The Bell Canada saga continues

Bell Sympatico has released their own rebuttal stating they don't intend to start spying on their Internet users despite the changes to their customer service agreement.

They are now saying a court order must be used before they monitor Internet activity which some think may include email. Well colour me confused, why is it then that you change your policy on June 15, 2006?.

Now as some of you bloggers may know after the Parliament returns in the fall it may introduce an Internet surveillance bill.

Which will make Internet activity data more available to Canadian law enforcement institutions, such as the RCMP without a federal warrant.

It should be noted that this law is not on the federal books at this time. The Government isn't even sure when it will introduce the bill back into the Parliament. Which begs the question why is Bell Canada changing it's user agreement if they are not even certain it will pass?.

On the other hand if the law does pass, telecommunications companies across Canada will have to add monitoring capabilities to their network.

Which can take time. Bell being the first telecommunications company to make this change could be being proactive. But they are assuming a great deal. We don't know if this bill will actually become law.

Bored yet? lol.

Feel free to comment if you're still awake lol.

Here is the article I'm referring to from the Toronto Sun:
http://torontosun.com/Money/2006/06/29/1659201-sun.html

Bell Canada to turn into peeping Tom??

Ok I guess first before I get into anything else, I better explain to all the international readers of this blog what Bell Canada is:). And no it is in no way related to Bell South. Bell Canada is a Canadian Telecommunications Company.

Which has an Internet division called Bell Sympatico. One of Canada's largest Internet service providers. Ok hopefully that clears things up.

And I also want to say before I get into any details that I'm not paranoid or anything but the geek in me found this whole issue quite interesting.

On to the nitty gritty in a recent article from ctv.ca it was revealed that the federal government plans to revive an Internet surveillance bill. A bill which would allow police access to personal information without a warrant.

These new changes are supposedly reflected in Bell Sympatico's new customer service agreement which was changed June 15, 2006.

According to the article Sympatico has informed it's customers that it will monitor a users activity and disclose information necessary to satisfy any laws, regulations and government requests.

Which I find interesting because Bell Canada and Bell Sympatico websites don't even have a press release to inform their costumers of all these changes directly as of the time of this blog post.

I find it interesting that they went to the media but the company itself didn't bother to inform it's costumers directly.

And just for the record I have nothing to hide but I don't like the idea of a corporation spying on me every now and then. It is not cool.

Once again feel free to comment please. Shhh, Bell may be watching or reading. Keep watching for further updates on this issue.

Here is the article I'm talking about.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060627/sympatico_internet_060627?s_name=&no_ads=

Note: Bell Canada has a media division which owns CTV News.