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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

#201

Post by seanw444 »

feanaro wrote: post #98
neysofu wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you pay enough attention, you will notice that the same argument is used to push many political agendas (for better or worse): - "You can't ban encrypted messaging. Terrorists will always find a way to communicate." - "You can't outlaw abortions, just safe ones. Women will always find a way." - "You can't uniformly enforce gun control. Dedicated criminals will keep buying weapons on the black market." - "You can't…

The common theme of most of the above points is that the freedom of the innocent will be reduced or their suffering increased if the change is enacted, while less innocent people can continue to ignore the rules. It's oppression of the weakest. In general, society should be very careful with the things it bans. Prohibition is a hammer best left for extreme situational outliers, not one that should be used for each an…

Unfortunately, societal amnesia means we will never learn this lesson. We will continue to ban things too much, and be too oppressive, until it becomes too overwhelming and a revolution happens. Rinse and repeat.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#202

Post by dingusdew »

O__________O wrote: post #179

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 m…

Unpopular opinion: If you don't like democracy and use your democratic rights to actively work to dismantle it, you probably shouldn't actually be allowed to participate in democracy since you are operating in bad faith.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#203

Post by ur-whale »

qikInNdOutReply wrote: post #21

There should be a law against spamming the lawmaking process with proposals that have previously failed or are near identical to it, for a set time period. Means, you are no longer allowed to lobby for a law proposal once it has been rejected for a time period of one voting cycle.

1. The book of law should have a fixed number of words, written in stone in the constitution. Side effects:

    a) you want to pass a new law? Pick one in the book to get rid of.

    b) magically, the enforcement budget and the size of the fat leech that feeds off of it (the government) remains constant. See "The Advantage of a Dragon" by Stanislaw Lem [1]
2. A law should always (with the possible exception of those in the constitution) have an expiration date, voted with the law, with a maximum of 10 years, at which time the law should get re-voted on if it turns out it was actually useful to society.

[1] http://www.loper-os.org/?p=3725

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#204

Post by masterof0 »

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 doesn't need to be a "World New Order" for three letter agencies lobbying to increase surveillance, and hence their power over the people. You are right, bureaucrats are clueless, but they don't need to be sharp, the agencies that will benefit from violating people's privacy and right already are. The is no possible good coming from those laws, the argument of "saving the children" falls flat, because you could extended to anything, "ban knives because children could cut themselves", etc... Privacy is a right, and those agencies(also known as deep state) pushing lawmakers to subvert it, are doing in to control people indeed.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#205

Post by ChewFarceSkunk »

alex_young wrote: post #161
purututu wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn’t need any New World Order conspiracy either. NWO is not a conspiracy theory any longer. This exact terminology is openly used by many politicians now, demanding for a NWO. Depending which bubble you live in, you have not seen any or only too little such speeches.

The term New World Order has been used for over a century by politicians. It’s hardly believable that Woodrow Wilson was using a secret code word to communicate a plan to do evil things in the 21st century when he was advocating for the League of Nations.

[dead]

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#206

Post by masterof0 »

seanw444 wrote: post #193
tomxor wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. I used to think this way, and still do to a degree... but it's not enough. The idea of zero trust as an absolute is flawed, because if the adversary is your own government they will just keep shifting targets. Lets play this out: 1. Gov start monitoring all proprietary messaging platforms and services. So lets ass…

Agreed. Just like every fight for freedoms, it is a constant battle, and one that will never end.

The alternative would be China-style surveillance state, and be cool with it? Nice

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#207

Post by bccdee »

kragen wrote: post #51
msm_ wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. I agree in principle, but controlled != regulated. It's (technologically) relatively easy to create a private, censorship-resistant distributed system, but if it's illegal people just won't use it. It's a human problem, not a tech problem.

here in argentina uber was very illegal for several years and people used the fuck out of it in the usa heroin and meth are super illegal and people are using the fuck out of them many 80s pc video games only survive in a playable form because of a very illegal system of organized copyright infringement that removed copy protection mechanisms; people used the fuck out of that too in the usa gay sex was super illegal…

This draws a false dichotomy between "people use X" and "nobody uses X." There's actually a sliding scale of how many people use X. When a thing is illegal, fewer people will use it and the people who do use it will be at risk. If we thing a thing is important and that people should be able to use it, it's bad if that thing is illegal. There's a reason why people fought so hard decriminalize gay sex—not because laws against gay sex made it impossible, but because those laws were nevertheless really bad for gay people.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#208

Post by masterof0 »

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…

Sure, let's make everyone to walk around naked. Let's also make sure, that everyone knows what is going on in your life, where you and your loved ones live, what they buy, how much money they make, what they say, ....... Your argument is ridiculous.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#209

Post by ComodoHacker »

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…

>Anyone who is really into something illegal will use something alternative anyway.

That's the hard part, IMO.

Imagine that we really got that "decentralized system that cannot be controlled" going and everyone is using it. Everyone, including those who is into illegal things. And they don't get caught.

Now the government starts to push their "this decentralized shit is doing more harm than good" agenda. Whatever their motivation is, it would be easy to sway public opinion against surveillance-free communications, because the harm is real, not hypothetical, like it is now.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#210

Post by pelasaco »

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…

> Anyone who is really into something illegal will use something alternative anyway.

Thats the same argument for less gun control.

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