EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing • Hacker News Board

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#101

Post by throw1834 » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:05 PM UTC

OKRainbowKid wrote: post #72

aldsfh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is currently an initiative to forbid a political party, the AfD in Germany. This is not supported by the CDU, but by others. While I do not like the AfD, forbidding political parties that serve as an outlet for people who do not support the uniparty and their essentially identical policies seems to be one of the most totalitarian measures in postwar Germany. The SPD should instead examine why they themselves ar…

"uni party" is AFD lingo. And when that "outlet" has, in parts, goals that are incompatible with our constitution, then a discussion (and it's not much more at this stage) about a Verbotsprozess seems appropriate. To give some more context, the possibility to forbid parties that work against the foundations of our democracy is explicitly defined in the constitution, it is not a purely political move to silence opposi…

"Uniparty" is a concise term that English readers are familiar with. Noam Chomsky (far left) uses the same language:

https://chomsky.info/20081010/

I'm disappointed but not surprised that you are trying to discredit a comment based on a single term that saves a paragraph of explanation. The same tactics that we talk about in this submission.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#102

Post by dotnet00 » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:05 PM UTC

FollowingTheDao wrote: post #33

smashah wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe it's not a coincidence that the more shameless politicians ignore peaceful protests while doing the bidding of lobbyists, the more climate-concerned people feel the need to escalate their nuisance tactics which conveniently makes those same shameless politicians feel that they can justify more draconian measures to stifle privacy, speech and activism.

Ghandi set the standard for effective peaceful protests. Most protests I see people doing are laughably useless. You have to know how to suffer for what is important. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Mahatma-Gandhi/Resistan... "Thus was born satyagraha (“devotion to truth”), a new technique for redressing wrongs through inviting, rather than inflicting, suffering, for resisting adversaries without rancor and figh…

Invoking Gandhi's satyagrahas should always come with all the caveats that made the movement successful. It wasn't merely the act of peaceful protest that won India's independence, but the fact that it happened in the backdrop of WW2. Britain had to be much more careful to not risk escalating things into a full-blown revolt. Then, at the end of the war, they needed to focus their resources towards rebuilding.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#103

Post by hcfman » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:06 PM UTC

ThalesX wrote: post #27

generic92034 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That stance ("ever been democratic") is a bit too strong for my taste. There are definitely issues with the EU parliament having no rights to propose laws or the amount of indirection between voters and some powerful institutions. But calling the EU not being democratic is going too far, in my eyes. Especially considering the setup as a confederation of sovereign countries, so the comparison to individual countries'…

> But calling the EU not being democratic is going too far I'm an EU citizen. I have minimal saying in who our commissioner is and what members of the cabinet get chosen. I have a vote which I give to whatever party. After that, the vote for commissioner is secret; I have no idea who voted for what. After that, the negociations for the cabinet are secret; I have no idea what the criteria are and what the plans are. I…

In a democracy is it possible for a government to commit illegal things and get away with it simply by ignoring the complaints, filed police charges etc?

In a democracy the government as well are supposed to be accountable by the rule of law. As they are not it is a failed democracy.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#104

Post by gillesjacobs » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:07 PM UTC

bawolff wrote: post #37

jonathanstrange wrote: post #14

That's pretty crazy, it looks a lot like in Minority Report. Notice the reference to a "future criminal offence" and the phrase "leading to the belief" in the criteria: A “minimum materiality threshold”. This requires “objective and verifiable… information suggesting that a criminal offence, or future criminal offence, has a certain degree of seriousness.” A “basic indicative criterion”. This requires “objective, ver…

Minority report was about arresting people based on the word of psychics. There is a big difference between that and having evidence someone intends to commit a crime in the future. Of course it is possible to abuse such things, which is why its important to have reasonable definitions for these things.

1. Three years ago, you liked some tweets of someone who you didn't know was a political seperatist. Now, his group had been classified a terror organisation.

2. You went to buy some acetone as a solvent for a project.

There is now material evidence and intent for a terrorist attack using TATP bombs.

You and your family are on a no-fly list and are being watched.

All digital platforms have to automatically turn over all your personal data to intelligence services. They will share it with every other intelligence service in the union.

