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European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

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Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#221

Post by geraneum »

xvector wrote: post #192
berkes wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously not. There are tons of large companies, many of which are often misread as American, because they are listed on the Nasdaq or another US exchange. Many EU companies have far higher revenues than their US counterparts (Airbus, Volkswagen, Alstom), are boring but crucial (Heidelberg, DTE) or not easily recognised (Novo Nordisk, Unilever). Even in tech, there's a lot of interesting ones: Booking.com, elastic s…

The EU's entire modern tech industry does not even measure up to that of one US company. Dismissals of the EU's inability to compete in tech is why EU citizens have missed out on literally tens of trillions of dollars in economic growth post-2000s. The EU's lack of ability to innovate is becoming a serious problem for the progress of our species as a whole.

> literally tens of trillions of dollars

> ability to innovate

Valuation and innovation could be related and could be not depending on the company, industry, fraud, etc.

> The EU's lack of ability to innovate

Modern American tech products are made of so many different parts, of which a significant portion is made (and designed) in EU, rest in US, Japan, Korea, China, etc.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#222

Post by cscurmudgeon »

denton-scratch wrote: post #78
seanw444 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parliament. Interesting. I didn't know this, and as an American, it seems quite odd. Decisions by the parliament are treated as immutable there? Here, if a bill passed by Congress is deemed unconstitutional, it can be struck down by the Supreme Court.

The only constitution that the UK has consists of Acts of Parliament. So I don't know why it should seem odd; the US courts can't strike clauses of the US Constitution, and the UK courts can't strike Acts. Amusingly, the UK government is currently trying to pass an Act to the effect that black is equivalent to white, i.e. that Rwanda is a safe country to which asylum seekers can be sent. This is analogous to the Stat…

pi is objective.

Lets be objective here for safety:

https://www.numbeo.com/crime/compare_countries_result.jsp?co...

Rwanda is safe

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#223

Post by ImJamal »

ben_w wrote: post #165
dukeyukey wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parliament is sovereign. Basically, as long as Parliament says so, it can do what it wants, although it can be slowed down by institutions like the Supreme Court or the royal family. There is no real separation powers. Which _sounds_ bad, but the UK has an extremely long history of relative stability compared to basically anywhere else on the planet, so something must be going right.

> Which _sounds_ bad, but the UK has an extremely long history of relative stability compared to basically anywhere else on the planet, so something must be going right. The more I learn about British history, the more I think this reputation for stability is merely due to how well all the civil wars (and parliament inviting in a new royal family) were brushed over.

When was the last time the British had a civil war or invited in a new royal family? Having issues hundreds of years ago hardly seems worthy of denying the stability of a country. Many countries have come into existence and no longer exist in that same period of time.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#224

Post by skissane »

chippiewill wrote: post #84
M2Ys4U wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While a ruling on a specific case (and law), the Court seems quite skeptical towards any "requirement that providers of such services weaken the encryption mechanism for all users". If I were the UK government, I would be quite worried that the UK Online Safety Bill will be overturned by domestic courts (or the European Court) on the basis of this ruling. It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parli…

The best isn't necessarily a declaration of incompatibility, that's mostly specific to ECHR. In general if parliament passes legislation that contradicts earlier legislation that wasn't repealed and it wasn't deliberate then a judge can determine that parliament didn't intend to override that earlier legislation and that the new legislation doesn't apply in a given context. Parliamentary supremacy exists, but only wh…

> Parliamentary supremacy exists, but only where parliament takes a deliberate action.

Well, it exists under English law, it is an open question whether it exists to the same extent under Scottish law. As Lord Cooper said in the 1953 case of MacCormick v Lord Advocate, "the principle of the unlimited sovereignty of Parliament is a distinctively English principle which has no counterpart in Scottish Constitutional Law". Lord Cooper suggested that, at least in theory, an Act of the UK Parliament could be ultra vires under Scottish law if it were contrary to the Treaty of Union. In the 1975 case of Gibson v Lord Advocate, Lord Keith suggested that possible examples of such invalid Acts might be a hypothetical Act to abolish Scottish law and replace it with English law, or a hypothetical Act to establish the Church of England (or the Scottish Episcopal Church) as the state church in Scotland, usurping the traditional role of the Church of Scotland; although he refrained from definitively ruling on those questions (since the outcome of the case at hand did not depend on them).

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#225

Post by pyuser583 »

seanw444 wrote: post #73
M2Ys4U wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>While a ruling on a specific case (and law), the Court seems quite skeptical towards any "requirement that providers of such services weaken the encryption mechanism for all users". If I were the UK government, I would be quite worried that the UK Online Safety Bill will be overturned by domestic courts (or the European Court) on the basis of this ruling. It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parli…

> It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parliament. Interesting. I didn't know this, and as an American, it seems quite odd. Decisions by the parliament are treated as immutable there? Here, if a bill passed by Congress is deemed unconstitutional, it can be struck down by the Supreme Court.

