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

statewatch.org

131–140 of 279 posts

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

#131
post #92
post #40

To quote some of the people I know who would be impacted the most by this: > Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. If they'd not spend the last 10 years purging the old guard who they called free speech fanatics they'd have someone in their corner. Now I just have the world tiniest violin for them. Or to use much better words than mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUqytjlHNIM

>> Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. I love this line. Its like a riff on the old radio Yerevan joke. > Q: What is the difference between the Constitutions of the USA and USSR? Both guarantee freedom of speech. > A: Yes, and the US Constitution also guarantees freedom after speech.

I got called a Russian bot on the world news subreddit for using that joke, then banned for disinformation, then got muted for 30 days after I asked what I'd said that was disinformation.

Or to use another Radio Yerevan joke:

Q: Is it true that Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov from Moscow won a car in a lottery?

A: In principle yes, but: it wasn't Ivan Ivanovich Ivanov but Aleksander Aleksandrovich Aleksandrov; he is not from Moscow but from Odessa; it was not a car but a bicycle; he didn't win it, but it was stolen from him.

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

#132
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How silly. Orban and his fellows are the ones who engage in authoritarianism.

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…

The AfD has a serious right-wing problem and doesn't want to clean up their act. Banning the party might lead to failure as with the NPD (which since renamed itself) but it's worth a try and in parallel axing their funding like just happened earlier this year with the NPD should be attempted.

I disagree with your "totalitarian measure" comment, it is the AfD who are not compatible with the German constitution and the majority of Germany's society who prefer a fair democracy should not bulge the shouting of demands by populists, Reichsbürger, Querdenker. The connections to the AfD do exist, AfD politician Malsack-Winkemann (then already not a member of the Bundestag anymore, a security issue in my eyes) toured through the Reichstag with people from the Reichtsbürger group around Heinrich XIII. Prinz Reuß. Local AfD politician Andreas Geitz was even part of the Reichstagsturm in 2020.

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

#133
post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Committing crazy violence and "terrorist"-like incidents is ridiculously easy. I'm still trying to process and figure out why it doesn't happen more often everywhere, all the time. Even if you expand it to include government-level backing and support, it should be happening more and yet it isn't. Why.

Most people are fat, lazy, and believe violence has no power. The security model is predicted on ~0% of people having malintent. I think its a lot of security through obscurity.

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

#134
post #82

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…

"support or engage in terrorist or violent extremist offences" What constitutes "support"? Hopefully your next government is OK with you back then liking the post of that one organization previously not classified as terroristic.

The Holy Land Foundation case comes to mind.

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

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Agree, but he started his work in South Africa with great success. I was just revealing that there are different ways to protest that entail people sacrificing now a little so they do not have to sacrifice a lot in the future.

But I will also argue, imagine if he did nothing?

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

#136
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Your bank accounts are frozen and credit cards blocked. Your amazon video library is also gone, as is your gmail account.

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

#137
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

Reasonable predictions are "psychic"?

No, one legitimate concern is over the amount of information gathering and sharing that's needed to establish sufficient “objective, verifiable information” and how that competes with other goods.

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

#138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They have been using violence. Violence against property mostly but that's violence nonetheless. Throwing paint or other things at buildings and pieces of art in museums is violence (criminal damage is not peaceful protest). But in the grand scheme of things this is indeed a weak justification.

What's the point of this comment? Some violence is justified. Violence against the Nazis was justified. The destruction of the Berlin Wall was justified. Jesus overturned the tables of the money exchangers, violently I suppose, and that was justified. The focus on the broad term 'violence' without any additional analysis is completely useless. And it's interesting to me that when 'violence' is used on this specific t…

The point of the comment is that there is no such thing as 'good violence' just as there is no such thing as 'hate speech'. There is just violence. There is just speech. You try to muddle those simple things and you end up with where are today: confused population unable to reason through their way through otherwise simple reality.

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

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it isn't. This "objective, verifiable information" is an open door to using misinformation to frame innocent people of crimes they have not committed.

This type of information is already being used to prevent crimes. People get arrested for planning robberies or murders all the time. Those investigations start based on beliefs that are based on 'objective, verifiable information'. After that intent has to be proven in court with evidence that has been found during an investigation. In many cases it also leads to a case being dismissed because no evidence is found.…

> In many cases it also leads to a case being dismissed because no evidence is found.

Good luck piecing back together your life at that point, after years of being unemployable and unable to find rental accomodation (and the house that you bought with your life savings is gone, the bank sold it while you were fighting for your freedom).

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