RCMP Commissioner on the Wrong Track.

Ottawa (November 25, 2015): With a look and tone of concern, Commission Bob Paulson
spoke at a recent Security and Defence Conference in Ottawa about dangers posed when accessing the Internet. (Reference, Ottawa Citizen Article)
This post will consider whether comments made by the Commissioner  are valid or whether they were just more fear-mongering as tends to be his pattern.  The post will also make comparisons between Cyber Crime and Street Crime as a means to put some perspective around his warnings of approaching danger.

(Note: As usual over the first few days, as I reread the post looking for errors and omissions, I continue to make changes that help make for a better read. In addition, when I first learn about something like this (his comments at the conference) it drives me to respond as the suggestions drive another nail to the core of our democracy. It makes me wonder what in world was he thinking and why does he try to drive such fear? He should know better (he’s the Commissioner of the RCMP after all), but no, he chooses instead to drive fear.   Thanks for staying with me.  Cheers, Harold)

Cyber Crime

After reading various articles about the Commissioner’s most recent concerns and his suggestions on how to meet the challenge posed by what he claims is a lack in Internet Security, it seems he has gone a step to far. While he has always been a master at fear-mongering about all things involving domestic and national security, it seem that having lost his comrades in fear, Stephen Harper, Vic Toews and a dozen others with whom he shared a common interest, has pushed him over the edge as he see’s himself and the force as the last bastion of protection against all things evil in the world?

While terrorism and dangers of an attack has long been a subject close to his heart, it now seems the Commissioner now making dire warnings about the dangers lurking in cyberspace. While most would agree that caution is the watchword when surfing the web for shopping and entertainment or any of hundreds of other uses, the Commissioner has suddenly pushed the danger level to Code Red.

Following is a sprinkling of his words of warning as reported by the Ottawa Citizen (Italicized comments are from the Ottawa Citizen unless otherwise identified):

“Your safety, your family’s safety, your financial integrity is at risk and so we need to start having the conversation now”.

Of course that conversation is about why giving the police sweeping new powers to conduct warrantless searches and the collection evidence – mainly personal information – from online sources, including basic subscriber data from telecommunication companies, is a good thing (from his perspective).

Perhaps it is also a warning that Bill C-51 did not go far enough for the Commissioner and  this is his way of attempting to shield Bill C-51 and other Bills from being rolled back or scrapped by the current government.  Without his friends and mentors Stephen and Vic covering his back, the Commissioner must be feeling pretty vulnerable.

Cartoon (Web Source):  A look inside the mind of the Commissioner of the RCMP. Safety for the Commissioner is a bug in every home and a tap on every phone and high speed internet line. (For a full discussion of how other Commissioners have handled matters of Domestic and National Security, check out “Oversight of Police and Security Services“).   There is also a good ten minute video on the subject by Jacob Appelbaum titled: “We Need More, No Less Democracy.”

The Commissioner continues with his list of fears:

“That is where we need to take this conversation, to say ‘We can’t have people exploiting our citizens to the extent that they do.’ Children in the child exploitation world are being hurt at a pace and a frequency that is alarming,” he said. “People can encrypt their communications and they can exploit children for sexual purposes and it’s a little harder to get at them from a police point of view.”

No one will deny that exploitation can and does take place through Internet connections, but is the level of threat commensurate with the warnings being given by the Commissioner?

I don’t think so as this would take us back to the time of Vic Toews and his “if you are not with us you are with the pedophiles.”  Personally, I always liked the comparisons Victor made as it gave him a niche to speak out in a way that made his own party members cringe whenever he stepped to the podium.  It appears the Commissioner was one of Vic’s most valued students of the art of fear-mongering.

Now more from the Commissioner on Internet Security:

“Because fundamentally, ladies and gentlemen, it’s hard to keep people safe on the Internet right now. The best advice we can give people is, ‘Don’t go (on the Internet),’ which is not really working, or ‘If you go, be really, really, really careful.’  “And if something bad happens, hopefully we’ll be able to help you, but there’s no guarantee.”

What? Don’t go on the Internet?”  What is the mindset of the leader of Canada’s largest police force who thinks dropping off the Internet is a viable solution?  Well, he doesn’t stop there:

“I’m all for warrantless access to subscriber info,” said Paulson. “If I had to get a judge on the phone every time I wanted to run a licence plate when I was doing my policing, there wouldn’t have been much policing getting done.”

