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Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging

uk.reuters.com

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Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging

#11

Post by cholantesh »

nyolfen wrote: post #4

considering at least two islamist attacks in germany by a refugee have been carried by a minor[1][2], i don't think that fingerprinting refugee minors should be out of the question -- though obviously the details should be carefully deliberated. there is absolutely no way that mandatory government spyware on phones will guarantee effectiveness, though -- the bataclan attackers for instance used ordinary sms to coordi…

The first attack was not carried out by a refugee, at least, not per the text of the article.

Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging

#12

Post by ooyy »

skookumchuck wrote: post #2

The odds of being killed in a terrorist attack in Europe or the US are essentially zero. But the odds of being killed in a car crash, by a hospital mistake, falling in the shower, are very real. This is a classic, and irrational, disproportionate response. Besides, is there any evidence that monitoring 100% of message traffic will reduce terrorist attacks? Are terrorists really so dumb they're going to plan their att…

Risk of terrorism is fat tailed, there is a chance albeit extremely low that an attack causes the whole world go unhinged causing extreme destruction. Meanwhile falling on shower the risks are local and predictable, devastating for the individual but not impactful in the grand scheme of things.

Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging

#13

Post by bad_user »

mschuster91 wrote: post #7
jvdh wrote: post #3

The headline is misleading. They are not planning to fingerprint all children. They are lowering the age at which refugee children are being fingerprinted (from 14 to 6). This is part of the EU process of making sure that refugees are handled properly.

The problem is that the fingerprint data will not be used exclusively for immigration purposes but also for general crime fighting. I oppose that - because it is the first step to extend the surveillance state. Next to no one cares if refugees are forced to give up their fingerprints (except maybe the radical left), most people will actually silently approve of this, but who guarantees that in four years this won't b…

Given the high rate of incidents that Europe is having with immigrants, the alternative is to close the borders. So at this point, pick your poison: let tens or hundreds of thousands die of war or starvation, or take away freedoms that they wouldn't have without having crossed those borders anyway.

I'm a libertarian at heart, I've been very sympathetic towards refugees, however seeing lots of immigrants misbehave in my trips to the UK and Germany, I'm beginning to understand nationalism and why people have a periodic tendency towards populism (e.g. Trump, Brexit, etc).

The whole purpose of fingerprinting is crime fighting. Nothing else. There's no such thing as "immigration purposes". And when you're going into somebody's house, you obey their rules, otherwise you're free to go elsewhere.

Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging

#14

Post by skookumchuck »

artursapek wrote: post #8
skookumchuck wrote: post #2

The odds of being killed in a terrorist attack in Europe or the US are essentially zero. But the odds of being killed in a car crash, by a hospital mistake, falling in the shower, are very real. This is a classic, and irrational, disproportionate response. Besides, is there any evidence that monitoring 100% of message traffic will reduce terrorist attacks? Are terrorists really so dumb they're going to plan their att…

You can't really treat terrorist attacks (intentional) the same way you treat car crashes, hospital mistakes, and falling in the shower (accidental). It's not a pure numbers game.

Why can't we? Doesn't this extreme overreaction simply encourage the terrorists?

Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging

#15

Post by skookumchuck »

CaptSpify wrote: post #9
skookumchuck wrote: post #2

The odds of being killed in a terrorist attack in Europe or the US are essentially zero. But the odds of being killed in a car crash, by a hospital mistake, falling in the shower, are very real. This is a classic, and irrational, disproportionate response. Besides, is there any evidence that monitoring 100% of message traffic will reduce terrorist attacks? Are terrorists really so dumb they're going to plan their att…

> Are terrorists really so dumb they're going to plan their attacks via a monitored channel? Actually yes! The Paris attack was coordinated via sms. I know other attacks have been coordinated via monitored channels. The real problem is that even with all this monitoring, nothing is being done to stop terrorist attacks. Turns out, stopping terrorist attacks was never the point in the first place, who woulda though!?!…

> The Paris attack was coordinated via sms.

Coordinated, yes, but I seriously doubt they texted their intentions and purpose.

Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging

#17

Post by mirekrusin »

mschuster91 wrote: post #7
jvdh wrote: post #3

The headline is misleading. They are not planning to fingerprint all children. They are lowering the age at which refugee children are being fingerprinted (from 14 to 6). This is part of the EU process of making sure that refugees are handled properly.

The problem is that the fingerprint data will not be used exclusively for immigration purposes but also for general crime fighting. I oppose that - because it is the first step to extend the surveillance state. Next to no one cares if refugees are forced to give up their fingerprints (except maybe the radical left), most people will actually silently approve of this, but who guarantees that in four years this won't b…

I don't understand what's wrong about using this information against crime? It has such a low value when stolen (unless I'm missing something?) that I don't even have problem with doing it to every citizen.

When I was an expat in Brazil, the first thing Policia Federal did was to take my fingerprints - no problem with that. I imagine the same happens with immigrants in US and other countries.

Also I can imagine how difficult registering people who run from was is, surely there are cases with no documents, documents lost, abusive gangs registering people several times and claiming "borrowed cousins" as children they get more money for etc.

Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging

#18

Post by mschuster91 »

mirekrusin wrote: post #17
mschuster91 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the fingerprint data will not be used exclusively for immigration purposes but also for general crime fighting. I oppose that - because it is the first step to extend the surveillance state. Next to no one cares if refugees are forced to give up their fingerprints (except maybe the radical left), most people will actually silently approve of this, but who guarantees that in four years this won't b…

I don't understand what's wrong about using this information against crime? It has such a low value when stolen (unless I'm missing something?) that I don't even have problem with doing it to every citizen. When I was an expat in Brazil, the first thing Policia Federal did was to take my fingerprints - no problem with that. I imagine the same happens with immigrants in US and other countries. Also I can imagine how d…

> I don't understand what's wrong about using this information against crime?

Because demanding fingerprints from refugees but not Germans prejudices against refugees by branding them all as potential future criminals.

> Also I can imagine how difficult registering people who run from was is, surely there are cases with no documents, documents lost, abusive gangs registering people several times and claiming "borrowed cousins" as children they get more money for etc.

These are a negligible amount of cases. And especially not worth to destroy the right to privacy of the other 99.9999% of the population.

Re: Germany plans to fingerprint children, spy on personal messaging

#19

Post by mschuster91 »

bad_user wrote: post #13
mschuster91 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the fingerprint data will not be used exclusively for immigration purposes but also for general crime fighting. I oppose that - because it is the first step to extend the surveillance state. Next to no one cares if refugees are forced to give up their fingerprints (except maybe the radical left), most people will actually silently approve of this, but who guarantees that in four years this won't b…

Given the high rate of incidents that Europe is having with immigrants, the alternative is to close the borders . So at this point, pick your poison: let tens or hundreds of thousands die of war or starvation, or take away freedoms that they wouldn't have without having crossed those borders anyway. I'm a libertarian at heart, I've been very sympathetic towards refugees, however seeing lots of immigrants misbehave in…

> Given the high rate of incidents that Europe is having with immigrants, the alternative is to close the borders.

"high rate of incidents"? Next to all recent terrorist attacks in the last years involved people who were born in Europe. According to Sascha Lobo and other media reports, all of them were known to police for being violent and dangerous, one of the London terrorists actually was on a TV show "the jihadist next door".

And the (real) problems, e.g. overcrowding refugee camps, could be solved by solidarity in Europe, but right now it's Italy and Greece picking up the brunt of the load, then Germany - and then, with a vast distance, every other country in Europe. Despite especially the Eastern European (Visegrad) countries having profited massively by financial solidarity from the rest of Europe (which is mainly DE, FR, UK).

> however seeing lots of immigrants misbehave in my trips to the UK and Germany, I'm beginning to understand nationalism and why people have a periodic tendency towards populism (e.g. Trump, Brexit, etc).

They have a tendency to nationalism/populism because populism does not work with evidence and facts but rather with emotions and propaganda.

> The whole purpose of fingerprinting is crime fighting. Nothing else.

Well, let's take the immigration discussion out of the view for one moment: for now, for example, protests are legal. But what prevents a future government from using fingerprint data or especially biometric photo data to prosecute people for protesting against government?

Nothing. And this is why such movements must be stopped before a future government turns against its citizens.

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