Privacy Commissioner Fails to Defend the Charter of Rights

Jennifer Stoddard posted an open letter on the website of the Privacy Commissioner justifying why her office agrees with CATSA's decision to perform virtual strip-searches of Canadians at airports.

In this letter she outlined the 4-point test that her office applied.  However, the underlying rationale is all about the ends justifying the means.  You can read the full details on my personal blog.

However, her office has no mandate under the Privacy Act to approve or condone CATSA's actions.  Her office is limited to protecting only privacy of information and not our inalienable privacy rights.  Her letter even confirms that she has no business reviewing measures relating to air transport safety.

However, CATSA and the Transport Minister are running around saying it's OK to strip search Canadians because the Privacy Commissioner says so.

The first failure is in the legislation of the Privacy Act.  It should require that the Privacy Commissioner to uphold the Charter of Rights and Freedoms above all else.  The Charter, para 8, clearly protects us against unreasonable search and seizure.  (If you think that airport strip searches are "reasonable" please read my personal blog article and you might rethink your opinion.)

The second failure is the Privacy Commissioner taking a public stand on something she has no mandate to do so on.  For that she should be censured by Parliament (if we had one).

The third failure is the systemic willingness of our leaders to allow the ends to justify the means when it comes to the so-called "war on terror".  If we allow our civil liberties to be routinely trampled by our government, then we have handed a victory to those that oppose our society.