“On the whole, all of the bills discussed here are tied together by a common thread. The Liberals voted for all three pieces of legislation in the previous session, two of which saw no amendments despite these and other complaints being lodged by experts and academics. C-13, the Protecting Canadian from Online Crime Act — was supported by the privacy commissioner’s office in its primary aim: to create criminal offences for cyber-bullying, online exploitation and harassment.

At least a dozen Canadians are among roughly 1,415 officials whose personal log-in details were leaked by the hacker group Anonymous at the UN climate change conference held in Paris. Included in the dozen Canadians found by iPolitics in the publicly released data dump are two federal departmental officials, from Environment and Agriculture.

Following RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson chilling warning that his police force cannot protect Canadians from cyber crimes, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale seemed unwilling to wade into the questions Paulson raised about Canada’s legal framework. “He and I have not had the chance to have that conversation yet and I’m looking forward to hearing the elaboration of his views,” Goodale told reporters at the Securetech conference in Ottawa.

In it, they call C-51 a ‘wasted opportunity’ for much-needed constructive reform created as a ‘knee jerk reaction’ to the terror attacks last October in Ottawa and St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, Que., that left two soldiers dead. The book recommends a more evidence-based approach, calling for a publicly released review of the October attacks and targeted repealing of sections of C-51 based on the findings.

Legally, the Conservatives might have an airtight defence: themselves. A few paragraphs below the new laws criminalizing the advocating, promoting or commissioning of terrorism content is a piece on consent: “No proceeding under this section shall be instituted without the Attorney General’s consent.”.

“I’ve actually never been as frightened as I am now,” says Senator Mobina Jaffer. She’s no stranger to the issues, having been appointed Canada’s first Muslim senator just one week after 9/11. She said she “immediately got pushed into these issues” back then, when the security-versus-privacy debate was just heating up — but she wasn’t as scared then as she is now.

The hacker collective Anonymous is taking credit for a massive cyber-attack on the federal government that made multiple government websites go dark this afternoon — apparently in protest against the Harper government’s controversial security legislation, C-51. “A bill which is a clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as removing our legal protections enshrined in the Magna Carta for 800 years,” reads the script for an Anonymous video posted on YouTube.

The cost to Canada of shedding light on the “transfer, detention and torture” of four Canadian citizens came to at least $31.6 million, according to the government’s response to an order paper question. Senate report detailed the extent of CIA torture programs during the Bush era. The information given was incomplete and it’s not clear to what extent the $31.6 million includes the costs of employees of the ministers or officials who were involved with the commissions investigating what happened.