Michael Geist on the Canadian implications of some information that was published in a Buzzfeed article about a Utah ISP and the NSA’s installation of a “little black box” in their network:
The article describes how a Foreign Intelligence Service Act (FISA) warrant allowed the NSA to monitor the activities of an ISP subscriber by inserting surveillance equipment directly within the ISP’s network. The experience in Utah appears to have been replicated in many other Internet and technology companies, who face secret court orders to install equipment on their systems.
The U.S. experience should raise some alarm bells in Canada, since the now defeated lawful access bill envisioned similar legal powers. Section 14(4) of the bill provided:
The Minister may provide the telecommunications service provider with any equipment or other thing that the Minister considers the service provider needs to comply with an order made under this section.
That provision would have given the government the power to decide what specific surveillance equipment must be installed on private ISP and telecom networks by allowing it to simply take over the ISP or telecom network and install its own equipment. This is no small thing: it literally means that law enforcement (including CSIS) would have had the power to ultimately determine not only surveillance capabilities but the surveillance equipment itself.
While Bill C-30 is now dead, the government may be ready resurrect elements of it. Earlier this month, a cyber-bullying report included recommendations that are lifted straight from the lawful access package.
