Canada is considering legislation that would limit online content availability and allow sites to be booted offline easily

• It is an Internet that would seek to cut off subscriber access based on mere allegations of wrongdoing, without due process or oversight from a judge or jury.
• While the term lawful access sounds innocuous, the program, which dates back to 2002, represents law enforcement's desire to re-make Canada's networks to allow for lawful interception of private communications.
• If lawful access becomes reality, Canada's telecommunications service providers (TSPs) will be required to refit their networks to allow for real-time interception of communications, to have the capability of simultaneously intercepting multiple transmissions, and to provide detailed subscriber information to law enforcement authorities without a court order within 72 hours.
• Moreover, Canada's service providers will be subject to inspections and required to provide the government with reports on the technical capabilities of their networks.
• All of these changes come at an enormous cost --- both financially (hundreds of millions of dollars in new technology) and to our personal privacy.
• For example, Vonage (the leading independent Voice-over-IP provider) recently filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission in the U.S. alleging that an unnamed Internet service provider was blocking its service.
• Last week, the provider agreed to stop and to pay a fine to the FCC.
• Observers have long feared that ISPs would succumb to economic self-interest, engaging in "packet preferencing" by blocking or slowing data coming from competing sites or services.
• As the leading Canadian ISPs roll out their own VoIP services, many may look at competing services in the same way and seek to limit the use of their network.
• Stopping such interference requires a strong CRTC, yet with Industry Minister David Emerson's planned review of Canada's telecommunications law, some industry experts fear that Canada is heading in the opposite direction.