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Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

mullvad.net

461–470 of 534 posts

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#461
post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unpopular opinion: If you don't like democracy and use your democratic rights to actively work to dismantle it, you probably shouldn't actually be allowed to participate in democracy since you are operating in bad faith.

A few constitutions explicitly defend democracy, so you cannot modify the constitution to remove the democratic system. Germany is the most famous example (because, you know, Hitler). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entrenched_clause#Germany

But then, of course, you need some kind of enforcement. And once you set that up, it turns out that it is subject to the same problems as other law enforcement / intelligence agencies:

"In 2001, the federal government, the Bundestag, and the Bundesrat jointly attempted to have the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany ban the NPD. The court, the highest court in Germany, has the exclusive power to ban parties if they are found to be "anti-constitutional" through the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany. However, the petition was rejected in 2003 after it was discovered that a number of the NPD's inner circle, including as many as 30 of its top 200 leaders were undercover agents or informants of the German secret services, like the federal Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz. They include a former deputy chairman of the party and author of an anti-Semitic tract that formed a central part of the government's case. Since the secret services were unwilling to fully disclose their agents' identities and activities, the court found it impossible to decide which moves by the party were based on genuine party decisions and which were controlled by the secret services in an attempt to further the ban. The court determined that so many of the party's actions were influenced by the government that the resulting "lack of clarity" made it impossible to defend a ban. "The presence of the state at the leadership level makes influence on its aims and activities unavoidable," it concluded."

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#463
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We probably all know that they will show reasons [...], whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. I don't think this is how it works, absent an already existent police state. In democracies, it really is pushed for {good reasons}. Once built, it's then used by law enforcement, because it exists and gets the job done. Pretending there's…

Is anyone else astonished by how dramatically Hacker News has shifted its tone on this issue over the last five to ten years?

Society as a whole has dramatically shifted its tone, and HN is still a part of that, however idiosyncratic.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#464
post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parts of Germany instated laws that allowed to arrest people without trial for 30days. They claimed to only use it to prevent severe crimes like terrorism. Current statistics show, the most people that got arrested via that laws are climate activists. So either the law makers and police are incompetent and therefore shouldn't make these laws way or they know what they are doing and therefore shouldn't make these laws…

On the other hand in UK we pass laws that make it illegal to steal dogs. Which was obviously illegal anyway. I think American terror watchist has grown to nearly two million people. Are there really milkions of terrorists in US? How have they not yet blown up everything

I think the craziest thing you have in UK is Section 60. Specifically, the fact that a measly police inspector can unilaterally declare that "incidents involving serious violence MAY take place in a specified area", and then cops can stop and search anyone in that area without reasonable suspicion.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#465
post #327
post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In goriest form, I think of this as the drone argument. Is it better to put boots on the ground, some of whom may die and who may cause collateral casualties in executing their mission, or a (hypothetically idealized) drone that kills only the target? Still haven't decided if I have, or there even exists, a good answer to that.

The answer is yes. Murdering other humans who have no way to see it coming and no way to defend themselves is deeply evil. Especially when you factor in the murder of innocents (also referred to as collateral damage), and the facts that mistakes happen.

What if the "other human" is in the process of murdering people at that very point?

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#466

Earlier quoted context omitted.

borrowing from gun reasoning, if encryption is made a crime, then only criminals will use encryption.

That goes way beyond the scope of legislation in question. Suggesting that something akin to the great firewall of china could be deployed in the EU is unrealistic - having said that, it sure feels surreal when expression and support of these authoritarian ideas by EU representatives doesn't lead to immediate political suicide.

Why do you think a Great European Firewall is unrealistic?

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#467

As a pro-EU citizen I feel more and more inclined to agree on some of the Brexit rhetoric. Commissioners have shown multiple times that they are too permeable to lobbying, too willing to water down tough environmental regulation, and too keen on 'security' surveillance. So far the EU parliament members have balanced the act with some sanity. But the power and lack of transparency of the EC both with regards to lobbyi…

The idea that a continent full of people with different cultures and economies would benefit from following laws set by politicians elected by voters they can't even communicate with in their native language seems insane to me. I really just don't get it at all. Can't we just do the free trade thing without all the surveillance laws and other crap?

I'm all for European trade, but I felt I had to vote Brexit because obviously the goal of any political system should be to maximise the political power of individuals and local communities. The more you centralise and expand power over larger geographical areas the less tolerant of regional political difference your political system must become. This become obvious when we talk about a country like Turkey potentially joining the EU.

That said, I hate the UK government with a passion and they are arguably even worse when it comes to surveillance, but at least we can vote them out.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#468
post #71

We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. Privacy is a human right. We probably all know that they will show reasons like "fighting terrorism", "preventing national threats" or "hunting down child pornography" etc, whereas the real motivation is to control people's freedom of speech and communication even though they will 100% deny it. Anyone who is really…

> We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. I used to think this way, and still do to a degree... but it's not enough. The idea of zero trust as an absolute is flawed, because if the adversary is your own government they will just keep shifting targets. Lets play this out: 1. Gov start monitoring all proprietary messaging platforms and services. So lets ass…

The key here is that the "systems" that we need to decentralize include political and economic systems, not just technological ones.

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#469

Strangest thing to me about the topic is that it’s obvious vast percentage of citizens within democracies wish they lived in an authoritarian country, yet choose to live in a democracy and use the liberties they’re provided to actively destabilize and destroy it. To me this is the largest issue, not a given topic that results from it. Yes, I am aware current authoritarian countries wage propaganda campaigns, but in m…

So close to a breakthrough but you lost it at the end.

How so specifically?

Re: Stop the proposal on mass surveillance of the EU

#470
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We certainly need decentralized systems that cannot be controlled by EU, US, or any government/entity. I agree in principle, but controlled != regulated. It's (technologically) relatively easy to create a private, censorship-resistant distributed system, but if it's illegal people just won't use it. It's a human problem, not a tech problem.

Once a decentralized system becomes sufficiently ubiquitous, banning it becomes tantamount to imposing economic sanctions on yourself. That's basically what happened with the internet. That might have just been a fluke, but it would be awesome if we could somehow manage to create more systems like that.

The problem is that when political elites are faced between the choice of ruling an impoverished population and losing power, they will always choose the former.
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