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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

#371

Post by yunohn »

KerrAvon wrote: post #213
yunohn wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Sure, but it's not a singular shadowy cabal in a star chamber. There are different groups who all have an negative impact on our lives. The banal and stupid: Elon Musk and his fellow trust fund buddies and VCs doing jello shots and going "Antifa sucks amirite?" and acting on their stupidity because they have money and power. Banal and stupid category 2: CEO groupthink. Let's all have layoffs before there's an actual…

> If you do think there's any kind of organized left-wing group of any sort in America

I’m neither American, nor was talking about “left wing” American cabals that control the world.

I’m not sure why this has to be a singular group. It’s a tale as old as time, rich vs poor. One can clearly observe multiple not-necessarily-colluding but powerful groups globally and locally, who all aim to control and subjugate the rest of us.

This makes no sense to be a semantic debate where you grind an axe that “there is not just one illuminati” and act like that means something impressive.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#372

Post by dtech »

kragen wrote: post #79
dtech wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All those things are enjoyable and have no legal alternative. A chat application would have.

uber cab is not especially enjoyable, and the legal alternatives (for riders) include taxis and remises (not to mention buses, trains, bicycles, private cars, private motorcycles, and electric scooters; buenos aires is pretty dense and public transport is pretty good) uber was just better the legal alternative to pirating games was to buy them, geez the legal alternative to gay sex was heterosexual sex, which many pe…

Only Uber had an alternative, the rest you either didn't address or are incorrect

> the legal alternative to gay sex was heterosexual sex

Unless you're subscribing to a unscientific "people choose to be gay" philosophy, having sex with a gender you're not attracted to is not at all an alternative.

> the legal alternative to pirating games was to buy them

You mentioned surviving today, currently a lot of those games cannot be bought legally, which is what I meant with no alternative. Back then also a lot of people didn't pirate, and a lot of people who did did so because they had little money. I would count that situation as having no available alternative.

We were discussing a hypothetical chat application which currently are offered for free, so money is not an issue there.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#374

Post by klabb3 »

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…

For reference, many years ago when a similar surveillance law was implemented in Sweden (the FRA law), 90% of people were against it (in random polling) but politicians voted it in anyway. It later turned out this was a diplomatic back channel direct order from the US, which was found out through that big Wikileaks dump.

So, the people are not at fault in these situations imo. First, it’s politicians and after that it’s journalists. Sunlight keeps malicious politicians in check, investigative journalism has been severely crippled with corporate media. As has whistleblowing.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#375

Post by GoToRO »

" Therefore, we encourage journalists and citizens in all EU countries to question their governments and urge them to vote no."

How about you go and vote for the -right- government? You can't fix a country with technology.

Also, if you are a telecom operator in my country that means that you automatically allow the equivalent of FBI/CIA to connect directly in the switch with a cable. There is no other way to be a telecom operator.

What you really want is to have a judge agree to listen to somebody or not.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#376

Post by ur-whale »

Seattle3503 wrote: post #355
ur-whale wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The best way to deal with this is non-compliance and there need to be technical solutions to deny such attempts. I disagree. While these are good to have, they are not enough. The reason is always the same: if you are found to be using the circumventing tech., you'll likely be in breach of the law, which will give the goons a legitimate reason to come and harass you. In a civilized country, that can translate into…

Sometimes I think we have romanticized civil disobedience a little too much. Not because having authoritarian laws is good, but because it seems like some people would rather be heroic resistance fighters than engage dry policy work and advocacy. It would be better to never live under bad laws at all.

>some people would rather be heroic resistance fighters than engage dry policy work and advocacy

This is a nice take, that would be the right one if you operated in a fair system.

But if you have ever engaged in the very dirty game of trying to change or remove a bad law (bad for whatever reason), you soon learn how very dirty the game is.

Extremely few people who play that game are in it for the betterment of society as a whole rather than the betterment of their own destiny and that of their friends.

And even if they started out that way, it never lasts. Human nature.

Want to change policy? Quid pro quo. Read all about it, and be ready to do nothing but.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#377

Post by [deleted] »

dingusdew wrote: post #202
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.

[deleted]

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#378

Post by kragen »

stagas wrote: post #342
kragen wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

people need privacy not because their acts are unworthy people need privacy because others' intentions and judgment are unworthy if you've ever known anyone who was gay, who got divorced, who secretly had a deprecated ethnic background, who left their faith, who didn't want their ex-boyfriend to know where they lived, who revealed government corruption, who struggled for political change, or who could be raped or rob…

Dealing with aggression using privacy doesn't seem to be solving the problem though, nor it is a solution? You shouldn't live your life hiding. We need privacy because of X, underlies the assumption that X is something different and unwanted, perpetuating that idea it's trying to protect. If everything was public then it would more easily become part of reality, part of normal. Hiding in privacy just keeps the proble…

We need privacy because of X, underlies the assumption that X is something different and unwanted, perpetuating that idea it's trying to protect

this is poorly expressed, but i think you're trying to say that privacy can only be justified to hide 'unwanted' things, and so, for example, arguing that people need privacy to hide being gay implicitly accepts that it is bad to be gay; is that what you meant?

this is the premise i explicitly rejected in my comment; to use that example, this is an instance of what i said

gay people need privacy not because being gay is bad

gay people need privacy because others' intentions and judgment toward gay people are bad

you seem to be arguing that it would be good to improve others' intentions and judgment toward gay people, and this is correct, but there are limits to how much mere exposure can effect such a change

i am not willing to sacrifice gay people's lives for that

it should be extremely obvious that your reasoning is invalid in some of my examples

your teenaged neighbor doesn't want everyone to see her in the shower and to know when she's alone and unprotected because she's vulnerable to being raped

there is no assumption that the shape of her breasts or her walking home alone last thursday are 'something different and unwanted' or in any way bad; quite the contrary, her ability to walk home alone is precisely the good that it is important to protect in this situation

the problem is, as ought to be obvious, certain other people's intentions toward her; she needs privacy to protect herself

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#379

Post by zelphirkalt »

starkd wrote: post #145
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.

I had several discussions like that and always said something along the lines of: "Well, I am not so sure about it being a bad decision in the long term. I think time will tell." and every time people have valid arguments of why Brexit is bad for the UK, but still I will say something like "Lets see how it all turns out.", because we do not know the future.

When the EU cooks up the next surveillance law attempt, I am always reminded of those conversations. But where else to go, if even EU gets too crazy? There are probably only worse places with regards to privacy.

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