The idea is once the Crown issues letters patent, it’s the law.

In the recent past, legislation was reviewed for constitutionality by a committee in the House of Lords, called Law Lords.

In the 2000s, the Law Lords were rebranded as the “UK Supreme Court”.

But the idea is still that once the legislative process is done, the result is a law.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#226

Post by pyuser583 »

denton-scratch wrote: post #78
seanw444 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's worth noting that UK courts can't overturn Acts of Parliament. Interesting. I didn't know this, and as an American, it seems quite odd. Decisions by the parliament are treated as immutable there? Here, if a bill passed by Congress is deemed unconstitutional, it can be struck down by the Supreme Court.

The only constitution that the UK has consists of Acts of Parliament. So I don't know why it should seem odd; the US courts can't strike clauses of the US Constitution, and the UK courts can't strike Acts. Amusingly, the UK government is currently trying to pass an Act to the effect that black is equivalent to white, i.e. that Rwanda is a safe country to which asylum seekers can be sent. This is analogous to the Stat…

US Courts can strike down clauses in the constitution.

Any amendment that deprives a state of its senators is unconstitutional.

Many states have “unconstitutional amendment clauses.”

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#227

Post by pyuser583 »

etothepii wrote: post #140
bluGill wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a convention of the states that can change the constitution. It has been talked about by various groups from time to time, but has never happened.

Are you sure? Isn't that how the ban on alcohol was lifted?

Ban on alcohol was lifted by 2/3 of each house approving. Instead of going to the state legislators, it went to state conventions convened specifically for that purpose.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#228

Post by pyuser583 »

ben_w wrote: post #165
dukeyukey wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parliament is sovereign. Basically, as long as Parliament says so, it can do what it wants, although it can be slowed down by institutions like the Supreme Court or the royal family. There is no real separation powers. Which _sounds_ bad, but the UK has an extremely long history of relative stability compared to basically anywhere else on the planet, so something must be going right.

> Which _sounds_ bad, but the UK has an extremely long history of relative stability compared to basically anywhere else on the planet, so something must be going right. The more I learn about British history, the more I think this reputation for stability is merely due to how well all the civil wars (and parliament inviting in a new royal family) were brushed over.

Britain went 10 years without a general election from 1935 to 1945.

By the time the 1945 election came around, nobody under the age of 31 had ever voted.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#229

Post by nucleardog »

bawolff wrote: post #201
light_hue_1 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's fair. I was using the term "written constitution" from the perspective of a US reader. There's no document that says "I'm the constitution, that's it". Canada works under the idea of an open constitution. There's a collection of documents that become entrenched and are considered part of the constitution. There are endless debates about exactly which documents should be considered. Since the amending formula h…

> There's no document that says "I'm the constitution, that's it". Umm section 52(2) of the constitution act? I mean,i guess that is not exhaustive, but its most of it. > There are endless debates about exactly which documents should be considered. I think you are significantly overstating that. There is some debate, but its mostly theoretical and rarely comes up in practise. > Since the amending formula has made cha…

For those that aren't up on their Canadian law and wondering what the "notwithstanding clause" is--

The notwithstanding clause allows a government to make a law "notwithstanding" parts of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The only thing it would take for the federal government to remove the freedom of the press is to pass a law explicitly declaring it it is being removed notwithstanding section 2 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. That law now does not violate the Charter, however it is time limited to 5 years, which is the maximum length that parliament can remain in power without an election at which point it would need to be renewed.

The main things that cannot be overridden this way are our right to vote, that legislative assemblies must be re-elected at most every five years, that legislatures must sit every year, and that we have the right to move within or enter and leave Canada.

The original idea was that this provided a balance against the judiciary. Even if the court were to declare something violated our rights, the legislature could just say "okay, we acknowledge that and pass it anyway". The primary balance against this being abused is simply that it would be unprecedented and everyone's scared to touch the "nuclear" button. The federal government has never invoked this clause.

The only reason I can see to "not mention the notwithstanding clause" is because it directly contradicts the idea of the Canadian Supreme Court being the most powerful in the world. Except in a handful of very specific situations, their power is to declare something unconstitutional or against our rights at which point the legislature can simply shout "NO U" and it's in force anyway.

Re: European Court of Human Rights bans weakening of secure end-to-end encryption

#230

Post by dmichulke »

ko27 wrote: post #133
miohtama wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This decision was needed because the EU was about to ban end-to-end encryption. It’s not the EU commission, but a judge that ruled. AFAIK Commission can still ignore this.

You have it the other way around. Majority of EU member countries wanted to to ban E2E, but the EU institutions prevented that.

No, the ECHR is not a EU institution, it's just European.

The bad guys here are the commission and some EU member states.

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