Two weeks ago, Ontario Provincial Police arrested at least 60 people in connection with one of the largest child pornography rings ever seen in the country.

Under current Canadian law, authorities obtained warrants to identify names associated with the IP addresses police say were engaged in the trade of lurid sexual imagery of minors, as well as recruiting potential new victims in online chat rooms and social networks.

Provincial police were able to identify at least five dozen suspects within the province and successfully staged a coordinated raid in Windsor, London, Toronto, Barrie, Niagara, Sudbury and Ottawa, charging them with more than 200 criminal offenses.

But some lawmakers believe existing privacy laws are inadequate and hamper police investigations, and plan to allow authorities new latitude in chasing down online crime.

An “Act to enact the Investigating and Preventing Criminal Electronic Communications Act and to amend the Criminal Code and other acts” is scheduled to be introduced in Parliament later today, and some of its supporters are attacking online privacy advocates of being “pro-child porn” if they oppose the measure.

“He can either stand with us or with the child pornographers,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said to one government critic of the new privacy bill.

The proposed legislation is nothing new — similar bills have come and gone through Ottawa for a few years now. Most seek to demolish the pesky and inconvenient process of obtaining a warrant to compel service providers to hand over personal information about those police are investigating. If the new legislation passes, providers will be able to track every call you make and every website you visit:

• Require ISPs to provide, on request, your name, IP address(es), device identification numbers that allow authorities to track your cell phone and/or modem, and all contact information including unlisted phone numbers;
• Require manufacturers and Internet providers to install “back door” access, allowing on-demand surveillance without a warrant;
• Allow authorities limitless access to archived data including e-mail and other communications logs providers store;
• Compel other parties to preserve and produce electronic evidence, such as received e-mail, online order histories and other financial transactions.

Together, these new police powers would allow the government to engage in real-time surveillance of your phone calls and online activity without any court supervision or oversight. If it turns out you were unlucky enough to secure an IP address that was formerly used by a subject of an investigation, authorities could begin digging into your background and potentially charge you with an unrelated crime if they happen to find something not part of their original investigation.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/CBC Online surveillance critics accused of supporting child porn 2-13-12.flv[/flv]

CBC News outlines Canada’s latest effort to broaden online surveillance powers and the ensuing controversy. (2 minutes)

Online privacy advocates call the new legislation chilling, and are unpersuaded by supporters who think the process of obtaining a court-issued warrant is too burdensome and time consuming.

When pressed by the media, law enforcement officials have yet to identify a single criminal investigation hampered or delayed by current privacy laws, which require police to obtain sufficient evidence to convince a judge an invasion of privacy is warranted to pursue a criminal investigation. With this new legislation, authorities could launch endless “fishing expeditions” of those they suspect might be involved in a crime, but lack evidence to pursue. Even more concerning is that national security agencies could monitor political opponents, protest organizations, and other groups deemed threatening by the current government.

Proponents say such abuses are unthinkable and the bill is no more threatening than issuing an IP “phone book” for authorities, showing who is using what IP address. But Michael Geist details the legislation is much more than its backers would have you believe.

Without any proof current law is insufficient to handle criminal cases like the one noted above, it is prudent to reject this bill and avoid handing the government unchecked new powers of surveillance. That some in government are willing to play the ‘you are with us or with the child predator’-card as part of reasoned debate is as reprehensible as those in Washington who accused opponents of broad new surveillance powers after 9/11 as being “with the terrorists.”

For more information and to sign a petition opposing the measure, visit Openmedia.ca’s Stop Online Spying website.

[flv width=”640″ height=”380″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Stop Online Spying.flv[/flv]

Openmedia.ca’s campaign against online spying includes three professionally-produced ads that put the bill in terms even technically-unaware Canadians will understand. (2 minutes)

The city of Savannah, Georgia is at the mercy of Comcast Cable, and city officials and local residents are fed up with high bills, the “don’t care” attitude from customer service, and cable and broadband that fails repeatedly, sometimes extending for weeks.

The fervor came to a head in December when city council had accumulated more than 150 complaints from local residents, deciding public hearings were warranted to deal with the city’s dominant cable company, Comcast.

“Comcast Destroyed My House”

Diana Thibodoux called Comcast to deal with a cable issue in her Ardsley Park home and never expected the service call would turn into an expensive nightmare.

Thibodoux says the Comcast technician who showed up decided on his own to rewire the house for cable and began drilling through brick and expensive plaster, stringing easily visible black coaxial cable along outside walls, inside baseboards and up over doors, all in plain sight.

“My house looks like a frat house,” Thibodoux complained to Comcast officials who were on hand to listen to customer complaints at the first of four public “town hall” meetings.

“I’ve never dealt with a company so incompetent,” another local resident said.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WTOC Savannah Ive never dealt with a company so incompetent 2-6-12.mp4[/flv]

WTOC in Savannah shares the horror story of Diana Thibodoux, who says Comcast destroyed her house thanks to an overzealous, incompetent repairman.  (3 minutes)

Residents used the public sessions to vent about long hold times which can extend to as much as two hours, poor quality service, and what city officials call the predictable outcome of a company that has “a stranglehold” over Savannah’s cable TV market.

