The Public Safety Act, opposed by Canadian civil libertarians and privacy advocates, first appeared in November 2001 as Bill C-42. Withdrawn under a storm of protest, it returned as Bill C-55 in April 2002 only to die on the order paper when the parliamentary session ended. Now it's back again, resurrected under the label C-17.

CAUT executive director James Turk says the stubborn survival of the legislation is troubling, but some comfort must be taken in the success of Canadians in deleting the "military security zones" portion of the Act. "We went from portable martial law in C-42, to martial law light in C-55, to the complete removal of the concept in C-17," Turk said. "That is an important victory we can't ignore."

But he says he is less happy with some of the remaining portions of C-17, especially section 4.82 which gives the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service unrestricted access to the personal information held by airlines about all Canadian air travellers on domestic as well as international flights.

"We and others have repeatedly cautioned the government not to repeat the tragic mistakes of the past by responding to Sept. 11 with legislative overkill," Turk said. "Unfortunately that is just what they have done in section 4.82, by targeting not just terrorism, but ordinary criminality and ultimately the privacy rights of law-abiding citizens."

Turk's concerns are mirrored by Privacy Commissioner George Radwanski who, while accepting the legitimacy of scanning passenger manifests for terrorist suspects, condemns the expansion of this power to seek out people wanted on warrants for Criminal Code offences unrelated to terrorism.

"The events of Sept. 11 were a great tragedy and a great crime; they should not be manipulated into becoming an opportunity - an opportunity to expand privacy-invasive police powers for purposes that have nothing to do with anti-terrorism," Radwanski said in a news release last month.

"Indeed, the precedent set by this provision could ultimately open the door to practices similar to those that exist in societies where police routinely board trains, establish roadblocks or stop people on the street to check identification papers in search of anyone of interest to the state. The place to draw the line in protecting the fundamental human right of privacy is at the very outset, at the first unjustifiable intrusion."