During automated analysis, a CASM detector finds bath-time pictures of your child. A criminal trial for the production of child pornography is initiated.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#105

Post by varispeed » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:07 PM UTC

jonathanstrange wrote: post #14

That's pretty crazy, it looks a lot like in Minority Report. Notice the reference to a "future criminal offence" and the phrase "leading to the belief" in the criteria: A “minimum materiality threshold”. This requires “objective and verifiable… information suggesting that a criminal offence, or future criminal offence, has a certain degree of seriousness.” A “basic indicative criterion”. This requires “objective, ver…

"Told you so" comes to mind. When people were talking about this years ago they were called tin foil hatters and downvoted or reported by EU fan boys. Now they are silent.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#106

Post by adrian_b » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:07 PM UTC

johndunne wrote: post #63

consp wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny thing with those violent protesters is ... Sometimes they are not protesters. I had the opportunity to be with a peaceful protest against canceling student financing and the people who started violence after it finished were neither part of, nor affected by, the issues or organisation.

I think this is a common problem in the UK during peaceful protests. I've witnessed masked young men clearly getting messages on their phones to go somewhere. They'll suddenly hustle off together. I figure they're there just to cause trouble. If the EU is serious about democracy then they ought to make it clear that this kind of thing goes on during peaceful protests instead of justifying dubious legislative changes…

This is a common tactic used by the police or secret services in all countries, not only in the UK.

Wherever there are truly peaceful protests against governments there is a very high probability that governmental agents infiltrated among the protestants will attempt to cause violent incidents in order to provide justification for the police to attack the participants with excessive force.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#107

Post by concordDance » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:08 PM UTC

llm_trw wrote: post #48

rosmax_1337 wrote: post #6

This will be used to silence political dissent in the EU. The current rulers fear the change which could come about if they allow the political climate to shift in the direction which it is ready to.

And which direction is that? Because I find people are very upset about this until it's used on people they don't like - socialists or fascists - and then they are very happy it's being used to 'stop the slide into fascism/communism' until it's used on them again.

> Because I find people

Are you sure these are the same individuals? I can imagine them being different members of a nebulous group where different people talk louder at different times.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#108

Post by davidguetta » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:08 PM UTC

throwaway48476 wrote: post #97

davidguetta wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean if someone is actively speaking of commiting a terror attack on some telegram channel it makes sense to not just ignore it because "he's not done it yet". No absolute either in freedom or security is sustainable.

The likelihood of someone saying on telgram they will commit a terrorist act is inversely proportional to the likelihood they will commit a terrorist attack. Governments are very good at catching the talkers but hopeless at catching the doers. Going after talkers generally is very useful for creating an atmosphere of fear as well.

Which govs ? There's like every year at least 10 terror attacks which are stopped by intelligences agency in France alone so AFAIk it's just not true

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#109

Post by germandiago » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:09 PM UTC

throwaway48476 wrote: post #94

germandiago wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks to me, increasingly and clearly like the current people want to keep the power tight. Not the politicians necessarily, just the whole oligarchies that govern. In my humble opinion, they have pushed Europe to a disaster if things do not get fixed in the next few years.

The disaster started 40 years ago and is only now breaking through.

Well, Idk. What I see is... it is in big part our fault but in another part people from outside... trying to get their nose, which, I would say, at the end, that it is enabled by corruption, which... is also our fault anyways.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#110

Post by komali2 » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:10 PM UTC

wickedsight wrote: post #76

simianparrot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "belief" that someone "may commit a future crime" is practically speaking psychic nonsense.

> “objective, verifiable information” leading to a belief Is very different from 'a belief'. What you're doing is wordsmithing this into something that sounds much worse than the actual text, which is textbook misinformation spreading.

Anti war activists have been called "terrorist supporters" since at least 2001. Before the 90s were Communist supporters (same thing).

I think people give too much credit to governments. "Of course they'll only use for-sure for-sure objectively terrorist intent verifiable information." No, historically what they'll do is throw you on the list because you followed a hot commie girl to a meetup in college, or attended a protest, or hell bought a watch terrorists happen to use to set timers in bombs.