“Comcast has treated Savannah like a third world country for years, delivering the best service to the wealthiest neighborhoods while leaving cable lines dangling on the ground in the areas they don’t care about,” said Stop the Cap! reader Jenny Child, who has kept a folder of papers documenting more than a dozen service calls regarding poor Internet service at her small business.

“If it rains in Savannah, and it does so a lot, our Internet goes out,” Child complains. “We have called and called but the technician shows up when it is bright and sunny and shrugs his shoulders and says there is no problem.”

Child and her two employees now handle their online business activities based on local weather forecasts.

“If the man says we’re getting rain today, we handle our Internet things real quick, because as sure as I’ll be in church on Sunday, we won’t have service after the first drops fall from the sky,” she says.

Child keeps calling Comcast when her Internet service drops out, but long hold times to reach the company’s outsourced-to-India customer service department have cut into her business.

“I can’t be sitting here on hold with Comcast for 45 minutes waiting for some representative’s nails to dry so she can pick up the phone and deal with customers,” Child complains. “It’s the biggest cable company ever, and don’t they own NBC? How many people do they have working there that they can’t answer the phone. Maybe everyone else is calling to complain too.”

Comcast’s Business Broadband Blockade Prompts Whining When Potential Competition Shows Up

While fielding complaints from more than 50 local residents at a second meeting held to address complaints, Comcast executives questioned whether the city of Savannah was giving favorable treatment to Hargray, a new entrant pushing to bring 21st century broadband into the city of Savannah for businesses Comcast has refused to serve for years.

Comcast complained they didn’t mind competition, but wanted “a level playing field,” a statement that prompted an immediate and angry response from some members of the city council, who blasted the cable company for its attitude.

Aldermen Tony Thomas, John Hall, and Tom Bordeaux all noted Comcast has steadfastly refused to wire many downtown business buildings for cable broadband service, despite years of requests.  Comcast claimed the relatively low number of customers did not justify the cost to expand the service.

All three could not understand why Comcast had a sudden urgency to complain about unfair treatment when a competitor sought to provide the service they never did.

“If [Comcast] did not want to offer that service previously and someone else is coming in to provide the service, where is the sticking point?” Thomas said.

Bordeaux was more blunt in his remarks intended for Comcast.

“Tell them to sue us,” he said.

In contrast to service from AT&T and Comcast, which often markets 3-6Mbps broadband in Savannah, Hargray’s fiber broadband project will deliver speeds up to 1Gbps, first to business customers. But the company promises it is considering selling to residential customers as well.

Great Deals, But Only for “Selected Neighborhoods”

As Comcast’s bad press has become fodder for the nightly newscasts on several of the city’s television outlets, Comcast literally took to the streets to try and mitigate their public relations nightmare. In the process, they created a new one.

Councilman Tony Thomas is happy Comcast is approaching upset customers and offering them substantial discounts on their cable bill.  But he’s not happy Comcast is only extending those deals to certain customers, not all.

Thomas wants the deals offered to everyone, something that he says is not happening today.

Andy Macke, Comcast’s Vice President of Communications counters, “All they have to do is call 1-800-COMCAST and they will hear the same deals that the same people are getting from those reps going from door to door.”

“Comcast’s attitude in Savannah is see no evil, hear no evil,” says Jeff White, a Comcast customer who has watched the scuffle. “They don’t even admit there is a problem until it runs on the evening news and city council waves 150 complaints they are getting at the camera — the ones Comcast ignored.”

Macke himself told WJCL-TV, which has covered the dispute with Comcast repeatedly, he was “unaware of the extent of the concerns that our Savannah customers had with us.”

Despite promises to make things right, Alderman Thomas says many complaints are still unresolved.

“We were told that all of those folks had been contacted and that their problems were being worked on. I have since found a few of these people [who] have had no contact whatsoever with Comcast,” Thomas told the TV station.

“Under no circumstances should City Council let the situation with Comcast get pushed under the rug,” one person wrote in the Vox Populi column in the Savannah Morning News. “We the people need help!”

No Help On the Way

Unfortunately for that reader, and other Savannah residents, an attempt by Savannah city officials to attract competing cable service has met with no success and no interest.  Cable operators almost never compete head to head, each respecting the service areas of fellow providers.  Hargray’s interest in Savannah is primarily serving business customers, and the option for municipal service may not be possible much longer if a bill supported by Comcast, SB 313, ever becomes law.

[flv width=”640″ height=”500″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Comcast in Savannah 2-8-12.flv[/flv]

A compilation of news reports from WJCL, WSAV, and WTOC exploring Comcast’s performance problems in the city of Savannah, Georgia.  (15 minutes)

Verizon FiOS’ “digital phone” product is a far cry from Verizon’s traditional landline service.  Some central New York customers now getting hooked up to the fiber-to-the-home service report they are frustrated because they have to dial an area code for every phone call, even those to friends and neighbors right next door.

