It’s a service often used for dissidents in repressive regimes, but if a Conservative majority were to happen in the Canadian elections, the Pirate Party of Canada says they’ll be there to help. A VPN service can help annonymize internet activity and for those fearful of a Conservative majority, it might very well be at least a bit of comforting news.
Note: This is an article I wrote that was published elsewhere first. It has been republished here for archival purposes
Conservative majority. If you are Canadian, you’ve more than likely heard this concept in the past few weeks. Some say that it’ll be a dark day in Canada should the Conservatives win a majority, Is this such a frightening concept? To some, it is. In fact, for some, it’s so frightening, it warrants an anonymous online solution should the Conservatives win a majority of seats in parliament. The pirate party explains the possible situation:
If given a majority government, the Conservatives are promising to ram through a bill that would provide unprecedented systematic interception and monitoring of Canadians’ personal communications. In short, Canada will soon join the growing list of countries subject to invasion of privacy and internet censorship. Therefore, the Pirate Party is preparing to extend the services presently offered to residents of repressive regimes to protect the people affected by the aspiring dictator right here at home.
The fact that some are preparing for the worse like this certainly does provide some reason to be concerned. Could a Conservative majority bring forth a repressive era in Canada so strict, that services often reserved for third world dictatorships may now need to be deployed in Canada? One things for sure, a Conservative majority is uncharted territory for this generation.
“We will provide VPN service to Canadians at a rate of $10 / 200GB. For every paid account we open, we will also provide a free VPN account to a citizen of a nation with censored internet,” said party leader Mikkel Paulson today. “This allows us to simultaneously provide protection to Canadians and expand our humanitarian support abroad. We won’t keep logs of the activity, although we will of course cooperate with law enforcement in the event of abuse of our services.”
The Pirate Party said that those interested in the service can e-mail them at vpn@pirateparty.ca.
Whether or not it ever gets to that point remains to be seen, but if it well and truly does get to this point, it’s nice to know that the Pirate Party of Canada is working to assist Canadians concerned about their communications under such a political event.
Further reading: Pirate Party Press Release
Drew Wilson on Twitter: @icecube85 and Google+.
