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Weekly news update from OpenMedia.ca

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Hi I'm Lindsey and this is your Weekly News Update from OpenMedia.ca.

Bell's Takeover

We've only got two weeks 'til the CRTC holds its hearing to determine whether Bell—which, as you probably know, is Canada's most powerful telecom/media conglomerate—should be allowed to take over Astral Media, and thus gain unprecedented power over communications in Canada.

With that ahead, we at OpenMedia have joined forces with a number of other public interest and consumer groups to voice our opposition to the deal, and to give you a platform to speak out. You can check out the campaign at StopTheTakeover.ca, and add your name to the growing petition.

It's important that you speak out now, both because we need to build momentum, and because this coming month is going to be jam-packed.

The TPP's Internet Trap

The next round of negotiations around the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement is taking place next week, in Leesburg, Virginia in the U.S., and with the StopTheTrap.net Coalition, we're planning some attention-grabbing online and on-the-ground actions to bring the voices of global citizens to the negotiators. While this round will also be happening behind closed doors—a wholly undemocratic method of determining the future of Internet freedom—we do know that our actions so far have had an impact, and that citizens are becoming impossible to ignore.

Because of your work telling your networks and your communities about the TPP's Internet trap, political parties are starting to come out against the agreement--the NDP in Canada, and the Green Parties in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, for example. Momentum is very clearly building both amongst citizens and within our governments, and national leaders will be thinking twice before pushing ahead with new Internet restrictions.

Warrantless Online Spying

Also in September, Parliament will be resuming, and we may start to see the likes of Bill C-30: the warrantless online spying bill. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews has been in the media again lately, continuing his misleading PR campaign that suggest that this bill is somehow necessary. We need to be ready to push back if the bill comes back—we've stopped it in its tracks once—and ensure Canadians know that the online scheme is nothing if not grossly excessive, invasive, costly, and poorly thought out.

Well that is your action-packed update for this week. Be sure to stay tuned—no, better…stay engaged—as the fight for Internet freedom continues in Canada and around the world.

For the Internet, this is Lindsey with OpenMedia.ca signing off.

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