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Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

bbc.com

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Re: Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

#51

Post by nickik »

mtgx wrote: post #29

The era of "Swiss privacy" is now officially over. Germany seems to be the last remaining beacon of hope (mainly thanks to its Constitution, its Courts, and a slightly higher privacy vigilance from the German population, not because its government is any better than the rest).

Lol. You can bet your ass that the BND is far more active then anything the Swiss do. They regularly work with forign agencies and do exchanges. They sit right at the largest network hub in europe. There is also little democratic insight into the BND, as the public is excluded from all hearings.

Re: Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

#52

Post by confounded »

mtgx wrote: post #29

The era of "Swiss privacy" is now officially over. Germany seems to be the last remaining beacon of hope (mainly thanks to its Constitution, its Courts, and a slightly higher privacy vigilance from the German population, not because its government is any better than the rest).

Iceland may be a better bet.

Re: Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

#53

Post by jcfrei »

href wrote: post #42
tobltobs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They would be allowed to intercept any kind of traffic without any court authorization as long as at least one source is coming from a foreign country. Which will be technically true for nearly all IP based communication in Switzerland.

They most certainly do need a court order. See Art. 40 and Art. 41. of the NDG.

That requirement for a court order is greatly diminished by Art. 30: Verfahren bei Dringlichkeit. It establishes that the federal intelligence service can tap wires without court orders in urgent cases. And let's be honest here, if tapping a wire turns up nothing, do you really expect them to follow the protocol and actually inform the agencies (like the federal administrative court)? I don't have that level of trust in the intelligence service.

Re: Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

#54

Post by cJ0th »

l33tbro wrote: post #47
andreasley wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Documents were collected for up to 700 000 people (about 10% of the population), but saying they were "under surveillance" is stretching it. Basically everyone who was politically "left" was considered a potential threat and random snippets of information about them were collected – sometimes absurdly trivial stuff and quite a lot of it wrong. In 1994, a digital equivalent was born: A database called "ISIS". In 2010,…

Thanks for this. My own ignorance had me thinking Switzerland to generally be a more educated and progressive nation than it's neighbouring countries. By educated, I mean thinking more critically about issues like surveillance, terrorism, and immigration. Guessing the "well-propogated irrational fear" comes from mainstream media and politicians? Also, having an old surveillance database named ISIS definitely got a ch…

> Also, having an old surveillance database named ISIS definitely got a chuckle from me.

I think this one is worse:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CUxdvzDWoAARh_y.jpg

Re: Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

#55

Post by da_n »

> It will allow the Federal Intelligence Service and other agencies to put suspects under electronic surveillance if authorised by a court, the defence ministry and the cabinet.

I think the fact it has to be authorised by three bodies is interesting, thought it is still unclear if this would just be a rubber stamp process and/or if these bodies could just approve a dragnet approach if they saw fit. Other countries like the UK want to legally enact dragnet surveillance of all citizens without the need for authorisation, I guess the Swiss needed an olive branch to let them belive there will be oversight of this power.

Re: Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

#56

Post by axlee »

l33tbro wrote: post #47
andreasley wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Documents were collected for up to 700 000 people (about 10% of the population), but saying they were "under surveillance" is stretching it. Basically everyone who was politically "left" was considered a potential threat and random snippets of information about them were collected – sometimes absurdly trivial stuff and quite a lot of it wrong. In 1994, a digital equivalent was born: A database called "ISIS". In 2010,…

Thanks for this. My own ignorance had me thinking Switzerland to generally be a more educated and progressive nation than it's neighbouring countries. By educated, I mean thinking more critically about issues like surveillance, terrorism, and immigration. Guessing the "well-propogated irrational fear" comes from mainstream media and politicians? Also, having an old surveillance database named ISIS definitely got a ch…

> My own ignorance had me thinking Switzerland to generally be a more educated and progressive nation than it's neighbouring countries.

Switzerland is actually much more conservative than its european neighbours. For example, they were the last country to give women the right to vote in Europe.

Re: Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

#57

Post by wallace_f »

planetjones wrote: post #13
rasur wrote: post #5

I think it really boils down to not enough people understanding the issues and the problems. I had seen (once or twice) people out on the streets campaigning against it to raise awareness on the weekends, but honestly, it was not enough. Only the hard-core techies understood (or appeared to understand) the issue - at least around the area of Zürich where I work I can't think of anyone who thought it was a good idea.…

I also live and work in Zurich in a 'techie' job and almost everyone is happy with the new surveillance laws and powers. They are sensible, needed and have the correct number of safeguards. Why do you think they go too far?

So your opinion is that they are good, but why? "They have the correct number of safeguards," only provides me enough information to know that you think they are good because there is a number of safeguards (what are they?) greater than 1.

My point is shouldn't the burden be on providing evidence for why they are good? Why do we need them? Why are they sensible? What was wrong before that this will fix? What can go wrong that will be prevented?

Phrasing an opinion like this, to me, raises more questions than it answers.

Re: Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

#58

Post by bogomipz »

nickik wrote: post #51
mtgx wrote: post #29

The era of "Swiss privacy" is now officially over. Germany seems to be the last remaining beacon of hope (mainly thanks to its Constitution, its Courts, and a slightly higher privacy vigilance from the German population, not because its government is any better than the rest).

Lol. You can bet your ass that the BND is far more active then anything the Swiss do. They regularly work with forign agencies and do exchanges. They sit right at the largest network hub in europe. There is also little democratic insight into the BND, as the public is excluded from all hearings.

What is the BND?

Re: Swiss endorse new surveillance powers

#60

Post by myrion »

bogomipz wrote: post #58
nickik wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lol. You can bet your ass that the BND is far more active then anything the Swiss do. They regularly work with forign agencies and do exchanges. They sit right at the largest network hub in europe. There is also little democratic insight into the BND, as the public is excluded from all hearings.

What is the BND?

BundesNachrichtenDienst - the German secret service.

Has been spying for the US for a while now and lied to the parliament about it.

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