Roundup: Spyware or mass surveillance?

Posted on by

As summer showboat season rolls along, the Commons’ access to information, privacy and ethics committee continued their hearings on the RCMP’s use of spyware. And it was…odd. A senior RCMP member said that the RCMP has been using said spyware to break encryption since 2002 (while advocating for legislation to allow them to evade encryption). The former privacy commissioner said he was surprised to learn that the RCMP had been using this “intrusive” technology for years, and didn’t seek authorisation from his office, while the RCMP denied that they were using the “Pegasus” spyware system. And a former CSIS officer testified that they have monitored politicians at all three levels of government because they had concerns they were being paid by foreign governments. But Liberal MPs kept going on to questions about mass surveillance, which is not what this is about, nor within the capabilities of this spyware, and it makes me wonder if they were trying to put a neat bow on this to say “See, there’s no mass surveillance” without really engaging with the topic. And they tried to pass the motion to say “All wrapped up,” but that didn’t happen either. So I’m not really sure what’s going on other than more showboating from all sides, which is the given at this time of year.

Ukraine Dispatch, Day 168:

There was much speculation about an explosion at a military airfield in Russian-occupied Crimea, creating much buzz over social media about whether this was a long-range missile strike from Ukrainian forces. Ukrainian officials denied this, but it could mean that Russians may have to fortify their own positions behind the lines on that peninsula, further stretching their resources. Meanwhile, Russian forces shelled the town of Nikopol, near the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, as Russians continue to shell the power lines leading from the plant in order to disconnect it from the Ukrainian grid so that they can begin the process to link it to Russia’s grid instead.

Good reads:

  • When asked about Singh’s threats around the dental care deadline, Chrystia Freeland noted that they are working on it, but new programmes are complicated.
  • Freeland also denounced police brutality following allegations of an incident between Gatineau police and a Senegalese diplomat in a dispute with her landlord.
  • Chief of Defence Staff General Wayne Eyre says the military’s vaccine policy may be “tweaked” in the weeks ahead (but I fail to see why they would lift it).
  • Doug Ford’s government released their Speech from the Throne yesterday, and while they mentioned the strain on healthcare, they offered no solutions.
  • A number of UCP MLAs in Alberta are distancing themselves from the essay contest where the third place winner was openly misogynistic and racists.
  • Former MP Glen Pearson writes an ode to the late Bill Graham.
  • My column notices the whiff of collusion between premiers as none of them moves to address even the low-hanging fruit of dealing with the healthcare crisis.

Odds and ends:

Want more Routine Proceedings? Become a patron and get exclusive new content.