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Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

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Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#141

Post by daenney »

ecmascript wrote: post #36
msm_ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can your country of birth lobby in the EU to stop laws like this?

Honestly, I would believe some of them already do it. You're reading the news from a Swedish company anyway so we use to be pretty vigilant on privacy issues. Sweden is a small player compared to Germany and France, so I am uncertain how much weight our words have.

> You're reading the news from a Swedish company anyway so we use to be pretty vigilant on privacy issues.

But the issue they're raising is that the issue isn't being reported and examined by others and especially not journalists who are best placed to raise wider awareness of this.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#142

Post by rrsmtz »

stagas wrote: post #95
can16358p wrote: post #10

We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. Privacy is a human right. We probably all know that they will show reasons like "fighting terrorism", "preventing national threats" or "hunting down child pornography" etc, whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. Anyone who is really…

I've always wondered behind the rationale on privacy being a human right. What if it wasn't? What if instead we were enforcing transparency? Force everything to be public, starting from the government down to the local coffee shop. All transactions, all communications, everything. Make privacy a crime for everybody, including the government and the military. Just as a thought exercise, it would be a remarkably differ…

The point of human rights is to protect the underprivileged - the privileged of any given society don’t need to have these protections because they are at the top of the social hierarchy and get to call the shots. They would simply use their influence to get an exception for themselves. That’s why the US constitution is great, because it’s such a pain in the ass to change (unfortunately the privileged invent “interpretations” to change it retroactively).

Your thought experiment exists in a utopia where the above isn’t the case, which isn’t really applicable to any human society that’s ever existed. The top of the food chain will Until humans stop forming hierarchies, we need rights.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#143

Post by sl0wh0rses »

Funnily enough it is European companies and not American ones that are leading the charge on privacy. ProtonMail / Tutanota etc for example on the email front. I've heard of a company called Snacka! as well that seems to be using some gaming tech in streaming for end-to-end encrypted communication that doesn't suffer performance as much as services like jitsi. If more companies follow privacy principles like this in the way they build their products that's only part of the battle, though - it's also important to prevent such things from a legislative perspective.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#145

Post by starkd »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #20

As a pro-EU citizen I feel more and more inclined to agree on some of the Brexit rhetoric. Commissioners have shown multiple times that they are too permeable to lobbying, too willing to water down tough environmental regulation, and too keen on 'security' surveillance. So far the EU parliament members have balanced the act with some sanity. But the power and lack of transparency of the EC both with regards to lobbyi…

The EU is literally a government by committee. A kind of technocracy with very little accountability for those making these decisions. The UK has a lot of problems right now, but at least BREXIT helped preserve some sovereignty from that behomoth. That is good for the long term.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#146

Post by reedjosh »

stagas wrote: post #95
can16358p wrote: post #10

We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. Privacy is a human right. We probably all know that they will show reasons like "fighting terrorism", "preventing national threats" or "hunting down child pornography" etc, whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. Anyone who is really…

I've always wondered behind the rationale on privacy being a human right. What if it wasn't? What if instead we were enforcing transparency? Force everything to be public, starting from the government down to the local coffee shop. All transactions, all communications, everything. Make privacy a crime for everybody, including the government and the military. Just as a thought exercise, it would be a remarkably differ…

I've had similar thoughts, but I always land on the asymetry between governments and its populace being the key issue.

If transparency is the norm, governments need to go first.

Since that will never happen, the only solution remains privacy for all, or no government at all.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#147

Post by vorpalhex »

throwrqX wrote: post #133

Every time this comes up people talk about protecting privacy and anonymity and what not and while luckily for us most of the time the laws die out they still do pass on occasion. The fundamental issue to me is that society still wants to protect against pedophiles or drug dealers or whatever other group more than protect privacy. As an example, how many people here could go on television onto some talk program or ne…

"Would the law you propose have stopped you being abused?"

No. Police are not psychics. They do not stop theoretical crime. They can only respond after crime has happened.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#148

Post by zirgs »

anfogoat wrote: post #118
maxehmookau wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

EU commissioners propose laws, they don't vote for them. The EU parliament will probably reject this. As a brit, let me tell you that leaving the EU will not solve this problem. Your local politicians will just do that anyway.

> EU commissioners propose laws, they don't vote for them. The distinction isn't meaningless but it's certainly a generous one when left to stand on its own. The commissioners hold little allegiance to the spirit of democracy and these proposals are either career boosters or pet projects for them. They're not just going to pass it on to the parliament and leave it at that. They're going to do their best to finagle be…

>No modern government will pass a law that grants its citizens more privacy.

GDPR was passed not that long ago.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#149

Post by _vertigo »

throwrqX wrote: post #133

Every time this comes up people talk about protecting privacy and anonymity and what not and while luckily for us most of the time the laws die out they still do pass on occasion. The fundamental issue to me is that society still wants to protect against pedophiles or drug dealers or whatever other group more than protect privacy. As an example, how many people here could go on television onto some talk program or ne…

> how many people here could go on television onto some talk program or news show with their real name and face and tell a child abuse victim that while their concerns may be valid they are wrong and they should shut up?

Well, putting aside the "shut up" part, I'd be happy to state publicly that under no (reasonable, peacetime) circumstances should the government be allowed to read my texts, emails, and documents.

Obviously there's a bunch of qualifiers to assign to that (if I'm under suspicion of something, OK, sure, maybe the government can get a warrant) that I'm not qualified to speak intelligently about, but that's the gist. Saying that the government should not be able to read your email or list to your phone calls is not an unpopular opinion, at least in the States, and it's also not one that requires you to be of an overly technical persuasion to have.

People support victims of child abuse and they also distrust the government and don't want it to have awesome powers of espionage it can wield against the entire populace at scale all of the time. Those positions might conflict with each other if you frame the conversation that way, but if you do frame it that way, I don't think it's a given that the child abuse argument is always going to win the debate.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#150

Post by marcosdumay »

ethbr0 wrote: post #90
throwbadubadu wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pretending there's a sinister, organized New World Order (aka "them" How did you got this out of GP? I think you both saying/meaning the same. > and listen to the loudest and most organized group. Which tends to be intelligence or law enforcement. Yep, and their actual desire is to control people's freedom (even admitting that some or all of them themselves belief that this is only for good cause, the reasons that…

Intelligence and law enforcement aren't typically empowered voters in democratic legislative bodies.

And yet, they tend to be very successful on getting any proposal they want from those bodies.

You can wonder why.

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