Duarte v. R.: In Fear of Big Brother

MONIQUE RABIDEAU

ABSTRACT

The Supreme Court of Canada recently has imposed a requirement of judicial authorization for electronic surveillance carried out by the State in cases where one of the parties participating in the communication has consented to the surveillance. In the hopes of avoiding the horrors of George Orwell's 1984, the court chose to reject the distinction that was previously drawn between participant surveillance and surreptitious third party surveillance. This paper provides an overview of electronic surveillance law as it has developed in Canada and the United States and then indicates how the Duarte decision represents a marked departure from positions held in the past. The author considers the implications of the judicial authorization requirement and suggests that this new procedural safeguard is both unnecessary and unreasonably onerous.

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Citation: (1991) 49(1) U.T. Fac. L. Rev. 171.
Copyright © 1991. University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review.
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