In terms of “what's the harm?”, I wrote about this in The Globe and Mail a couple of weeks ago. It's a short example that makes the point.
KINSA works directly with police officers to devise training on Internet child exploitation investigations that we can deliver in developing countries. We have a lot of experience working closely with police officers. So I asked one of our instructors what the difference was. “Why shouldn't they have to get a judicial order for everything? Why can't they just request basic names and subscriber information?” He gave me a great example, which I stole and put in the paper. It's this.
Sally is bullied. She opens her email, and there's a horrific bullying message from some anonymous person, just known as “Bully Dude”. I asked the police officer this. The family is upset, and they want immediate action. If you could call and get just the basic subscriber information, how long would it take before you could start working on a warrant to actually investigate? He said it would take minutes. I asked him how long it would take to do judicial production orders just to get the basic subscriber information. He said they'd have to draft it and get it judicially approved. It would go into the busy Internet service provider's inbox with a ton of others. It could sit there for 30 to 60 days. That is just for the basic subscriber information.
I say let's give that information. It's just a bit of information that allows the police to say, “Here is the person against whom we want to do a full warrant.” That's all it does. And they proceed from there. It's minutes versus 60 days. That's an appropriate trade-off, in my view.