For example, the survey found that while the vast majority of companies are using passwords to protect personal information stored on digital devices, many do not ensure that passwords are difficult to guess or that their employees change them regularly—two practices that can really help thwart online criminals.

The survey also showed that almost 50% of companies that store personal information on portable devices like laptops, USB sticks, and tablets do not use encryption to protect the information on these devices—despite the fact that these types of devices are far more likely to be misplaced, lost or stolen.

While the survey did find that many Canadian companies recognize the importance of protecting privacy, it is vitally important that businesses take the time to get it right—for their customers and for their own survival. Businesses that jeopardize personal information, risk losing their customers’ trust and their business.  

The complete survey, which is considered to be accurate to within +/- 3.1%, 19 times out of 20, can be found on our website.

Office of the Privacy Commissioner

The case was related to employees of the Hampton VA sheriff’s office who “Liked” the current sheriff’s opponent in the last election. After he was re-elected, he fired many of the people who had supported his opponent.

The judge ruled that posts on Facebook would have been protected, but not simple Likes.

The Privacy Blog

Thumbs -way – way down – to The News and Tribune, why haven’t you told the taxpayers about the NAPD wanting 17 new police cars? Just think of all the newspapers you could sell if you printed the facts and truth about our local government. 
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Thumbs way up – to  Council President Diane McCartin-Benedetti for replacing 0,000 back in EDIT.
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Thumbs way up – to Councilman Kevin  Zurschmiede introducing a seperation of commingling of funds. It’s a win-win for taxpayers.
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Thumbs up – way up -  to State Rep. Ed Clere and Lois Endris for stepping in for the “little people” with our property tax problem with the Auditor.

FREEDOM OF SPEECH

Brutal repression of journalists and civil rights in Indonesian-ruled West Papua, censorship and self-censorship in Fiji and abuses of a free press in Papua New Guinea and Vanuatu have been highlighted in a Pacific media freedom report being published tomorrow.

The 41-page report by the Pacific Media Centre’s freedom project Pacific Media Watch is a
Café Pacific – David Robie | Media freedom and transparency

Liberal media darling Amir Attaran is a big fan of freedom of information requests, except about when they’re targeted at him. Ezra Levant has more.

This segment aired on The Source May 15 2012.

Ezra Levant

Kansas state representative, Peggy Mast, on the passing of her state’s anti-sharia bill.

This segment aired on The Source May 15 2012.

Ezra Levant

To share through BitTorrent, users generally distribute a .torrent file through a tracker (though there are ways to use BitTorrent without using a central tracker).  This tells other users what is available to download and how to access it. A number of websites index these torrent files, allowing visitors to search a library of thousands for the content they are looking for.  One of the most popular torrent search engines is the Pirate Bay. These search engines don’t store the content themselves, simply the torrent files that point to it. However, this is not enough to escape liability when services are used to share copyright material, as was made clear by the UK High Court in April, when it found that the Pirate Bay “sanctioned, approved and countenanced copyright infringement by its users”. As a result of these findings, major ISPs in the UK were ordered to block access to the website, just as they were ordered to block Newzbin last year.

To some extent these decisions broke new ground, as the blocked sites didn’t actually host copyright material themselves, just information about where to find it. They did however go somewhat further than this, and were held to have encouraged infringement by their users. This doesn’t mean you can sleep easy if you avoid actively promoting copyright infringement. If visitors share information through your site it’s important to be aware that you, rather than your users, may find yourself the first target of legal action relating to any infringement.

These are just two incidents highlighting what might happen when copyright owners enforce their rights online. Rights holders have also been active in campaigning for more effective legal protection, contributing to support for legislation such as the Digital Economy Act (DEA), which we have written about on a number of occasions. Interestingly, the success of copyright owners in cases like those mentioned above suggests legal protection is already at the right level, with the government deciding that existing legislation offers enough scope for blocking infringing websites, and declining for now to implement additional mechanisms envisaged by the DEA.

Does that mean copyright owners are winning the war? Probably not. James Ball at the Guardian argues that the Pirate Bay copyright crackdown is unsustainable. Ball suggests that compliance with the blocking order would be a “near impossible task” for ISPs, and this seems correct. To effectively prevent all access to a website from the UK means (at the very least) either taking that website offline (which can be very difficult depending on where it is hosted); or inspecting each and every ‘packet’ of information going in and out of the country. If those packets of information are sent through a network like Tor or otherwise encrypted the problem is compounded even further, and ‘impossible’ is not a stretch. However, it is important to appreciate that while a 100% effective block might be impossible, these steps will certainly make it more difficult to access infringing content.

