From HHS Secretary Robert F Kennedy’s Facebook Page

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

“The minister could order this dissident’s internet and phone services be cut off and require that decision remain secret”

Free speech advocates have warned that the Liberals’ cybersecurity bill would allow them to block any individual’s internet access by secret order.

During an October 30 Public Safety committee meeting in the House of Commons, Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) counsel Josh Dehaas called for Liberals to rewrite Bill C-8, which would allow the government to secretly cut off Canadians access to the internet to mediate “any threat” to the telecommunications system.

“It is dangerous to civil liberties to allow the minister the power to cut off individual Canadians without proper due process and keep that secret,” Dehaas testified.

“Consider for example a protestor who the minister believes ‘may’ engage in a distributed denial of service attack, which is a common form of civil disobedience employed by political activists,” he warned.

“The minister could order this dissident’s internet and phone services be cut off and require that decision remain secret,” Dehaas continued, adding that the legislation does not require the government to obtain a warrant.

In response, Liberal MP Marianne Dandurand claimed that the legislation is aimed to protect the government form cyberattacks, not to limit freedom of speech. However, Dehaas pointed out that the vague phrasing of the legislation allows Liberals to censor Canadians to counter “any threat” to the telecommunications system.

Bill C-8, which is now in its second reading in the House of Commons, was introduced in June by Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree and contains a provision in which the federal government could stop “any specified person” from accessing the internet.

The federal government under Prime Minister Mark Carney claims that the bill is a way to stop “unprecedented cyber-threats.”

The bill, as written, claims that the government would need the power to cut someone off from the internet, as it could be “necessary to do so to secure the Canadian telecommunications system against any threat, including that of interference, manipulation, disruption, or degradation.”

Many Canadians, including Conservative MPs and freedom groups, have condemned the legislation, along with several other new Liberal bills which aim to censor internet content as well as go after people’s ability to speak their minds.

“Experts and civil society have warned that the legislation would confer ministerial powers that could be used to deliberately or inadvertently compromise the security of encryption standards within telecommunications networks that people, governments, and businesses across Canada rely upon, every day,” the Canadian Civil Liberties Association wrote in a recent press release.

Similarly, Canada’s own intelligence commissioner has warned that the bill, if passed as is, could potentially be unconstitutional, as it would allow for warrantless seizure of a person’s sensitive information.