Let's be realistic about privacy and civil rights

When I was younger - much younger - I felt strongly about privacy and civil rights. As an old geezer now, I find I am much less concerned about such matters. Maybe that's normal part of ageing: young folks tend to be much more idealistic and less pragmatic.

Either way, I find that the opposition of "privacy advocates" to the recently-tabled federal Bill 22 to be overblown and exaggerated. The bill grants law enforcement agencies like the police and CSIS new "lawful access" powers to online data and cellphone records for investigative purposes where there is reasonable suspicion that a crime has been committed.

That seems like a perfectly reasonable compromise to me, although I've a suspicion that, twenty years ago, I would have been up in arms about it. But this is not government spying. This is not some kind of police state manoeuvre. Nobody is tracking our every move in our everyday lives (well, except Google, Facebook and whole host of other tech companies!)

It merely allows law enforcement agencies to gather more pertinent and important information in specific circumstances where a crime may have been committed. If you don't go around committing crimes, this new law will not affect you at all.

I don't think I am being naïve here, as civil rights organizations would almost certainly assert. Neither is it necessarily the start of a slippery slope. It's just a practical aid to law enforcement in Canada, and one they have been requesting for for years.

Hell, I don't even care that much about those tech companies these days. If they want to track my online movements and target advertising towards my specific preferences, that's fine by me. I can choose to ignore the ads - which is what I usually do - or maybe I'll actually discover something I really like. At any rate, it seems like a small price to pay for all the "free" services companies like Google provide. (I'm less supportive of the likes of Facebook, X, etc, which don't really provide any useful content in my opinion; consequently, I have not had accounts with those kinds of social media bloodsuckers for decades. My choice.)