Stephen Harper and My Part in his Downfall (3): Information Sharing

I don't know how much there is to this theory but here goes anyway.

The first section of the Act lets these government departments send your information to each other if they think that will combat terrorism.  I found it hard to visualize what's wrong with these 16 departments sharing info with each other.  After all, it's all the government, right?

Personal information include data about the 'race, colour, religion, marital status, education, financial transactions, fingerprints, personal opinions, and others' opinions, of an individual.'  This is a select list from the Privacy Act.

At this point it began to seem a bit funny to think of all these details being passed around, unless the Anti-Terrorism Act included enforceable controls on what happens to information after it leaves a department but as far as I can find, it doesn't.

Part 4 of this section of the Act seems to contain the only rules covering this subject.

“4. Information sharing under this Act is to be guided by the following principles:

.

b) respect for caveats on and originator control over shared information is consistent

with effective and responsible information sharing;”

I can't follow the grammar of this, if you reword it the same idea goes:

“This is a principle:  respect for caveats is consistent with responsible and effective information sharing.”  Even then it doesn't quite add up to anything.

From what I've read, 'caveats' means something like a note attached to a file saying whether its accuracy might be dubious because it was procured through gossip, hearsay, torture, weak evidence, etc.

If that's correct, shouldn't the principle read "Caveats must be attached to any information distributed and the respective files must not be handed on to a third institution without permission of the originator.”?

That's more long winded but maybe Mr. Harper or a friend could fix it up.

Instead the clause just says Respect for Caveats is consistent with Responsible Sharing etc.  It doesn't go one to say 'All information must be shared responsibly etc.’, eg.

It's just another way of saying that respect for caveats doesn't contradict responsible sharing, i.e. it's just defining a concept by saying what is not excluded from it.  It doesn't even say what is included in the concept of responsible sharing or that responsible sharing is a good thing.

So if the security police overhear somebody gossiping about you and that gossip, who wanted revenge because you called Animal Control about their dog crapping in your rosebushes, says they heard you say you were so pissed off at your tax bill you were going to join Al Qaeda tomorrow, your alleged words could be put into a file without a note saying the words came via a nosy neighbour with their ear at your window; you could as a result, under other parts of this Act, be put on a list and not know about it, not be allowed to take a plane anywhere in Canada, and be at risk of having electronic bracelets put on your ankles and your computer's hard drive confiscated, and no government personnel would have violated any of the principles in this Act.  

I was going to do more but I’m out of time and a day late anyway.  I'll be back.