The High Cost of Security

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Ever since September eleventh 2001, governments around the world have largely become focused upon terrorism and terrorist acts. Everyday malicious deed done by individuals across the globe are attributed to terrorism, even if there is nothing linking the two except seemingly random violence. As with many other countries Canada is devoted to the "war on terror", regulating numerous agencies which monitor foreign communications and activities with the goal to stop it before it occurs. Are all the procedures and operations done by the Canadian government justified, or even legal? Canada has slowly been implementing new laws and increasing budgets for agencies devoted to fighting terror, but are the extreme costs involved, as well as the loss of freedom and privacy, really worth the minimal increased sense of security?
The loss of privacy since September eleventh is not shocking in the least. With governments trying to uncover the secret plans of terrorist organizations, they must have some sort of procedure in place which allows them to monitor communications of suspected terrorists; although, why does this lead to the loss of privacy for Canadian citizens, are all Canadians suspected terrorists? A form of legislation protecting the privacy rights of Canadians was introduced in 1985 called the Privacy Act, which "imposes obligations on some 250 federal government departments and agencies to respect privacy rights by limiting the collection, use and disclosure of personal information" (www.priv.gc.ca). This law protects citizens from having their data collected and misused; although, there are means of which the government can use in order surpass this hurdle. They do this by collecting something called "metadata".
Under Canadian l...

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...Nov. 2013. .
Security spending after 9/11. Huffington Post. Mon 25 Nov. 2013. .
Security Spending after 9/11 tops 92b. Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Mon 25 Nov. 2013. .
Shade, L.R. "Reconsidering the right to privacy in Canada." Bulleting of Science Technology & Society 28.80 (2008): 80-91. Sagepub. Wed. 29 Oct.2013. .
Statistics Canada. Government of Canada. Mon. 25 Nov. 2013. .
Submission on the Three Year Review of the Anti-terrorism Act. Canadian Bar Association. Mon. 25 Nov. 2013. .
Walby, K., Seantel AnaÏs. "Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC), Structures of Secrecy, and Ministerial Authorization after September 11." Canadian Journal of Law and Society 27.3 (2012): 363-380. Project MUSE. Web. 29 Oct. 2013. .

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