Kevin Mohamed's photo turned up in a strange place. One of the only publicly available photographs of the 23-year-old facing terrorism-related charges appeared in the February 2015 edition of Iron Warrior, a magazine published by the University of Waterloo's engineering faculty.

His photo can be seen only a few pages after an article co-authored by two Waterloo engineering students about the Anti-Terrorism Act, 2015 (formerly Bill C-51). This is noteworthy because Bill C-51 would subsequently be used to facilitate Mohamed's prosecution.

Until this week, Josée De Carufel was an obscure Quebec justice of the peace, one of 10 toiling at the Montreal courthouse at 1, Rue Notre-Dame Est.

Appointed for life, JPs in Quebec handle a range of lower-level judicial proceedings, including bail hearings and applications for search warrants.

Now, because of her repeated and outrageous authorizations of police surveillance of a journalist, De Carufel stands at the centre of one of the most important debates over freedom of the press in recent memory.

Here's why you and I should care about it.

1. Journalists should not be treated as investigative tools of the police.

Yesterday, we met with top officials at Public Safety Canada to discuss ongoing privacy concerns shared by Canadians across the country.

Right now, the ministry is running a public consultation about Bill C-51, privacy, and national security, asking for feedback from Canadians on some of the most pressing civil liberties issues of our time.