Chris Hedges said:
There will, if this law is not blocked, be no checks left on state power. State Security will operate outside the law. Citizens will be convicted on secret evidence in secret courts. Citizens will be subject to arbitrary searches and arrests. Due process will be eradicated. Internal security organs will serve as judge, jury and executioner. The outward forms of democratic participation -- voting, competing political parties, judicial oversight and legislation -- will remain, but become meaningless forms of political theater. Once the security services become omnipotent those who challenge the abuses of power, those who expose the crimes carried out by government are treated as criminals. Totalitarian states always invert the moral order. The evil rule.
I'll wind up there.
Again, the least possible infringement of our rights.... When we talk about bullying online, I don't think that requires pre-emptive redress. I don't think it means giving CSIS more powers at a time when we should corral CSIS' powers. Nobody says, “We're being spied on wholesale.” Instead of controlling that and reining that in, we actually expanded that. It's absurd. Instead of reining in security services, instead of reining in our foreign activities where we are promoting foreign wars and promoting terrorism in some sense, it's a much greater argument, not to be had here, perhaps. Instead of expanding our rights and corralling the rights of the services—the police, the RCMP, CSIS, and so on—we actually expanded them. This is not the least possible infringement of our rights.