Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Foreword by Ranabir Samaddar
- Preface
- ETHICAL ISSUES
- LAWS
- Introduction
- Human Rights, Humanitarian Laws and the Continuing Displacement in Sri Lanka
- The Foreigner and the Right to Justice in the Aftermath of September 11th
- Exclusion from Refugee Protection in Europe: An Attempt at Legal Conceptualization
- Women's Rights, Asylum Jurisprudence and the Crises of International Human Rights Interventions
- Strengthening Protection of the IDPs
- French Suburbia 2005: The Return of the Political Unrecognized
- SOUTH ASIA
- INDIA
- GENDER
- INTERVIEW/CORRESPONDENCE
- REPRESENTATIONS
- Index
The Foreigner and the Right to Justice in the Aftermath of September 11th
from LAWS
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 March 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acronyms and Abbreviations
- Foreword by Ranabir Samaddar
- Preface
- ETHICAL ISSUES
- LAWS
- Introduction
- Human Rights, Humanitarian Laws and the Continuing Displacement in Sri Lanka
- The Foreigner and the Right to Justice in the Aftermath of September 11th
- Exclusion from Refugee Protection in Europe: An Attempt at Legal Conceptualization
- Women's Rights, Asylum Jurisprudence and the Crises of International Human Rights Interventions
- Strengthening Protection of the IDPs
- French Suburbia 2005: The Return of the Political Unrecognized
- SOUTH ASIA
- INDIA
- GENDER
- INTERVIEW/CORRESPONDENCE
- REPRESENTATIONS
- Index
Summary
In January 2003, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada stated in his report for 2001–2, to the Parliament that:
The Government is, quite simply, using September 11 as an excuse for new collections and uses of personal information about all of us Canadians that cannot be justified by the requirements of anti-terrorism and that, indeed, have no place in a free and democratic society…
Now I am informing Parliament that there is every appearance that governmental disregard for crucially important privacy rights is moving beyond isolated instances and becoming systematic. This puts a fundamental right of every Canadian profoundly at risk. It is a trend that urgently needs to be reversed…
Regrettably, this Government has lost its moral compass with regard to the fundamental human right of privacy.
These are extremely harsh words, when expressed by an officer of Parliament with a majority government in the House. The Commissioner was referring to various acts or draft legislations of the government, all prepared in the aftermath of 11 September:
Canada Customs and Revenue Agency's new passenger database;
The unrestricted access by Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) to all information that airline companies collect on their passengers and its transfer to foreign authorities under the Aeronautics Act;
Dramatically enhanced state powers to monitor our communications, especially international ones;
A possible national ID card with biometric identifiers, as advanced by the Citizenship and Immigration Minister, on the model of that which has already been adopted for permanent residents; and
The government's support of precedent-setting video surveillance of public streets by the RCMP.
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- Information
- The Fleeing People of South AsiaSelections from Refugee Watch, pp. 79 - 90Publisher: Anthem PressPrint publication year: 2009