Hello! Let’s try something new today – me talking out of my ass. Shut up, my other posts are not me talking out of my ass. They are a combination of me recapping an important court decision or newsworthy item AND me talking out of my ass. This post will just be that second part. Fun! But there is some context, lemme explain.
Hey big news today! And it has brought yours truly out of hiding. So it looks like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) is a go! What’s the TPP? Damned if I know, because I’ve never seen the TPP agreement. Well, no one has ever seen it! So why is your humble blogger talking about it? A couple of lines on a government website have me perturbed. Let’s find out which ones.
You know an internet law story is real news when the national media calls me. I’m obviously the most important and telegenic internet law expert in Canada. While my CTV Canada AM appearance was cancelled at the last minute, CBC online contacted me yesterday for a comment on the Pirate Bay raid and torrents in general for an article that should be up soon (update – voilà). Is the Pirate Bay sunk? Let’s review. And speculate wildly! My specialty!
Sure, it’s Canada Day, but well, this is much more important. CASL is in effect as of today! Yay! Booooooo. I have absolutely no desire to write about this stupid fucking law again, so go read the archives. I might also suggest this excellent substantive FAQ from Barry Sookman he posted yesterday.
I am pleased to report that in all seven of my email accounts, I have yet to receive a single piece of spam today! Well done, government! It works! Oh wait, here’s one. Larger penis, eh? Ooh look, some pharmacy-grade viagra to go with it! Well that was fun while it lasted.
Two media titans talk about the internet
So yesterday Global News published an article about CSEC and Brazilian spying. It includes a shitload of quotes from some internet lawyer named Allen Mendelsohn. Boy that guy is an idiot. Allow me to correct some of what he said.
As the summer winds down, we’ve been feeling kind of philosophical. What does it all mean, and all that. As a practicing lawyer, I tend to focus on the little picture. We’ve got a problem, it relates to one thing, we try to solve it. FOCUS, dammit. That translates to the way I’ve written here at AM.com. A new piece of legislation passes, an interesting court case comes out, some government body releases a report, and we write about the minute details of a very small slice of law and the internet. We’ve never really looked at the big picture and the big issues. Until now.
They are watching us. Whether you spend too much time on sites like https://www.maturepornvideos.xxx/, or you’re too busy trying to uncover some of the governments deepest, darkest secrets, apparently they’re watching us. That’s all we’ve heard for the last couple of weeks. And over that time, many people (ok, like one guy on Twitter) have asked me my opinion, as an alleged expert on internet legal issues. In fear the government was reading me, I have been twiddling my thumbs for a week. Screw it, let’s do this thing. And you may be surprised at my reaction.
I am a lawyer specializing in internet law working out of Montreal, though sometimes I do it in front of the U.S. Capitol. That should tell you what you need to know about internet law in Canada. I also warp young legal minds at the Faculty of Law at McGill.
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