[thinkingkong]

The argument made here seems to be that the power to prevent unlawful access or threats is somehow required to keep us all safe. But if someone was an actual threat, do we really think they’d be using the internet with their own identity? Like if someone is willing to hack into a power station or some other critical infrastructure, they’ll be simultaneously stupid enough to use their own credit card?

Illegal things are already illegal. Safety and security mechanisms already exist. We dont need additional, punitive, and opaque laws that can be abused.

[themafia]

Politicians seem to enjoy corruption. It benefits them directly.

They really do hate anyone who points out their hypocrisy or makes fun of them. It challenges their corrupt kickbacks directly.

I think it's easy to make a prediction of actual use cases here.

[KurSix]

Yeah, it's hard not to be cynical when the tools they keep pushing for always seem ripe for political abuse rather than legitimate threats

[grafmax]

It seems these tools are the threats.

[ekianjo]

> Politicians seem to enjoy corruption

You can remove the "seem". They go specifically into that line of business to benefit from juicy corruption.

[pavel_lishin]

Is this even corruption? Who's getting kickbacks here? It sounds like they're just incompetent, and brainstorming stupid ideas and writing a law around whatever sticks to the wall.

[protocolture]

Lots of language is being destroyed in real time.

Its pretty common to see the following:

Corruption = Political things I dont like.

Money Laundering = Money things I dont like.

[themafia]

Who likes corruption? Who likes money laundering?

Meanwhile, do you have a case that this /isn't/ corruption, and that money laundering /isn't/ involved?

Or is this just a general complaint about word selection?

[ElevenLathe]

> Who likes corruption? Who likes money laundering?

Corrupt people like corruption. People who want their money laundered like money laundering.

[protocolture]

Why would I have to prove a negative?

[delaminator]

The incompetence only seems to provide benefits in one direction.

[themafia]

> Is this even corruption?

It's a tool used to further it.

> Who's getting kickbacks here?

As a result of this law? Hard to say. It's rather large. Presumably they're _already_ receiving kickbacks or political protection and this allows them to protect and further that.

> It sounds like they're just incompetent

It's amazing how often they're incompetent and how little consequence they suffer from that. This is a canard, and, not a particularly useful aphorism when trying to understand this _particular_ law.

> and brainstorming stupid ideas and writing a law around whatever sticks to the wall.

You're imagining excuses on behalf of powerful people rather than examining the law they've just passed.

[gpm]

This bill, which is almost entirely about giving the government the ability to restrict where ISPs purchase services from (e.g. routers) despite what the national post would have you believe, probably isn't corrupt at all, it's just a matter of national security to not give groups like China the ability to take down our internet.

That said it certainly could enable corruption. "Pay us (the cabinet ministers) some money or we won't let ISPs buy equipment from you". There's just no evidence that is why it is being passed.

[txrx0000]

That "almost entirely" part is the problem. They sneak in a clause that makes those restrictions also apply to which customers ISPs can serve.

Even the supposed intended purpose of restricting equipment may be malicious. Why should the government be able to restrict whose equipment or which fibre operators the ISP can use?

If equipment is the concern, then they can just regulate the actual imported equipment. Canada probably already has such oversight like the US's FCC.

[gpm]

Regulating imported equipment doesn't give you the ability to go back retroactively and say "shit, actually we need you to pull out all the equipment from <company> because it's a security problem". Or the ability to regulate what software updates are applied. And so on and so forth. And the government should have the ability to do that because it is a matter of geopolitics and national security to maintain the independence of our telecommunications infrastructure.

They did not slip in a clause which allows them to restrict which customers ISPs can serve, despite the headline saying otherwise.

[txrx0000]

I'm pretty sure there are already laws that allow the government to deal with devices used for spying. There's no need to introduce this broad-spectrum bill that controls way more than it should.

You may have charitable interpretations, but 15.2(2)(d) can be used to effectively ban anyone from accessing the Internet. And it can certainly be used to throttle web services the government doesn't like.

[opengrass]

Huawei gear has been banned no problem. It would not be that terribly worded.

[gpm]

Huawei gear has not been banned, unfortunately. There's been some progress in removing it, but ultimately the telecoms have refused to do so fully. Laws to get this done were in the process of being passed, but not passed, when the Trudeau government fell.

Here's a source from not that long ago: https://mobilesyrup.com/2025/01/14/telcos-slow-removal-huawe...

[verisimi]

Yes, illegal things are already illegal. But, if you alter the law, you can create new areas to monetise or ways to extract private information from legally minded citizens. In other words, these laws are nothing to do with preventing illegality, they are about control. They are co-ordinated across different legal jurisdictions too.

[osigurdson]

It's always like this. Bad guys, unless extremely dumb, will come up with workarounds. So, it ends up just being a war on law abiding citizens.

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

This argument is often unsuccessfully used in other areas; gun rights jumps to mind.

Often the new laws only affect those who are already following the laws. Those who are willing to break the laws will ignore and/or find ways around them (see: Chicago, DC, etc).

[thinkingkong]

Agree that its not the most effective. What would you suggest? What works better?

[tastyfreeze]

The Leviathan cannot be controlled. It hungers for power and control. People in positions of power are deceived into thinking that if they just had a little more power they could fix so many things. The Leviathan grows. The people are crushed.

Our desire for power feeds the Leviathan. To prevent this power must be diffuse.

[bawolff]

I get the impression a lot of this is not just people but companies. So in theory the order might be - don't use any huawei routers, we think they have backdoors, etc.

(Just to be clear, i agree this law is way too broad)

[KurSix]

And I think that's not how rule of law is supposed to work in a democracy