Misapplication of Criminal Code 326 - 327

[Kodger]

I raise the issue that the Criminal Code offences related to Theft of Telecommunications at sections 326 and 327 no longer apply to DTH satellite TV piracy since the Federal government updated the regulatory statutes to divide "telecommunications" and "broadcasting" into different categories in the 90's.

Here is a review of my observations from which I drew the opinion that the Criminal Code does not apply to satellite piracy and that the Radiocommunication Act applies.

1) Municipal and Provincial police do not enforce Federal Regulatory Statutes - the RCMP does. Provincial Crown Attorneys resorted to the Criminal Code since they do not have the authority to enforce the Radiocommunication Act. This is an abuse of process and a misapplication of law.

2) When circumstances and evidence of satellite piracy are realized a regulatory infraction under the Radiocommunication Act Section 10(1)(b) has occurred. Either call in the Federal authorities or drop the investigation. This is not a provincial matter. Municipal and Provincial police have no authority to enforce Broadcasting or Telecommunications Law. This an example of ultra vires.

3) DTH satellite broadcast undertaking is governed under the FEDERAL Broadcasting Act and specifically by the CRTC through the CRTC Broadcasting Distribution Regulations which were adopted in 1997.

4) The Telecommunications Act became law in 1991 and was amended in 1998. Telecommunications no longer includes Broadcasting or Broadcast Undertaking. This is explicitly stated in Section 4 of the Act.

This amendment was done to synchronize the modern internationally recognized definition of basic telecommunication which excludes broadcasting.

The amended Act added a definition for "Telecommunications Service Provider".

5) The Radiocommunication Act repealed the definition of the word "telecommunications" to avoid confusion with the objective of the Act.

6) The Broadcasting Act became law in 1993 and was amended later in that decade.

7) The Criminal Code sections of 326 and 327 do not reflect the changes in Telecommunications and Broadcasting law. These sections of the code are subordinate elements of the Telecommunications Act since the very definition of "telecommunication facility" and "telecommunications service" come directly from the Telecommunication Act.

8) A person cannot steal telecommunications unless that telecommuncations facility or service is recognized under law as a telecommunications service provider. Both the CRTC and Industry Canada maintain a TPS list.

9) The general purpose and now legally defunct definition of "telecommunications" found in the Criminal Code may not be misapplied for matters of satellite piracy when a specific regulatory offence has been created by parliament to deal with offences of theft from providers of subscription programming services and network feeds or more specifically theft from Broadcasting Distribution Undertakings.


Ultimately the issue I raise is related to "ultra vires" and a number of overly zealous provincial authorities engaged in 'testing' the law.

Let's be clear. Satellite Piracy or theft of subscription television programming is a Federal Regulatory matter and not a Criminal Code matter.

Furthermore the criminal code states at Section 12:

"Where an act or omission is an offence under more than one Act of Parliament, whether punishable by indictment or on summary conviction, a person who does the act or makes the omission is, unless a contrary intention appears, subject to proceedings under any of those Acts, but is not liable to be punished more than once for the same offence. "

R.S., c. C-34, s. 11.

hxxp://www.iijcan.org/ca/sta/c-46/sec12.html

[diasharp]

spragger when will you learn?

give it up man.

[Gunsmoke2 - GS2]

He posted at Interesting devices where it appears no one agreed with him. I am wondering if he testing out his theories on sites before he tries in Court and is one of those who haven't accepted yet its illegal in Canada to steal signals.




There is no misapplication of section 327.





GS2

[pentium101]

It amazes me that some still haven't realized that decoding an encrypted signal is stealing.

The fact that the signal cannot be detected using any of our 5 senses doesn't make decrypting it any less illegal to do.

[fixer1]

I guess that people just ignore the facts that all of this is illegal and hope to claim ignorance as their defence. There is not even a shadow of doubt that all of this is illegal and the only reason I got my criminal charges dropped was because they required a much higher proof, then the summary judgement part of the law. So it was used as a bargaining chip, but had they wanted to invest in more investigation and more time and money I would have not been able to defend against any of the charges or had them reduced. This was made clear I thought before in my postings about this on this and several other sites.

It just makes me wonder at who or what can still be thinking that there is any defence against this. One would first have to show that the Supreme Court misruled on this by getting the people who drafted the law in the first place to say that they never wrote the law for the purpose of foreign signals and then show that the justices then were wrong to have interpeted the law to include this, therefore writing new law that was not the will of parliament. I am not saying that it is impossible because the drafters of the law were on record as not making this law for foreign domain. But the chances are nill that you would ever get the Supremem Court to turn on its own rulings, so you would have to fight this all the way, and at costs that run in the millions. It just is not going to happen. So why would anyone try to do so is beyond me. I took my punishment and yes it hurt, but it was the only way to end the court fights that were really predetermoned, as to the out come. Even those who had the resources in the millions saw the light and just took the deals. While I would in my own mind love to see things truly come to the right end, I know that it is not possible for that to happen. The satellite companies would get intervener status and run the bills so high that only thew richest peple int he world could afford them. You would then be on the hook for the rest of your life, to pay back the costs associated with your attempt, at justice. That is just the way it is.