Another very valid concern raised in Ball’s article is that efforts to curb infringement online risk suppressing legitimate activity. Not all torrents point to infringing material, and many websites (for example: Legit Torrents; Clearbits; and LinuxTracker) allow visitors to search for legitimate video content, creative commons-licensed work, and open source software. Sites like the Pirate Bay also hosted links to legitimate content, and a blanket block of the service means removing access to this along with infringing material. There are also a range of commercial risks when tackling infringement online.  One is the potential damage that can be wrought to your reputation by false accusations.  Some of the techniques used to identify copyright infringers online have led to controversy, and while lawyers have borne much of the brunt of the backlash to widespread legal threats, being overzealous when indentifying infringers can lead to consumer resentment. Tracking online copyright infringement can lead to false positives, and sending warnings to innocent users is not likely to go unnoticed.

There is no panacea here. As the law catches up, technology streaks further ahead. As soon as parts of the web are blocked out by court orders, others spring up in their place, and increasingly sophisticated techniques for hiding activity online mean there could be far more sharing taking place on the ‘darknets’, invisible to copyright owners. For online businesses, and those that want to enforce their copyright, the risks are many and varied. However, so are the opportunities. Just as the law develops to keep pace with evolving technology, I am always interested to see new business models emerging to meet the needs of both users, who want quick and easy access to content, and rights owners, who want to keep control of their creative output.

Azrights_IP_Brands_blog_from_the_team_at_Azrights_Intellectual_Property_and_Technology_Solicitors

A few years ago, they decided to colonize Canada. So they set up a branch plant in Vancouver, called Tides Canada Foundation. And they got charitable tax status from Revenue Canada.

That was very important. Because it let them issue charitable tax receipts to donors, in effect making the Canadian government subsidize those donations.

So they got a coveted charity number. In return, they had to abide by the law. Substantially all of their work had to be truly charitable — less than 10% was allowed to be political in any way. And zero percent was allowed to be partisan.

They got that charity status. And so the Trojan Horse was in. And once they got their charity number, they started funnelling money to their favourite left-wing causes — but still using their charitable tax receipts for that.

It’s hard to get a charity number. You have to do something truly charitable. Food banks, schools, hospitals, that kind of thing. It’s not for political groups or groups that “raise awareness.”

You can’t just be a charity in your own mind — it has to be something that everyone in the community believes in. Like food banks. Not like political protests against the oilsands. Or for the oilsands, for that matter. Nothing in public dispute like that.

But Tides isn’t really about boring things like food banks. They love radical left-wing politics. And so once we gave them a charity number, they could hardly wait to share it with all of their friends.

Here’s how it would work. Take a left-wing group that could never, ever qualify as a charity itself — say, the animal rights extremists called People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). They could never give their donors a charitable tax credit.

No problem. Tides Canada agreed to lend their charity number to PETA. Revenue Canada would never allow that. But Tides just did it.

They weren’t even secret about it. They turned it into a business model. They did it hundreds of times.

Remember Brigette DePape? She was that Senate page who stood in the middle of Parliament holding up a sign saying “Stop Harper.” Well, now she’s part of an extremist lobby group called the Canadian Youth Climate Coalition. It’s a political group, obviously. They don’t do public service like helping the elderly, or training seeing-eye dogs. They are a pressure group against the government. That’s fine — but it ain’t a charity.

No problem — Tides Canada is happy to lend their charitable number to DePape’s political group.

Same thing with ForestEthics, the ironically named lobby group that tries to convince American companies to boycott Canadian goods and services that have something to do with the oilsands. It’s anti-Canadian sabotage. It’s not illegal — even idiots have the right to free speech. But it sure isn’t charity.

Well, no problem. Up until last month, Tides Canada was happy to lend their charity number to ForestEthics to fund its job-killing campaign. (ForestEthics announced in April it was splitting from Tides Canada — and giving up its charitable status — so it can take on more political activity). There’s a term for this: Money laundering.

Big donors — including big U.S. donors — used Tides Canada’s charity number to pay less tax than if they gave the money directly to non-charitable groups.

Tides Canada was literally renting out its charity number to non-charities — they charged a 10% commission. For that fee, they allowed political donors to get tax shelters they didn’t deserve. And to even remain anonymous while doing it.

So non-charitable donations to political groups were being laundered through Tides Canada’s charity number — depriving Canadian taxpayers of thousands, perhaps millions of dollars in taxes, and funnelling it straight to groups who would never, on their own, be allowed to give a charitable receipt.

None of this is in dispute. The only question left is, why is Revenue Minister Gail Shea allowing it?

This column appeared in the Sun News chain May 12 2012.

Ezra Levant