Canada says it monitors foreign phone, internet traffic

Reuters ^ | June 10, 2013 | David Ljunggren

[rickmichaels]

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada's government on Monday declined to say whether it was using data gathered by a secret U.S. government eavesdropping program, but confirmed its own secret signals intelligence agency was monitoring foreign phone and internet traffic.

[cripplecreek]

What Canada does is Canada’s business.

[no-to-illegals]

Must have been a deal struck. Bet Canada goes after reporters too.

[Gay State Conservative]

It’s obviously up to Canadians to decide if they’re OK with that.I wouldn’t trust *my* current leaders with my grandson’s shoe size but maybe Canada’s current leaders are made of more decent stuff.

[Vendome]

Don’t care.

Canaduh can do whatever they want, in there country.

[goodnesswins]

KEY WORD...."foreign"

[PA Engineer]

signals intelligence agency was monitoring foreign phone and internet traffic.

What was recently "revealed" was our country (FISA warrant) was monitoring only internal traffic. The muddying of the waters has already begun.

[mountainlion]

Under the Echelon program England, Canada or the USA did not spy on their own people but another country spied on their country like say Canada spied on the USA while USA spied on England and England spied on Canada.

[Sparticus]

In case folks don’t get the ramifications, the NATO nations have long been rumoured to have a sort of “Throw Grandma from the Train” network going on where they all circumvent their own laws against surveilling their local populous by making agreements amongst themselves. “I’ll spy on your folks and share the info with you if you’ll spy on mine.”

[basil]

Unless you have relatives living in Canada and you talk with them over the phone...............

[okie01]

It’s obviously up to Canadians to decide if they’re OK with that.I wouldn’t trust *my* current leaders with my grandson’s shoe size but maybe Canada’s current leaders are made of more decent stuff.

Phone calls and letters sent overseas or originating overseas have never had 4th Amendment protection. Any more than your luggage has 4th Amendment protection when you are entering or exiting the country.

There has never been a legitimate Constitutional issue regarding the federal government seeking the metadata -- or even the content -- of these communications. E.g., all letters to Europe during WW II were intercepted, opened and inspected at Bermuda.

But the Patriot Act does not afford the federal government unfettered access to the metadata or content of strictly domestic communications -- unless there is a warrant, issued with probable cause, for specific names and phone numbers.

[cripplecreek]

Its Canada, I don’t care what their laws are even if they are monitoring my calls into their country. That doesn’t make it acceptable for my own country to unconstitutionally monitor me.

[Beowulf9]

But then, if they discovered something really bad, that threatened Canada, what would they do?

I don’t think they have a particularly strong defense system.

Let’s face it, in the event of WWIII Canada will be our ‘ally’. Meaning WE defend THEM.

[rickmichaels]

Perhaps, but we’ll do our very best.

[BobL]

If all that is monitored is traffic crossing borders, then NO PROBLEM from this FReeper. That is the purpose of border control. Cross the border, in either direction, and YOU ARE subject to full search. Send a package, same thing. Send CDs and DVDs, same thing. So send an E-Mail, it should be the same thing.

But once they get into monitoring internal communications without a warrant, I have a BIG PROBLEM.

[cripplecreek]

Defensively we act pretty much as a single country. I believe flights in and out of Selfridge ANG base often pass through Canadian airspace with no problems.

[basil]

I actually don’t care at all. If anyone is monitoring my calls, that person seriously needs to get a life..........unless he likes being bored out of his gourd—LOL!

[Gay State Conservative]

But then, if they discovered something really bad, that threatened Canada, what would they do?

If the threat is still on our side of the border they'd call their spook counterpart here and ask us to deal with him/her.If the threat has gotten into Canada I'm sure they have ways of dealing with it.

[jsanders2001]

The MSM is going to start reporting that every country spies on it’s own people. If everyone else is doing it. It must be okay..../s

[Theoria]

'But the Patriot Act does not afford the federal government unfettered access to the metadata or content of strictly domestic communications -- unless there is a warrant, issued with probable cause, for specific names and phone numbers.'

The Gov't is in essence copying everything, the metadata, all data and storing it.

Then the rubberstamp FISA allows Gov't to open the contents.

Are you gonna argue that Gov't has the authority to 'copy' everything and store it?

Then we get into various State and Federal laws. Many states do not allow the recording and phone calls, data, ie Maryland. It would be a nice bottle of joy to see a State sue the Feds over such intercepts.