51–60 of 105 posts
Other than in UK I'm more than happy with European privacy legislation compared to US. It's imageable that we could grant Snowden asylum, but you would put him in jail for 20 years at least. There are also - afaik and except UK - no laws which enforce corporations to spy on behalf of the government without being able to stand behind these actions.
Right to forget. Would such a thing come from the US?
In general, whenever it comes to human rights - or civil rights as Americans like to call it - it's appalling that they distinguish between citizens and foreigners (or aliens as they label us). Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: Okay to torture a Somali? No problem throwing Americans in prison without trial? Sure, let's wiretap cell phones of all Turks in Europe? I don't think so.
Not to detract from the point you are making, but just to clarify, I would not use the terms 'human rights', 'civil rights', or 'civil liberties' as synonymous. Legally, they have very different technical meanings, but colloquially they not used interchangeably either.
A very rough distinction legally: human rights are those which are bestowed by virtue of being born. Many (though not all) of the rights listed on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights[0] require no active action on the part of a government entity; rather, it would require active action not to respect those rights. Civil rights are those which are bestowed civilly, but are not inherently violated in the absence of government (or another third party).
An example of the distinction colloquially: until very recently, marriage equality activists had to be very careful not to describe gay marriage as a 'civil right' in certain contexts, because among the African American community, 'civil rights' has a very specific meaning, and using it to describe the plight of (white) LGBT individuals[1] was not always received well.
[0] http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
[1] Today we think of gay marriage as a relatively innocuous issue within the LGBT community, but it used to be quite divisive. It was seen as an initiative that affected mostly the white and wealthy members of the community, whereas issues such as LGBT homelessness affected primarily non-white members.
In general, whenever it comes to human rights - or civil rights as Americans like to call it - it's appalling that they distinguish between citizens and foreigners (or aliens as they label us). Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: Okay to torture a Somali? No problem throwing Americans in prison without trial? Sure, let's wiretap cell phones of all Turks in Europe? I don't think so.
Slightly offtopic, but since you seem to take a small offense, or at least, use it as fuel for your argument.... Alien is simply a historical term. It is derived from the latin term alienus which means something that belongs to another. So an alien to a country represented someone who belonged to another country. There is nothing rude or egregious about that label....
and there isn't anything wrong going about calling people of a color negros
after all, it's a technical term
In general, whenever it comes to human rights - or civil rights as Americans like to call it - it's appalling that they distinguish between citizens and foreigners (or aliens as they label us). Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: Okay to torture a Somali? No problem throwing Americans in prison without trial? Sure, let's wiretap cell phones of all Turks in Europe? I don't think so.
Many of the amendments in the Bill of Rights use the term " persons ", and not "citizens". Most of the basic rights in the US Constitution are extended to all human beings, even including undocumented aliens.
One can make the argument that the literal text of the constitution is "what the Founding Fathers meant", but one can also easily argue that since the Constitution is a living document, the effective interpretation and application of the Constitution by the courts, bound by legal precedent, is "what the Founding Fathers meant" as well.
One can also make the argument that since judicial review as we currently know it began with Marbury vs. Madison in 1803[1], so the courts should not have this level of authority when interpreting the consitution.
But then one can make the argument that.... well, you get the idea.
This debate predates the text editor wars by a couple of centuries, so don't expect to see it resolved conclusively anytime soon! :)
Speaking as an Australian: Hello! Yes please?
Keep in mind though that the UK is a special case in the EU in many many ways.
However there are many organizations, countries and interests involved here. There are the US, the rest of the world, the EU, the NATO, the Five Eyes, other trade agreements and even lots of special agreements (partly known for a long time, partly due to the Snowden revelations) with countries such as France, Germany and others, like Austria (there is a UN HQ, next to a espionage outpost by the NSA).
We now know that pretty much every US embassy also has a lot of SIGINT going on, same for US military bases (they still exist!) in Germany. There are "privately" owned places by the NSA, secret agreements with governments, companies, institutions, etc.
When a country secret laws (or interpretations of such), operates secret prisons, outposts, spies on embassies and international institutions, operates spy satellites that happen to be next to telecommunication satellites, etc. then it's really naive to think they you change some laws and things won't be happen anymore.
Do you really think in a country where agencies spy on the senate, where there are secret interpretations of laws by secret courts that democratic means have any chance of working?
