27
Rushing Lawful Access Backfires: Wyden Letter on Bill C-22 Highlights Political, Trade and Business Risks - Michael Geist
www.michaelgeist.caPublic Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree and the government presumably hoped that pushing Bill C-22 through a House of Commons committee past midnight without debate or a recorded vote would put an end to the lawful access controversy. A new letter from U.S. Senator Ron Wyden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee that holds jurisdiction over trade, suggests the opposite. The letter, released last week, calls on the U.S. administration to treat Canada’s lawful access plans as a counterintelligence threat, to use the CLOUD Act negotiations as leverage, and to take regulatory steps to insulate American officials from surveillance demands directed at U.S. companies. Coming just weeks after House Judiciary Committee chair Jim Jordan and House Foreign Affairs Committee chair Brian Mast warned that the bill harms U.S. national security and economic interests, the letter confirms that Bill C-22 has become a bilateral irritant with the potential to emerge as a full-blown trade issue. Given the latest threats of new tariffs, lawful access could add yet another complication in the increasingly fraught trade relationship.



It’s a bad law but its amusing to me that the USA has had measures like this for a long time to spy on everyone but they are now taking umbrage at someone else doing it.
If it makes you feel any better, senator Wyden has been consistently against these things in the US also
Not that it has stopped any of it, of course. But aside from one particular time, I’ve been very pleased with his voting record and public statements