Sound advice from Edward Snowden to thinking Canadians on Harper's "anti-terror bill"

In such a short period of time, the Conservative party of Canada has changed this lovely once-was-neutral country to a lackey of the warmongering police state USA. 
All relevant links at link below.

Zi-Ann Lum writing at HuffingtonPost:
Edward Snowden Warns Canadians To Be 'Extraordinarily Cautious' Over Anti-Terror Bill

NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden addressed students at a Toronto private school via video link on Monday to warn about the perils of being complacent as the government makes sweeping changes to Canada’s anti-terrorism laws.

“I would say we should always be extraordinarily cautious when we see governments trying to set up a new secret police within their own countries,” Snowden said in a livestream feed from Russia. He made reference to Bill C-51, legislation tabled by the Conservative government days earlier.

More than 900 students attended the talk titled, “Privacy vs. Security: A Discussion of Personal Privacy in the Digital Age” hosted at Upper Canada College. Nearly 1,400 watched the live broadcast online.

Snowden urged the audience to be adept at lining up facts versus rhetoric with emergency legislations born from times of “fear and panic.” He added though Canada is not unique in its anti-terrorism laws and surveillance programs, it’s important to be critical toward political arguments championing their necessity.

“Once we let these power get rolling it’s very difficult to stop that pull through,” Snowden said. “So I would say that we need to use extraordinary scrutiny in every society, in every country, in every state to make sure that the laws we live under are the ones we truly want and truly need.”

Journalist Glenn Greenwald was also on hand for the keynote via conference call.

Using ‘fearmongering’ as vehicle for legislation

Despite the sharp uptick in terrorism rhetoric after two Canadian soldiers were killed within days of each other last year by “radicalized” attackers, the former Guardian journalist says a Canadian’s real-world chance of being killed in a terrorist attack is “infinitesimal.”

“If you are a Canadian citizen, you have a greater chance of dying by being struck by lightning; or by going to a restaurant and eating a meal that will give you an intestinal disease; or by slipping in your bathtub, hitting your head on the ceramic tile than you do dying in a terrorist attack,” said Greenwald.....