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German government comes out against Chat Control

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Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#181

Post by xethos »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #166
petre wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe they've learned something from history and they're not doing the AfD a service before they grab onto more power? Or maybe this course of action is just more convenient at this time? Probably the latter.

> Maybe they've learned something from history and they're not doing the AfD a service before they grab onto more power? The lesson from history is to keep the autocrats from grabbing power. Trying to contrain them with laws ex ante hasn't worked since like Cicero. I'm not sure Berlin opposing Chat Control fits into their domestic anti-authoritarian arc.

> Trying to contrain them with laws ex ante hasn't worked since like Cicero

This isn't so much about making Chat Control illegal (thereby containing or limiting future authoritarians) as it is not setting up the infrastructure for them to wield as soon as they win an election.

I'd argue the current stance of being opposed to Chat Control is more like "Don't collect religious affiliation on the census" - meaning we can both agree with your comment I partially quoted, while also recognizing that Berlin's public oppostion can be meaningful.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#182

Post by Barrin92 »

constantcrying wrote: post #143
hackandthink wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of censorship in Germany. People do not care. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_Germany https://www.lto.de/recht/hintergruende/h/russia-today-verbot...

This might sound insane to every American, but German law especially protects politicians from insults, slander and libel. (See https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/stgb/__188.html for the actual law) Yes, you read that right. German law is especially protective of politicians, which is why politicians are very active suing random supporters of their opponents, because that is an effective way to police speech, open sp…

>Yes, you read that right. German law is especially protective of politicians,

As Lee Kuan Yew pointed out, the idea that you should be able to slander anyone in power is a nice underdog philosophy (particularly popular in the US, where the underdog is always right) but what it gets you is a post-truth environment in which reputation means nothing.

And as a German what a lot of people don't get, we're very much an honour based society, not an English or French liberal society. People in power aren't suspicious just because they have power, the crank is not correct just because he's the little guy. I think Lee Kuan Yew was largely correct if one looks at Anglosphere media and politics, where truth and reputation have entirely been replaced by conspiracy and tantrums. Far from the wisdom of the crowds being some truth finding mechanism you just enable the most charismatic nutjob.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#184

Post by IngoBlechschmid »

dgfitz wrote: post #155
uniqueuid wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the concrete laws, they are less spectacular. For example, the concept of privacy protecting against media coverage is actually weaker for politicians (when in official duty) than for ordinary citizens (Allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht). And libel only applies to statements of facts. I.e. you can't (easily) be prosecuted for opinions, just for making harmful false claims.

“This person is corrupt!” Is that an opinion or a harmful false claim?

A good friend of mine was recently sentenced to prison for publicly using this kind of phrase during a protest for climate justice. When Germany's equivalent of the Supreme Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, learned of this case, the court immediately ordered their release and declared the original verdict void: According to the Bundesverfassungsgericht, (in the specific situation at hand) this phrase is more a value judgment and less a factual claim.

Together with a fellow activist, who also served as informal legal counsel, they gave a talk on this case at the 38th Chaos Communication Congress: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5RmTOGucZo

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#185

Post by awesome_dude »

bigstrat2003 wrote: post #169
awesome_dude wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At issue here is... what exactly "freedom" is Speech is restricted the world over for things (fraud, threats, libel/slander, secrets, and more), and we're almost universally in favour of that. It's a balancing act, and the point where we set the balance is difficult, and constantly changing (should we allow speech that encourages the persecution of other people, sometimes called "hate speech" or should people be allo…

I don't think that this is really relevant to my point. My point is not that the proposed EU laws are good or bad (frankly, I don't know anything about them and I'm not in the EU so it's not my business), but that this topic can't be definitely settled for all time. No matter what resolution is reached in the EU today, in 5 years' time someone will be fighting to change it. That's just how it goes.

How is the reasoning for the constant change not relevant

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#186

Post by 1718627440 »

constantcrying wrote: post #171
uniqueuid wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at the concrete laws, they are less spectacular. For example, the concept of privacy protecting against media coverage is actually weaker for politicians (when in official duty) than for ordinary citizens (Allgemeines Persönlichkeitsrecht). And libel only applies to statements of facts. I.e. you can't (easily) be prosecuted for opinions, just for making harmful false claims.

