‘Pornographers’ crack made Toews a target

OTTAWA — A couple of months ago, a staffer with an opposition party showed me Vic Toews’ divorce file, a public document that someone had retrieved from the Winnipeg Court of Queen’s Bench.

I want staffers to bring me such things, because newsworthy information often turns up in court files, so I wouldn’t ever name the person who brought it to me, and that person honestly believed the public should know some of the stuff.

I disagreed. Toews, the public safety minister, split from his wife in 2007 after impregnating a much younger political staffer.

That isn’t news. Dan Martin reported on the baby and divorce in this space in 2008, which was fair, because Winnipeg Free Press reporter Mia Rabson had discovered the government was thinking of appointing Toews as a judge, and there was speculation that he was seeking a soft landing out of the limelight, given his family problems.

During the same-sex marriage debate, Toews huffed and puffed about the sanctity of marriage, so some people argue that we ought to expose his hypocrisy by publishing sordid details about his divorce.

But Canadian journalists are skittish about reporting on the private lives of politicians, and nobody in the press gallery took the bait, so Toews’ secrets were safe.

At least until Tuesday, when Liberal MP Francis Scarpaleggia stood in the House to ask about Bill C-30, a new Internet snooping law.

Toews said critics “can either stand with us or with the child pornographers.”

This smear from Toews was shocking, and counterproductive, since it attracted attention to C-30, which is bad for the government, since it looks like a terrible law.

The government needs to update the laws that control how and when police can access electronic information so that they can catch criminals, in particular child predators, but the bill they tabled Tuesday goes too far, allowing anyone authorized by the government to go poking into your online activity

Toews foolishly strayed from his talking points and unfairly smeared all kinds of fine people, including Canada’s privacy commissioners, lumping them in with the sickos who prey on children.

That sparked a backlash, and the prime minister wisely signalled that the government will be open to amendments.

This is good news, since it suggests the government will listen to its critics more carefully now that it has passed the items that were in its election platform.

But before the prime minister signalled that the government was willing to listen to sweet reason, someone on the Internet decided that Toews should be subjected to the kind of online intrusion he was offering to Canadians.

On Tuesday evening, a new Twitter account — Vikileaks30 — sent out its first tweet: ‘Vic wants to know about you. Let’s get to know about Vic.’

Vikileaks30 sent out dozens of tweets, mostly containing embarrassing details from his ex-wife’s divorce affidavit.

Opposition staffers and journalists snickered at Toews’ plight, since he was getting paid back for his stupid comment. Justin Trudeau, who was embarrassed by his own stupid comments this week, helped spread the word on Twitter.

Everyone except Toews was having a jolly time until Thursday, when Ottawa Citizen reporter Vito Pilieci sent an email to Vikileaks30 with a link to a website.

When somebody clicked on that link, the trap was sprang, and Pilieci was able to trace Vikileaks30 to an IP address, the electronic signature of a particular computer, which turned out to be on Parliament Hill.

That IP address also was linked to some Wikipedia pages where someone had written pro-ndp comments, which the Citizen reported.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird took that to mean that the NDP was behind Vikileaks30, and he furiously attacked them in the House on Friday.

“Not only have they stooped to the lowest of the lows, but they have been running this nasty Internet dirty-trick campaign with taxpayers’ money,” he said. Well, maybe. The same IP address also is linked to a blog celebrating the music of Paul Simon, which is au- thored by a non-partisan House of Commons employee.

It may be that that person is a secret NDP supporter, and enemy of Vic Toews, or it may be that there is some confusion over the IP address. I’m told that the person isn’t the type for online shenanigans, and he denied it flat out when asked.

Toews has asked for an investigation, and the Speaker has asked the House of Commons IT guys to look into it.

Vikileaks30 has gone silent. Toews is calling for his tormentor to be tracked down. Somebody who works on Parliament Hill is nervously wondering whether Big Brother is going to find out what they’ve been doing online.

But Vikileaks30 hasn’t broken any laws, so it’s hard to know how far the Speaker should go. Did Vikileaks30 have a reasonable expectation of privacy? Should the Speaker reveal the online activity of people on Parliament Hill? Is he Big Brother’s helper?

It’s an apt parable for the Internet age, the kind of thing we need to think about as we sit down to write the laws to control life on the electronic frontier.