On Friday the Supreme Court upheld the need for judicial oversight of police surveillance activities. In R. v. Tse.  the Supreme Court upheld that under emergency conditions police may undertake surveillance activities without a warrant, however the existing provisions for this in the Criminal Code were ruled to be overly broad. The court stressed the need of these emergency powers to be well justified, temporary, include police accountability to judicial oversight, and that the subject under surveillance must be notified after the fact.

Canada Post has filed a lawsuit against GeoCoder.ca over GeoCoder’s crowdsourced  ’Canadian Postal Code Geocoded Database’. The case will involve complicated questions over the extent of copyright and ability of copyright infringement to be filed against independent production.

This case highlights attempts by copyright holders to ever expand the scope of their ‘rights’ at the expense of the Canadian public.

GeoCoder is accepting donations for their legal defense fund at their website.

Vancouver, BC – Right now there is a massive scandal in the news involving ‘robocalls’. At the heart of this scandal are telephone messages. many of them automated, in which Elections Canada was impersonated and people were directed to the wrong polling stations. These messages very likely had the intended effect of disenfranchising voters.

The Pirate Party of Canada condemns attempts to mislead voters, whatever the source, and the adoption of automated calling systems to undermine of democracy in our nation.