Privacy not Prism – UK legal challenge • Hacker News Board

Re: Privacy not Prism – UK legal challenge

#61

Post by tptacek » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 8:15 PM UTC

SEMW wrote: post #32

rayiner wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Democracy" is tyranny of the majority. In our constitutional republics, we have courts as a check on democracy, and that's necessary. Sometimes, those courts strike down programs generally supported by the electorate. Sometimes that's necessary too, but it's always a subversion of democracy. However, courts ultimately derive their principles of justice from the values and traditions of a people. That's why internati…

> However, courts ultimately derive their principles of justice from the values and traditions of a people. That's a valid POV, but it can hardly be stated as fact. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights owes its existence to a broad consensus that, actually, certain fundamental principles of human rights are universal, and a South African has as much of a right to not be tortured by his government as…

It's probably not enforcing democracy, since polls seem to show a overwhelming majority of Britons have problems with the ECHR.

Re: Privacy not Prism – UK legal challenge

#62

Post by brackin » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 9:09 PM UTC

joelrunyon wrote: post #46

brackin wrote: post #6

Paypal blocked my card when trying to donate, won't start a conspiracy theory.

What's the best P2P paypal alternative? I'm off of paypal for accepting payments but would love a solid alternative to sending money to people internationally (Chase Quickpay is great but you can't do international xfers).

TransferWise is a great way to transfer money internationally with low fees.

Re: Privacy not Prism – UK legal challenge

#63

Post by SEMW » Fri, Oct 04, 2013, 9:10 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #61

SEMW wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, courts ultimately derive their principles of justice from the values and traditions of a people. That's a valid POV, but it can hardly be stated as fact. For example, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights owes its existence to a broad consensus that, actually, certain fundamental principles of human rights are universal, and a South African has as much of a right to not be tortured by his government as…

It's probably not enforcing democracy, since polls seem to show a overwhelming majority of Britons have problems with the ECHR.

I could take issue with this implicit identification of 'democracy' with 'issue-by-issue 50%-majoritarian direct democracy' (i.e. the idea that democracy is whatever a >50% majority in a referendum would currently show on each issue taken separately). Many countries flirt with some elements of direct democracy (Switzerland goes furthest, that I know of), but none go that far. So the implication that that's the actual true form of democracy is arguably a bit silly.

...And this is getting perilously close to philosophical wankery over competing definitions of the word 'democracy', which doesn't make for a very interesting discussion, so I should probably stop there :)

Re: Privacy not Prism – UK legal challenge

#64

Post by yrro » Sat, Oct 05, 2013, 9:13 AM UTC

gadders wrote: post #52

DanBC wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but sadly they are popular nutters. Daly with UK voter turn out being so low (between 60% and 70%) it's not so hard to grab some votes, especially if you spew the kind of stuff that UKIP spew. It'd be interesting to see some vigorous modelling with different amounts of UKIP influence to see what happens (in the fictitious model). ( http://ukpolitical.info/turnout45.htm )

Yeah, because being against a corrupt, unelected organisation that can't even get its own accounts signed off due to corruption and fraud. What a crazy position to take.

http://fullfact.org/factchecks/has_eu_budget_rejected_audito...

Re: Privacy not Prism – UK legal challenge

#65

Post by Sprint » Sun, Oct 06, 2013, 8:52 AM UTC

sudomal wrote: post #7

Sprint wrote: post #3

Rant on: Why is it that people use "Prism" as synonym for the whole state of government surveillance? PRISM is one specific program of the NSA, there is much more and there is much worse (eg TEMPORA).

The less focused the effort, the more diluted the message.

That sounds vague and random. You could also say an un-focused effort misses the bigger picture.