Canadian Wiretap Legislation to be Revived

The Conservative Government has announced its intention to revive wiretap legislation which died with the fall of the previous Liberal Government. Likely to be tabled later this year, the Bill will require telecommunications companies to add surveillance hardware and software to their networks. The Liberal Government's legislation had several controversial elements. However, whatever the pros and cons of how best to balance security and privacy concerns, most observers would agree that it is time to update telecom laws because current Canadian wiretap law was enacted in 1974 when police were intercepting calls on rotary dial phones. Web traffic, e-mails and VoIP calls can no longer be monitored by conventional wiretap technologies. Wiretap evidence has recently been used to identify suspects in one high-profile Toronto murder case, the Boxing Day shooting of Jane Creba. For a recent news report from The Globe and Mail, visit: http://makeashorterlink.com/?G1BE21D4D Summary by: Oren Weichenberg