Are you being spied on?

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VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – The BC Civil Liberties Association is taking a government agency to court, saying its surveillance is unconstitutional.

It also suggests spying from the Communications Security Establishment Canada is worse here than it is in the US.

Lawyer Joseph Arvay is representing the BCCLA. He says right now CSEC is allowed to read your emails, texts, and listen to phone calls when you are chatting with someone outside of Canada.

“Not only will such espionage violate Canadians reasonable expectation of privacy, but we say this regime also constitutes a serious infringement on our freedom of expression,” he explains.

Unlike the United States, Arvay says there is no court or committee in Canada that monitors what CSEC is gathering. “There are no effective checks on the spy. It is obvious that the spy will engage in espionage that goes far beyond what would ever be permitted by a system of prior authorization by the judiciary.”

He points to experiences of other countries, where government agencies have a tendency to push — and even break — the boundaries of spying, unless they are checked.

“Knowing what we all now know, such untrammelled spying will cause Canadians to now censor themselves on matters that are perfectly legal.”

He also says CSEC operates under a directive issued by the Minister of National Defence in 2011. The directive allows the organization to collect and analyze the metadata information automatically produced each time a Canadian uses a mobile phone or accesses the Internet.

Arvay claims this private metadata includes the exact geographic location of the mobile phone user, records of phone calls, and Internet browsing.

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