Verizon told WSYR-TV that unlike traditional landline service based in your neighborhood, Verizon FiOS phone service is, in fact, a nationwide Voice Over IP (VOIP) service, and uses servers across the country to process phone calls.  Although many traditional VOIP services have since learned ways around the area code limitation, Verizon has not made a similar effort to allow customers to pre-designate an area code.  That would permit Verizon’s servers to assume any seven digit number dialed was within a particular area code and complete the call accordingly.

Instead, Verizon advises customers to learn how to use the included “speed dial” feature to make dialing more convenient.

Verizon’s competitors, including companies like Comcast and Time Warner Cable are quick to point out seven digit dialing is available from them, except where multiple overlaid area codes in the same geographic area exist.  So far, parts of western and central New York have endured area code splits, but for now each service area maintains just a single area code.

[flv width=”400″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/WSYR Syracuse Dialing area code for Verizon FiOS 1-25-12.mp4[/flv]

WSYR in Syracuse answers viewers’ suggested stories.  Today, it’s about why Verizon FiOS customers are forced to dial 10 numbers for every phone call.  (1 minute)

 

[flv width=”360″ height=”290″]http://www.phillipdampier.com/video/Bloomberg Netflix Business Model Not Sustainable 1-25-12.mp4[/flv]

Porter Bibb, managing partner at Mediatech Capital Partners LLC, and Kevin Landis, chief investment officer at First Hand Capital Management, discuss Netflix Inc.’s fourth-quarter results and outlook. Although results improved, a large amount of Netflix streamed content licensed from Starz will disappear this month.  More importantly, their long term business model is “not remotely sustainable” as programming acquisition costs continue to skyrocket, says Bibb.  Bibb and Landis speak with Emily Chang on Bloomberg Television’s “Bloomberg West.”  (6 minutes)

In an eyebrow-raising exchange between the Heartland Institute’s Bruce Edward Walker and Dr. Joseph P. Fuhr, Jr., who produced a dollar-a-holler “research report” on behalf of corporate-backed astroturf group the Coalition for the New Economy (which lists the Heartland Institute’s Florida chapter as a member), the two dismiss Chattanooga’s award-winning EPB Fiber Network as providing lesser service than private competitors AT&T (also a member of the Coalition) and Comcast, in part because EPB “only sells customers a gig.”

An exchange between Heartland Institute’s Bruce Edward Walker and Dr. Joseph P. Fuhr, Jr. fundamentally misrepresents Chattanooga’s EPB Fiber network. At no point does Walker disclose Heartland Institute’s chapter in Florida is a member of the group that sponsored the production of Fuhr’s report. (1 minute)
You must remain on this page to hear the clip, or you can download the clip and listen later.

Walker: The government broadband services are always one step behind private industry and I’m thinking in Chattanooga, the law [sic] that they have the fastest download speeds of all government broadband in the United States, but they only offer 1Gbps service.

Fuhr: Well, one of the issues there is, well, the supply is there but they kind of have the feeling that if you build it, they will come.  Well, they haven’t come.  I mean they are charging $350 a month for that service and very few people are willing to subscribe.  People are, for the most part, happy with slower speeds.  Who really needs a gigabyte (sic) and the market shows that people don’t really need that.

Dr. Fuhr apparently does not know the difference between a “gigabyte” and a “gigabit,” so I am not sure how seriously we are supposed to take this “broadband expert.”  He also does nothing to challenge Walker’s wholly-inaccurate declaration that EPB only sells customers $350 1Gbps broadband.

In fact, most of Heartland Institute’s views about EPB broadband are a big bucket of wrong:

1. EPB Fiber offers the fastest fiber broadband in the United States.  It is “private industry” providers Comcast and AT&T who are more than one step behind, and they refuse to sell faster service and upgrade their networks to the speeds seen in Asia and Europe that Chattanooga’s EPB customers can have today.
2. There is no “law” involved in the delivery of broadband by EPB.  In fact, EPB fought off attempts by incumbent operators to sue the municipally-owned provider out of the broadband business, and some of those same companies are backing the “Coalition for the New Economy” in their efforts to curtail community broadband with new laws that would make networks like EPB next to impossible to provide.
3. EPB does not only offer 1Gbps service.  Consumers and businesses are free to choose between several different speed tiers.  As any commercial entity will tell, you 1Gbps at just $350 a month is a steal compared to the prices AT&T and Comcast would charge.
4. When EPB built their fiber network, private businesses did come.  In addition to media reports documenting expansion in Chattanooga from one Knoxville business, Amazon.com has announced hundreds of millions of dollars in new investments building and expanding distribution centers in and around Chattanooga, in part because EPB Fiber was available for their use.
5. People are not happy with the slow speeds some providers force them to accept.  It is no surprise, however, that industry-funded astroturf groups would repeat the usual provider line that people “don’t need” fast broadband that they have no plans to deliver anyway.