Published on Friday, March 06, 2015 by Common Dreams

'Excessive and Unprecedented'

'In a country governed by the rule of law, it should not be left for national security and other government agencies to determine the limits of their own powers.'—Daniel Therrien

Canada's Privacy Commissioner has criticized proposed anti-terrorism legislation for affording government "excessive" powers to sweep up information from all Canadians with neither due oversight nor the necessary privacy safeguards.

The legislation, Bill C-51, was introduced in January and has been met with fierce criticism by those who say it was introduced through fear-mongering, threatens to chill legitimate political speech and will face limited debate.

In his op-ed published Friday, Commissioner Daniel Therrien writes the the bill "does not strike the right balance" between privacy and security.

"The scale of information sharing between government departments and agencies being proposed in this bill is unprecedented. The new powers that would be created are excessive and the privacy safeguards being proposed are seriously deficient," he writes.

"The Bill would provide 17 federal government agencies with almost limitless powers to monitor and profile ordinary Canadians," 14 of which face no independent oversight.

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Link: http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/03/06/excessive-and-unprecedented-privacy-commissioner-sounds-alarm-sweeping-anti