Midnight madness: Govt rushes Lawful Access Bill through House without debate or recorded vote

Michael Geist: Yet none of this cures the core of the bill. The secret ministerial orders survive, the mandatory metadata retention regime survives, the capability requirements survive, the expansive electronic service provider definition survives, and the Privacy Commissioner remains excluded from any oversight role. Google, which warned the committee that the bill would establish a surveillance infrastructure that compromises cybersecurity, said after the amendments that the changes have not eased its concerns, and the Chamber of Progress, an industry coalition, dismissed them as “half measures” and “cosmetic changes to a fundamentally flawed bill.” The companies that have signalled they may limit services or leave Canada are unlikely to read the amendments any differently, and the changes are themselves the clearest evidence that the concerns were serious rather than imagined, since a government does not amend a bill to address tinfoil hats…