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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

#231

Post by Silhouette »

penteract wrote: post #218
denton-scratch wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The only constitution that the UK has consists of Acts of Parliament. That's not completely accurate. The UK has an unwritten constitution, consisting of how everybody knows things work.

Unfortunately we've seen several times recently that not everyone "knows" things work the same way. A lot of what is "known" might be accepted by Parliament and our courts today but has historical foundations that we might generously call shaky if you look more closely into their origins.

If you're claiming to be a democracy but no-one really knows exactly what your constitutional foundations and system of government are and there is no clear mechanism for the people to change them then are you really a democracy or are you just playing one on TV?

For now we have a system where we elect MPs using a deeply flawed voting method on a timetable that MPs themselves can change any time they like, those MPs then result in a Prime Minister being appointed, that Prime Minister then forms a government in largely presidential fashion, the members of that government with executive authority wield much of the real power despite being at least three degrees removed from any popular mandate, and the main check to prevent this system running wild is a second house that is unelected and increasingly consists of political cronies with no particular qualifications except being mates with a previous Prime Minister.

this_is_fine.jpg meme

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

#232

Post by scotty79 »

pb7 wrote: post #219
scotty79 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US valuations are simply insane. Oligarchs money looking for an investment vessel inflate share prices. In most cases it has nothing to do with actual value of the companies or their revenue. In US empty company can be "worth" billions for a time.

That's what happens when you're a wealthy country with a booming economy and flush with companies that serve the world.

Not really. That happens when you have concetration of capital in few hands that can do with it whatever they want but there's really not much to do with it.

US stock market is analogue of Chinese real estate market. It's full of overpriced crumbling units and overt scams waiting to be exposed.

In Europe this capital is dispersed and more often serves the purpose of building infrastructure, increasing prosperity and well being of societies as a whole and developing large number of smaller businesses priced realistically. It's less flashy, but healthier.

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

#233

Post by tpm »

logifail wrote: post #200
Aeolun wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So Rwanda was apparently safe enough for the UNHCR to offer to process some refugees there. I think the key word here is safer . It wasn’t safe by any definition of the word, but a fair deal safer than the place they came from.

> It wasn’t safe by any definition of the word, but a fair deal safer than the place they came from (Playing devil's advocate) why would this not also apply to those refugees fleeing to Europe? Isn't Rwanda "a fair deal safer" than Afghanistan? (This is a genuine question)

When they are being removed from the UK to Rwanda (which is the aim of UK government), "the place they came from" is the UK.

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

#234

Post by logifail »

tpm wrote: post #233
logifail wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It wasn’t safe by any definition of the word, but a fair deal safer than the place they came from (Playing devil's advocate) why would this not also apply to those refugees fleeing to Europe? Isn't Rwanda "a fair deal safer" than Afghanistan? (This is a genuine question)

When they are being removed from the UK to Rwanda (which is the aim of UK government), "the place they came from" is the UK.

Q: Is France "safe" compared to the UK?

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

#235

Post by asyx »

miohtama wrote: post #96
rrrrrrrrrrrryan wrote: post #67

Man, Europe is really setting an example lately for how it's possible to roll out sensible technology regulations.

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.

As far as I remember, the commission tried to introduce the chat control nonsense but the parliament shut it down.

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

#236

Post by bawolff »

nucleardog wrote: post #229
bawolff wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 Ch…

> 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

IANAL and not sure how the implied bill of rights works in the modern context, but historically laws restricting the freedom of the press have been struck down even without the charter

E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_Re_Alberta_Statutes

However, The main thing i was trying to say though was simply that the rules around the notwithstanding clause are really clear. I think the original poster was trying to say is that what is constitutional can be ambigious, but the notwithstanding clause doesn't really contribute to that as it is pretty unambigious in how it works.

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

#237

Post by bemusedthrow75 »

Aeolun wrote: post #172
bemusedthrow75 wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "parliament cannot bind its successors" principle was absolutely (and deliberately) imported into US law, yes. It's more general -- no branch of government can bind its own successors. (With the exception of e.g. presidential pardons which cannot be undone)

I think this is generally true? It’d be weird if there were some laws from 30 years ago that nobody wanted, but were not legally allowed to be changed. You’d just change them anyway and nobody would care.

It's generally true precisely because British parliamentary democracy formalised the concept, mind you. Before that, yes, rulers made laws that would perpetually benefit them and their successors.

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

#238

Post by berkes »

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.

Yeah. Airbus has proven to be unable to compete and innovate itself into an established market. /S

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

#239

Post by LudwigNagasena »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #123
aftbit wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, it's quite hard to change the constitution. It requires agreement from 2/3rds of Congress followed by ratification by the individual legislatures of 3/4ths of the states. Such a thing has not been done since 1992, and not on a politically charged question since 1971.

> Such a thing has not been done since 1992 We’re a 235-year old republic. Changing the firmware once every 10 to 15% of the time seems fine. > and not on a politically charged question since 1971 This is a feature. If a question is charged it should be resolved first federally, through the states, and then politically, via the legislature. Only once there is consensus should it be elevated to Constitutional status.…

The problem is that in reality it gets “resolved” through the executive branch or by legalisating from the bench. That ultimately degrades all political institutions.

Can FBI arrest you for marijuana possession in a state where weed is “legal”? It should arrest you, weed is illegal, the government just decided to not enforce its own law. The government can just say “It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute X”[1] and everyone is ok with that.

If even simple laws get bent so easily, what’s left of the constitution? The words inside the Commerce Clause stayed the same for hundreds of years, yet what it “means” (ie how it’s used by the Federal Government to assert its power) have changed profoundly [2].

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20091023034358/http://www.reuter...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause

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

#240

Post by berkes »

pb7 wrote: post #219
scotty79 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US valuations are simply insane. Oligarchs money looking for an investment vessel inflate share prices. In most cases it has nothing to do with actual value of the companies or their revenue. In US empty company can be "worth" billions for a time.

That's what happens when you're a wealthy country with a booming economy and flush with companies that serve the world.

No.

That's what happens when there's no social system for pensions. In the US everyone and his dog has to "invest" in the stock market for their older days. In Europe this is happening more and more too, but there's also still a reasonable pension system in most countries that serves this purpose for individuals.

There are simply far more investers putting money in already inflated assets in the US than in Europe.

Take Tesla vs Volkswagen (or Porsche if you want). VW sells magnitudes more cars worldwide than TSL, even just the electric ones. Their ROI is much higher. And both their innovation is just as flakey at times (compared to e.g. Volvo who remain strong leader in all automotive innovation).

Anyone who looks at the solid figures, sees that VW is simply the stronger and more boring company. Yet people bet on the future, in which TSL promises to overtake VW. And then inflates the already inflated bubble some more, praying for that promise to be delivered on.

Praying, however, is not a good way to innovate an economy.

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