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.
