. That’s just fine.
• Oh, look—Danielle Smith’s claim that she needs to put citizenship status on drivers’ licences for voting purposes is deemed to be bogus.
• Dan Gardner suspects that Trump’s constant unfiltered commentary reads as “authentic” to a swath of the population, which is why they love him.
• Marty Patriquin writes about how Temu and Shein have managed to displace Amazon in the Quebec market, which has its own dangers.
• Philippe Lagassé explains the thinking behind a possible mixed submarine fleet, and what the challenges and benefits could be.
• Susan Delacourt remarks on polling data that shows Canadians largely wouldn’t trust a trade deal with Trump (so why is Carney still trying?)
• Paul Wells recounts Carney’s remarks in New York, bullet points and all.
• My column wonders if Carney sending former ministers off to diplomatic posts to open up their seats means we’ll get another half-dozen Evan Solomons.

Odds and ends:

My Loonie Politics Quick Take wonders if the Liberals forgot how to do Question Period over the summer, given how useless they have become at it.

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.