SPP : "We're getting better all the time."

Stockwell Day, the RCMP, Bell Canada and Microsoft will soon be partnering on "a national cyber-security strategy that will seek to protect key infrastructure as well as Canadians' identities".

"A high-level security conference being hosted by the Conference Board of Canada" will take place on Nov 5 and 6th.
The Conference Board of Canada, you may recall, partnered with the U.S. Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) to launch the North American Future 2025 Project , "to help guide the ongoing Security and Prosperity Partnership". At their conference in Calgary last April their agenda noted : "the overriding future goal of North America is to achieve joint optimum utilization of the available water."

So you'll excuse me if I cast a jaundiced eye on whatever new plan to protect my "Canadian identity" they might be hosting this time round because one of the original objectives of the SPP was "improving the coordination of intelligence-sharing, cross-border law enforcement".

At least Canada's Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart, has been invited this time and will be addressing the conference on "Balancing Privacy with Cyber Security".

In May there was a "Server in the Sky" meet-up in San Francisco to discuss the FBI's proposed shared database of biometric information - our fingerprints, palm prints, and iris scan data to be exchanged among the International Information Consortium of US, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand, and eventually the EU.
Ms Stoddart only heard about the conference by reading about it in the British press.

As Ms Stoddart said on CBC in response to that meeting in May : "Canada has a very weak 25 year old Privacy Act with no human rights standards built in to our agreements with other countries." Additionally she was alarmed by "the conflating of criminals and suspected terrorists", the lack of oversight of the biometric info once it passes to other countries, and the rise of "a surveillance society".

One of our partners in the International Information Consortium is already well on the way to becoming a surveillance society:
The Daily Mail via Statism Watch :

"Every person in Britain could have their internet history, email records and telephone calls tracked under a proposed £12 billion plan by ministers.

The system would see hundreds of hidden devices planted to tap into communications on the internet and via mobile phone providers.

And a national database would be created to store the information which officials say would help in the fight against terrorism and organised crime."

I thought we already had Facebook for that.

From the blog of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada :

"In terms of Canadian participation [in Server in the Sky], our citizens rightfully expect that their personal information remains safeguarded and understandably, could be reluctant to see that information freely shared with two countries that were ranked near the bottom of Privacy International’s ratings of privacy protection round the world."

David Black, manager of the RCMP's cyber infrastructure protection section, says of the Bell/Microsoft/RCMP plan for "the protection of critical cyber infrastructure and the convergence of technological and physical security", presumably to be shared in due course with the other members of the FBI's International Information Consortium :

"We're getting better all the time."

Cross-posted at Creekside

George W Bush's America. Land of the surveilled; Home of the terrified.

So, you decide to set up a little profile on MySpace. You have a sense of humour so you play around with it a little bit. Then you get a little off the wall with quotes from Back To The Future.

And then the FBI comes for you.

Sound preposterous? Not if you're Chiniqua.

Yesterday around lunchtime the boyfriend calls me at work. “Chica,” he says, “you should listen to this message.” He plays a message from an NYPD detective asking me to call him. I was confused, but assumed it was some sort of fundraising request. A couple of hours later I the detective and left a message. His voicemail said he was a part of the NYPD-FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force. [As background, almost 10 years ago I worked as an investigator at the New York Civilian Complaint Review Board (CCRB), the agency that investigates complaints against the police department. It was an interesting job and a lot of fun (all of the investigators were just out of school, which made it a little more party-like than you would think. Or perhaps a lot more). I eventually quit and went on to work on a couple of movies before going to grad school. About a month ago I got a myspace friend request from some group called ‘CCRB Underground’ and said yes. It was a collection of current or former CCRB investigators making fun of the place. I remember looking at it and trying to figure out if I knew any of them, but I didn’t. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how they knew who I was until I realized I had CCRB listed as one of the places I’d worked on my profile.] So it did occur to me that this might have something to do with the CCRB, but I couldn’t imagine what. After a little phone tag I finally spoke with the detective. He wanted to meet up with me and ask a few questions relating to CCRB but about a current case. He was willing to come to my work or home, but wanted to do it that day. I’m not too big on having the police in my house, so I suggested the Starbucks by work. The detective said they could drive me home if I was in a hurry, and that they didn’t want to inconvenience me. None of this made any sense, but I wasn’t especially concerned. Maybe some old investigator had some issue with the cops? There was one guy who did a lot of street theatre stuff, and another girl who had been pretty heavily involved in protesting the RNC back in ’04, and I know that the Joint Task Force was involved in that. More worried were all of my coworkers, who were horrified at the idea that I might just get into a car with strangers. I went and met the detective. He and his partner showed me their IDs. One was indeed an NYPD Detective and the other an FBI agent. They were very friendly and asked where I wanted to talk. I said on the way home was great. We got into their car (a big one with DC plates) and the detective sat in the back with me while the g-man drove. They already knew my address. Why? Because they’d been to my house three times already. In fact, they hadn’t ever called me, they had been ringing my buzzer (which runs through the phone line and which my machine eventually picks up). Here’s where it gets crazy.

Read the good part here.

Hat tip Brilliant at Breakfast