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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

#171

Post by yunohn »

brookst wrote: post #125
ethbr0 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better said than me. There are different approaches to changing someone's mind if they're misunderstanding something, versus if they're straight-up lying to you. The fact that there exist highly public straight-up lying politicians doesn't mean the mass of politicians are liars. Most are trying to do a decent thing, with the understanding they have. Casting one's democratic agents as "other" corrodes democracy, decre…

Yes, and it’s frustrating to see people whose policy positions I generally agree with (less surveillance, please) resort to this kind of rhetoric. People who disagree are not only wrong, and not only intentional wrongdoers, but they have secret motives even they themselves don’t know? These people have obviously never tried to get four people to agree on what movie to see.

> but they have secret motives even they themselves don’t know?

I’m not sure that’s what is implied; it’s just obvious that publicly proving one’s “true motives” is quite difficult.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#172

Post by ianopolous »

alphazard wrote: post #76

For all of the software engineers here, you would have a much larger impact by tackling this problem at a technical level, or contributing financially to groups that lobby against this sort of thing. Going out and protesting, or even helping to circulate a petition is going to be less impactful, and an inefficient use of your time and skillset. Your vote is worth 1, maybe your influence is worth a dozen or so. You co…

Totally agree! Shameless self promotion: have a look at Peergos - https://github.com/peergos/peergos

Our tech book might be a better starting point for this group: https://book.peergos.org

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#173

Post by ChewFarceSkunk »

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…

[dead]

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#174

Post by rdevsrex »

ethbr0 wrote: post #41
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…

> We probably all know that they will show reasons [...], whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. I don't think this is how it works, absent an already existent police state. In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}. Once built, it's then used by law enforcement, because it exists and gets the job done. Pretending there's…

Ahem, have you forgotten about the NSA spying on US citizens? Every government covets that power. It's a fantasy to assume they don't.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#175

Post by soperj »

ethbr0 wrote: post #41
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…

> We probably all know that they will show reasons [...], whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. I don't think this is how it works, absent an already existent police state. In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}. Once built, it's then used by law enforcement, because it exists and gets the job done. Pretending there's…

> it's then used by law enforcement

Never seen any abuse by law enforcement before :|

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#176

Post by [deleted] »

lcampbell wrote: post #160
xorry wrote: post #69

> every single line that you write in all kinds of messaging apps (including encrypted services), your e-mails — yes, all of this — can be filtered out ... how exactly will this work?

Probably just an extension to existing ETSI legal interception interfaces[1] that I believe are required to be implemented by all service providers of a certain size in the EU. Your personal email server and private IRC network are probably out of scope. [1] e.g. for email: https://www.etsi.org/deliver/etsi_ts/102200_102299/10223202/... - the specs are really boring to read and there are lots and lots of them, if you…

[deleted]

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#177

Post by yunohn »

brookst wrote: post #62
mach1ne wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even though something has a benevolent rationalization, it doesn’t mean the true motives are benevolent. It doesn’t need any New World Order conspiracy either. People in ruling positions often enjoy power, and they may be clueless as to how this desire is affecting their decisionmaking.

I’m always skeptical of phrases like “true motives”. Sometimes people can do the wrong thing for the right reasons, or totally amorally. There doesn’t have to be a secret agenda. Framing things in terms of shadowy cabals that hide their secret motivations weakens the argument and reduces odds of successful resistance to these programs by misunderstanding the opposition.

I’m truly astonished that there are people who refuse to believe that the people in power are constantly conspiring. It’s like you are completely ignoring all evidence, or discounting it as one-offs.

Sure, maybe it’s not NWO or the illuminati, but you can’t possibly dismiss all the behavior we see and impacts we experience?

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#178

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#179

Post by O__________O »

Strangest thing to me about the topic is that it’s obvious vast percentage of citizens within democracies wish they lived in an authoritarian country, yet choose to live in a democracy and use the liberties they’re provided to actively destabilize and destroy it. To me this is the largest issue, not a given topic that results from it.

Yes, I am aware current authoritarian countries wage propaganda campaigns, but in my experience such campaigns would be meaningless without an existing tendency to seek out authoritarian rule.

While likely flawed opinion, I do feel like one possible explanation is nationalism in general, since while many democratic countries will argue they believe in the rule of law, ultimately any non-citizen is treated as if they are within an authoritarian country and for sure not as citizens by default. Only once there are countries that treats all people equally and as citizens, will such an issue be addressed in my opinion.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#180

Post by grumple »

guy98238710 wrote: post #33

Loss of balance. Child protection appears to have infinite weight. Conversely, personal privacy, access to information (esp. medical), and right to education appear to have zero weight.

Yep. You can justify any injustice with "won't somebody think of the children" or similar fears which inspire pearl-clutching. Don't fall for these authoritarian tactics.
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