“Criminals, he said, are now live streaming child sexual assaults being committed in order to avoid leaving digital evidence on the web. Billions of dollars of criminal proceeds are laundered through the Internet. Multi-national criminal organizations are effectively running their affairs on the Internet. There are countless bank frauds, identity thefts, credit-card frauds, extortions, sextortions, drug trafficking and more.”

Billions of dollars in criminal proceeds?  Organized crime? Countless frauds, identity thefts and so. More will be said on this below as we put a perspective around the some 9000 cases reported each year. He continues:

“That is where we need to take this conversation, to say ‘We can’t have people exploiting our citizens to the extent that they do.’ Children in the child exploitation world are being hurt at a pace and a frequency that is alarming,” he said. “People can encrypt their communications and they can exploit children for sexual purposes and it’s a little harder to get at them from a police point of view.”

Not satisfied to leave it at that, the Commission went on about how people are happy to take off their cloths, have their bodies scanned and to be subjected to other “security” measures at the airport because they know it’s for their own good.

Cartoon (Web Source – unable to make out the name of the cartoonist)

To make sure everyone understood he made a detour back to his early career patrolling the streets of a small community in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia:

“I couldn’t keep those people safe if I didn’t know who they are, if they went about their business day in and day out with masks on, or driving vehicles with licence plates covered up, or leaving phone numbers that could never be looked up, or living in houses that didn’t have addresses, on streets without names, I couldn’t do the job of policing in that context.”

While there may be some relevant connections to bygone days, those connections would be tenuous at best.   Take a look at the Oversight of Police and Security Services article, particularly Section 4, to get some inkling of what happened when police were given unfettered access to information about suspects, situations and locations.  As the Commissioner left the stage it was clear to all he was overwrought and as he walked by he was heard to be mumbling something about Black Friday being some kind of ISIS plot to destabilize the economies of the Western World.  His handlers hustled him through a back door and into the back of a black SUV.

Adding Perspective

For those of you who think the Internet is as dangerous as the Commissioner would have you believe, perhaps moving back to books and a hard copy of the Encyclopedia Britannica would be a good option, but before you take the step, consider the following statistics taken from a 2012 report on Cyber Crime (the most recent I could quickly find):

In that year there were 9,084 reported incidents of cybercrime with fraud accounting for just over 4900 cases. The next largest number was intimidation (I assume that involved bullying and other threats of violence) with 1800 cases.  The final 1635 cases involved sexual cyber-related violations.

While cybercrime happens in many forms, 9000 cases among a population of 35,000,000, many of whom, like myself, are heavy users of the Internet, is not an extraordinarily high number by any measure.

How does this number stack up against other crimes being committed in Canada. The following numbers include the 9,000 cases of cyber crime. The following are 2014 Crime Statistics (note, I have not yet learned how to introduce columns and tables in WP):

Total Crimes in Canada          1,923,039

Total Violent Crimes                 369,359
Property Crimes                      1,100,403

Violent Crime (sample types and numbers)

Sexual Assault                      21,000
Assault                                 212,735
Robbery                                 21,000
Criminal Harassment         19,600
Uttering Threats                  62,300
Other Violence                      31,000

Property Crimes (sample types and numbers)

Break and Enter                   151,900
Theft of Vehicle                     73,000
Theft Over $5000                 13,200
Theft Under $5000            474,800
Mischief                                264,800

While Canadians are certainly victimized by a significant number of invasive crimes, by comparison to the United States and many other countries, we are an extremely peaceful nation. We don’t walk the streets in daily fear of a crime being visited upon us, that is unless we were supporters of Stephen Harper and Vic Toews view of the world.

Now what about this dire situation involving Cyber Crime of which the Commissioner is warning us?  If he is serious about having people steer well clear of the Internet, he might also decide to warn Canadians to stay at home and lock their doors as evidence suggests the vast majority of crimes in Canada (a full 99.5%) is being committed in the wide open spaces of cities, towns and rural communities in which people actually live and work, and not in cyber space.

As we hear more fear mongering coming from the lips of the leader of Canada’s largest and most storied police force, I gives thanks the rank and file of that force are out there doing their job of protecting the homes, businesses and streets of the communities they serve. Meanwhile, it seems the Commissioner remains intent on looking for demons under every stone.  The sooner the current government can replace the man and others of the old guard who supported similar ideas, the sooner we can get back to the business of creating a better country and world.

Harold

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