>If you look at the concrete laws, they are less spectacular. And if you look at how these laws are used by politicians they look quite spectacular. >And libel only applies to statements of facts. I.e. you can't (easily) be prosecuted for opinions, just for making harmful false claims. The Wikipedia article and how the law was applied article disagrees. Do not forget that this applies to insults. E.g. calling a polit…

Yes and insults can be factual or not.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#187

Post by JumpCrisscross »

xethos wrote: post #181
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe they've learned something from history and they're not doing the AfD a service before they grab onto more power? The lesson from history is to keep the autocrats from grabbing power. Trying to contrain them with laws ex ante hasn't worked since like Cicero. I'm not sure Berlin opposing Chat Control fits into their domestic anti-authoritarian arc.

> Trying to contrain them with laws ex ante hasn't worked since like Cicero This isn't so much about making Chat Control illegal (thereby containing or limiting future authoritarians) as it is not setting up the infrastructure for them to wield as soon as they win an election. I'd argue the current stance of being opposed to Chat Control is more like "Don't collect religious affiliation on the census" - meaning we ca…

> not setting up the infrastructure for them to wield as soon as they win an election

Fair enough, you’re right. If they’re incompetent authoritarians (or just non-authoritarian right-wingers), this could mitigate the damage.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#188

Post by miohtama »

ho_schi wrote: post #145

The CDU/CSU is doing something good. That didn't happened for a long time? I appreciate it. Ausgerechnet Spahn. Manchmal glaubt man seinen Augen und Ohren nicht. Wir müssen Wachsam bleiben. Mit dem Argument das es böse Menschen gibt, wurde schon viel böses getan. Massenüberwachung zerstört jede Gesellschaft. Deutschland hat mehrfach darunter gelitten. Und die Versuche Massenüberwachung einzuführen wiederholen sich.

Also, even AfD agrees with them on this.

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#189

Post by mopsi »

rrr_oh_man wrote: post #164
asyx wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> NATO countries pushing for war with Russia is a far right talking point Talking point or not, is there truth in this statement?

Couldn't be further from the truth. Just look at how NATO countries have tiptoed around supporting Ukraine. Every major step (artillery shells, tanks, rocket artillery, air defense systems, and fighter jets) took ages of largely pointless discussion before the decision was made. Not to mention the very weak response to Russian military intelligence terror cells that have been caught red-handed across Europe in recent years while they were preparing attacks like smuggling incendiary devices onto DHL cargo airplanes. If this isn't an unbelievably unconfrontational reaction to Russia's actions, then what is?

Re: German government comes out against Chat Control

#190

Post by stephen_g »

ZeroConcerns wrote: post #31
Tuna-Fish wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> -Yet, there is a growing and legitimate demand for lawful interception of 'chat' services. I mean, "sure, your bank account got emptied, but we can't look into that because it happened via Signal" just isn't a good look Why on earth would mass intercept be necessary or even help in that? If you got scammed by someone, then you can contact the police and hand over your message history. Why would the cops be interest…

> Why on earth would mass intercept be necessary Lawful interception is not "mass intercept." It's the ability to surveil traffic from/to a clearly identified party, upon a judicial order for specific reason, for a limited time. ChatControl, on the other hand, is mass interception. I'm against it. Most people in the EU are against it. But to prevent things like ChatControl coming up over and over again, a basic tool…

The problem we have is that was OK when someone had to actually listen in or you had to have a tape recorder connected up to every line you want to tap, or physically open individual letters.

Now we have found “lawful intercept” can easily just become mass surveillance, and not just by the people who are meant to use it but other parties too. We saw this with CALEA which was used by China (and who knows who else) for espionage and spying for years before anyone realised.

You make a system for the “good guys” and it always turns out adversary, criminal groups etc. will gain access, even if the “good guys” don’t start acting like bad guys themselves.

Technology made mass surveillance easy, so every lawful intercept becomes mass surveillance as well as vulnerable to scammers, criminals and foreign intelligence.

And we don’t have any way of making lawful intercept possible without that unfortunately.

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