Vic Toews Apparently Not A Fan Of Others Seeing His Personal Data

from the is-he-for-child-porn? dept

You may recall that Canadian Minister of Public Safety Vic Toews announced Canada’s “lawful access” (read: government monitoring of the internet) bill by saying that if you weren’t in favor of the bill, you supported child porn. Over the weekend, he also seemed to admit that he didn’t even understand the bill he was supporting.

That was pretty ridiculous, and a Twitter meme was developed in which lots of people shared info with Toews about things that were going on in their lives. Of course, it was only a matter of time until someone did the opposite… and started revealing info about Toews. Indeed, late last week, a Twitter account calling itself Vikileaks showed up on the scene… leaking info about things like Toews’ divorce. After that created a lot of press attention and controversy, the anonymous person behind the account shut it down. However, Brendan noted that for a while it appeared to be blocked in Canada, but not elsewhere. He provided a screenshot from Canada where it says no such account exists, as well as one via a proxy which shows the account. If the user deleted the account, it’s possible that it was a caching issue…

Either way, it appears that Toews is not at all happy that his own personal info is being shared. There were some claims that the account holder was accessing the account from within the Canadian House of Commons (something the user denied), leading Toews to demand an investigation into who was behind the account. Of course, as the report notes, it may be difficult to impossible to get any useful info, since all House of Commons traffic shows up as coming from one of just four IPs, so zeroing in on the particular user may not be possible.

But, no matter, Toews wants an investigation (at taxpayer expense). And who gets to investigate those who abuse Toews’ lawful access proposal to access private info of citizens? Perhaps, rather than chasing down a ghost, Toews would be better served to think a little more seriously about the complaints people have raised about government over-surveillance.


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Comments on “Vic Toews Apparently Not A Fan Of Others Seeing His Personal Data”

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58 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

same old story. politicians that have no understanding AT ALL concerning the Bills they are introducing, have no clue AT ALL about the implications of the Bills they are introducing, no clue AT ALL about how the Internet works, are TOO FUCKING OLD to be telling people what they can and cant do, where they can or cant do it, yet insist there is nothing wrong with the Bills they are introducing, even though they are gonna allow infringement of privacy, freedom and human rights. that is, until exactly what their Bill will do comes back and bites them well and truly in the arse! funny how they think it’s perfectly ok for everyone’s information to be broadcast and available to whoever wants it (the governments), as long as it isn’t their information!

Paul Renault (profile) says:

Rick Mercer's Rant covers this tonight

He address Toews proposed legislattion. One line from a preview (I’m quoting from memory) is “almost all people, if they knew they were going to die in five minutes … would take a minute or two and go to their computer and erase the hard drive..”.. Heh.

In the interim, here’s an applicable rant about the Harper government:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWwEwUz45_I

Yogi says:

Waiting...

I can’t wait for these old farts to finally die out so we can just go on with our new digital lives without having to worry all the time about these pompous know-nothings messing with stuff they don’t know.
It’s like having a baby wandering around in a nuclear reactor – you’re either crazy or you’re saying: “what the hell is a baby doing in there” and you’re rushing to get him out.

Yogi says:

Waiting...

I can’t wait for these old farts to finally die out so we can just go on with our new digital lives without having to worry all the time about these pompous know-nothings messing with stuff they don’t know.
It’s like having a baby wandering around in a nuclear reactor – you’re either crazy or you’re saying: “what the hell is a baby doing in there” and you’re rushing to get him out.

fogbugzd (profile) says:

Re:

>>politicians that have no understanding AT ALL concerning the Bills they are introducing, have no clue AT ALL about the implications of the Bills they are introducing, no clue AT ALL about how the Internet works, are TOO FUCKING OLD to be telling people what they can and cant do,

Politicians don’t need to know. The lobbyists tell them everything they need to know. If anonymous wants to upset someone who really matters, they should hack the lobbyist who wrote the bill.

Pickle Monger (profile) says:

I call BS

Perhaps, rather than chasing down a ghost, Toews would be better served to think a little more seriously about the complaints people have raised about government over-surveillance.

What I would rather have is a clear explanation of why the government doesn not want to keep a registry of guns (Conservative-dominated parliament voted to discontinue it last week) but want to keeps a detailed info on internet users. Regardless of how people feel about the gun registry, it would be the height of intellectual dishonesty to assert that internet user history is more dangerous than guns.

LMG says:

“However, Brendan noted that for a while it appeared to be blocked in Canada, but not elsewhere. He provided a screenshot from Canada where it says no such account exists, as well as one via a proxy which shows the account. If the user deleted the account, it’s possible that it was a caching issue…”

Had similar issue, but it wasn’t just vikileaks, it was about 80% of the profiles I tried to visit for a brief period. I think it was just twitter acting up like it usually does as sometimes vikileaks showed and sometimes it didn’t.

Toews Lover says:

What a douchebag politician

This douchebag Toews should be exposed for being a fraud upon the Canadian voters. First, he doesn’t even understand the legislation he’s supporting (duh) and then his linking people who don’t support the bill to being child porn lovers, well Vic the payback for you was sweet. Maybe next time you get some legislation, you actually read it and understand it. This is what you and your other child porn loving buddies in Parliament should do. Douchebag, just resign now.

radarmonkey (profile) says:

Who sent it?

Of course, as the report notes, it may be difficult to impossible to get any useful info, since all House of Commons traffic shows up as coming from one of just four IPs, so zeroing in on the particular user may not be possible.

But … but … but … all the Big Content says you can positively identify the *PERSON* by an IP address! I’m so confused.

Nick Fillmore says:

Harper is the bad one . . . .

Poor old, stupid Vic Toews got his toes caught in this one! He should resign, but incompetent or lying Conservative cabinet ministers never seem to resign or fall on their sword — these guys should live in Japan! They might be more hones.

In reality it is Stephen Harper who is the bad guy in all of this. he dislikes and mistrusts ordinary liberal-minded Canadians so much, he wants us spied upon. He has some very evil ideas:
http://nickfillmore.blogspot.com/2012/02/is-stephen-harper-displaying-fascist.html

Nick Fillmore says:

Harper is the bad one . . . .

Poor old, stupid Vic Toews got his toes caught in this one! He should resign, but incompetent or lying Conservative cabinet ministers never seem to resign or fall on their sword — these guys should live in Japan! They might be more hones.

In reality it is Stephen Harper who is the bad guy in all of this. he dislikes and mistrusts ordinary liberal-minded Canadians so much, he wants us spied upon. He has some very evil ideas:
http://nickfillmore.blogspot.com/2012/02/is-stephen-harper-displaying-fascist.html

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