Also given economical and military power how do you want to put pressure on the US? Even with some economic power the US military is still the biggest and best funded and as history has shown it's not only there for defense.
I don't think this can be changed easily, not because of thinking bad of the US (government), but because the system is big and strongly relies on these things. Big, complex systems are incredibly hard to change. The technicians here probably understand that.
Don't get me wrong. It may be possible, but the chance is low and fundamental changes might even lead to unrest. That's sad, but changing the system has been tried in many ways, even in the US, but the way the economic and military system works right now usually got strengthened or made more static. It's maybe what you'd call a technical debt in the sense that you build up on something that's not right.
You might wanna try a rewrite, but think about "rewrites" are in the context of a country. I am thinking about the French Revolution or "tearing down" of Germany after World War 2 here.
The US also has no history of that really being possible, because they never lost in the sense of needing to rebuild, while in Europe alone in the past 100 years everything changed completely in the couple of 100 years.
You can't blame the US for not doing that. It's not nice. Maybe a better way is possible, but so far history has no real examples of it, especially not for countries (or realms) that were so big and complex. Maybe it would even be better to do it small scale, maybe even by the states in the US declaring independence, because big realms tend to end up with one or two totalitarian systems in between and millions of death. Smaller countries or simply groups of fewer people tend to be more flexible (see startups).
Maybe there is another way. It would be really great if a lot of things would change, because currently civil rights that were made in order to prevent a lot of bad things from ever happening again are by many not considered something of value anymore (even though people like to pretend otherwise, but civil rights, human rights are by definition and intention nothing that you only care for when things are good).
In general, whenever it comes to human rights - or civil rights as Americans like to call it - it's appalling that they distinguish between citizens and foreigners (or aliens as they label us). Imagine European countries denying human rights to non citizens: Okay to torture a Somali? No problem throwing Americans in prison without trial? Sure, let's wiretap cell phones of all Turks in Europe? I don't think so.
To which European countries are you referring? The ones that imposed the Dublin treate[1] which effectively turned Greece and Italy into an huge refugee camp overnight? These countries to give a damn about aliens too.
Those Iraqi, Iranian, Pakistani (soon Syrians to be expected en masse) refugees do not risk their lives to come to Greece. They want to go to Germany, Sweden, France, the UK etc. But since Greece's PM (Kostas Simitis[2]) signed that treaty, Greece is forced to make front on the huge number of refugees arriving from wars that NATO (mostly UK and US) make directly or indirectly (see Syria) in the middle east without any financial or other kind of help from the EU, because of this treaty...
As a result, in Greece we have more than 2+ millions refugees. The government has run a disgraceful program (ironically named "Xenios Dias" - loosely translated as Foreigner Zeus, linked to the ancient Greek belief that foreigners should be protected by Zeusm thus sheltering a stranger was some kind of obligation), which in practice means take all refugees are taken away and put on guarded jails until they die out of something[3]. The rise of the Nazi party in Greece, which has close ties with the current government on so many levels, is partly because of the Dublin Treaty and the incapability of Greece to handle the situation.
Anyway, sorry for the rant...
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Regulation#Criticism
[2] Konstantinos Simitis is considered along G. Papandreou and current PM the most hated PMs in Greece's recent history (after 1974). He was the PM when Greece along with Godlman Sachs falsified the Greek statistics in order for Greece to enter Euro, which led to it's current situation along with other strings of scandals.
[3] http://www.tovima.gr/society/article/?aid=424639 (Greek article but take a look at the picture).
Given the secrecy on this topic, the anti-democracy that was revealed by Snowden and how the US government (and other institutions) deals with this makes that sound very naive. As sad as this might make me I do not see ordinary democratic ways working anymore in the US. However I'd love to see someone proving me wrong.
Legalization of marijuana. The government is absolutely against it but helpless to stop it.
Google: You'd better listen to us than opposite. Other than in UK I'm more than happy with European privacy legislation compared to US. It's imageable that we could grant Snowden asylum, but you would put him in jail for 20 years at least. There are also - afaik and except UK - no laws which enforce corporations to spy on behalf of the government without being able to stand behind these actions. Right to forget. Woul…
There was a scandal recently with a political staff member being involved in pornos. US papers plastered her face all over while censoring any naughty parts. In the Swiss press her face was covered to protect her privacy while the rest was not covered.
Also if you are accused of a crime and are a public figure you won't have your name and face printed all over the papers because you might actually be innocent.