At least three articles informing Canadians about the proposed “Bill C-51” more formally called the “Lawful Access” law have suddenly been taken down from Canadian news sites.
The proposed bill will allow the Canadian government to require internet service providers to monitor and log the online and cellular activities of their customers and will give the government the ability to instruct authorities to subpoena these records with only a simple warrant.
The discovery was made public tonight by the Occupy Canada Facebook group, who released the following statement:
BREAKING NEWS: HARPER TOOK LESSONS FROM THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT?
MEDIA CENSORSHIP Search this into Google “bill C- 51 ottawa citizen”, 9 hours ago these 3 identical articles were posted on the Ottawa citizen, Calgary herald, and Montreal gazette, It said Bill C-51 was to be introduced by the Harper government on Monday. All articles have been removed from the websites, but are still searchable on google. Misinformation, or the wrong bill#? or censorship? – Posted by Derek Soberal , Thanks Mainstream corporate media.The bill would make it mandatory for telecom providers, ISPs and search engines to monitor, store, retain and not disclose e-mail, Internet and telephone communications at the request of law and security officials. No warrant necessary.
PROOF
Article still available here: www.globaltvedmonton.com/new+law+could+open+window+for+police+to+view+canadians+online+habits/6442578849/story.html
Removed by Calgary Harald : http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/could+open+window+police+view+online+habits/6139169/story.html
Removed by Montreal Gazette : http://www.montrealgazette.com/news/Bill+could+allow+police+view+people+surfing+habits/6139117/story.html
Removed by Ottawa Citizen : http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Bill+could+allow+police+view+people+surfing+habits/6139134/story.html
Although the reason for the articles being removed from the sites is still yet to be explained, of the remaining articles still available online, the Global Edmonton news site explained why this new law is unsettling to many Canadians.
Michael Geist, a law professor at the University of Ottawa, and an outspoken critic of the law, said he’s worried about all the information police will have access to without a warrant.
“It could include anything from email addresses to IP addresses and cellphone-identified numbers,” Geist said. “The ability to use that kind of information in a highly sensitive way without any real oversight is very real.”
As an example of the new powers, Geist said authorities would be able to use equipment to isolate cellphone numbers of people attending a protest, and then be able to ask a cellphone company to disclose personal information of the people attached to those cellphone numbers.
Geist said Canadians also should be concerned that the information obtained by police here could be shared with their counterparts around the world.
The bill is scheduled to be submitted to Parliament on Monday by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, and with a Conservative majority in both the House and the Senate, blocking of the bill seems extremely unlikely.
Update: As of approximately 2:15AM Sunday, February 12th the articles in question that had been removed from the internet all returned without explanation.
Jeromie Williams Eats The Internet For Breakfast 
The article was not put back up in its original form. Read the Calgary Herald or Global Edmonton version – http://www.calgaryherald.com/technology/could+open+window+police+view+online+habits/6139169/story.html
and read how it now appears in The Citizen and Gazette
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/Bill+could+allow+police+view+people+surfing+habits/6139134/story.html
Now.. notice the diffences? Shouldn’t be hard to spot…
This was not an accident. This was not a glitch. This was intentional.
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All those papers are part of the Canada.com network. Could be that some network maintenance was the reason for appearnace of a take down. The articles came back up after 12:00am.
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The three articles in question were posted by The Calgary Herald, The Montreal Gazette, and The Ottawa Citizen. All three are owned by The Postmedia Network. So there may not be a conspiracy to remove information; it may just be that they needed to make edits (though I will say that the Postmedia outlets were big supporters of the Conservatives during the election and all their papers endorsed the party).
Beyond the issue of this bill, which is appalling and obviously the story here, I think the removal of these articles speaks loudly of the problems of media ownership in Canada. How can we be sure we are getting timely and thoughtful reporting and analysis if all the media outlets are owned by the same company?
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As of this writing, the Calgary Herald article is available on their website. It’s the second article listed under “Technology.”
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This isn’t the conspiracy you’d like it to be, folks. You’ll notice the Vancouver Sun, Montreal Gazette, Calgary Herald and Ottawa Citizen are all part of the Canada.com news network. This digital “oops” has been happening for some time and isn’t unique to C-51; it’s been going on well before October, when I first noticed the odd article here and there going missing for a few hours after first posting.
Sorry, but nothing to see here. If only it were true, then I’d have some cause for alarm.
Consider this: If, *IF* there were a censorship campaign, any half-witted totalitarian would make sure to remove ALL copies and not leave a few sitting around.
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Join this if you’d like some overall internationnal news!
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