Bill C-15A controversy growing
Federal legislation outlawing the possession of child pornography is beginning to spark debate – four months after its passage by the House of Commons. Bill C-15A was the subject yesterday of both a feature story in Wired magazine and a radio story on CBC Radio One’s As It Happens. Both stories said the proposed legislation, if it becomes law, will make whistle-blowing a criminal action. The proposed legislation would make it a crime to be in possession of child porn – something implicit to hunting and finding the illegal material since anyone viewing it would automatically have an electronic copy.
Rebecca Warren, director of BytesCanada, a group fighting kiddie porn, told As It Happen’s Mary Lou Finlay that the organization has had to create an alliance with a similar American group to which they can forward tips. Forwarding that same information to Canadian authorities, she said, would result in prosecution. While pre-taping preparation had elicited some stronger opinions from Warren as to police attitudes toward volunteer whistle-blowers, Warren was circumspect in her actual interview, careful not to say that police were actively discouraging her group’s activities.
C-15A is currently awaiting third reading in the Senate. The bill underwent clause-by-clause reading February 7 by the chamber’s Legal and Constitutional Affairs committee, which approved an important amendment put forward by Tory Senator Pierre-Claude Nolin to absolve entities such as ISPs of responsibility when they act as conduits for illegal images and other data. The bill, which will be reported back to the Senate on February 19, has been amended to read that: "A custodian of a computer system who merely provides the means or facilities of telecommunication used by another person to commit an offence under subsection 163.1(3) does not commit an offence."
The amendment satisfies a major concern by both the Canadian Association of Internet Providers and the Canadian Cable Television Association that ISPs would be held liable when illegal material passes through their pipes (CNM, Oct. 18/02).