Brazil arrests Facebook executive in row over police access to data
news.yahoo.com
news.yahoo.com
(Sorry for my poor english, it isn't my first or second language.)
I don't see either how Facebook would be "protecting themselves". They have little to gain and much to lose by not cooperating with the government. It's not about publicity because it wouldn't have made the news at all if they complied.
Now, even mentioning the following may be going into conspiracy theory territory, but telephone companies were trying to get WhatsApp banned not long ago. I wouldn't be surprised if this event would further their goals.
http://martinfowler.com/articles/bothersome-privacy.html
Or read the google-translated version into Portuguese
https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=pt&js=y&pr...
It explains very well why this is no trivial issue to Americans nor to tech people.
Also, your drugs should be legalized or decriminalized, anyway. It would put all the bad guys out of business and bring the entire drug market back within regulation. Portugal did it and it's considered a success, why can't Brazil?
http://lixo.org/blog/2013/08/05/privacidade-protege-pessoas-...
> For many people, privacy is a fundamental right - they see no reason why a government should be meddling in my affairs without a more specific reason than a blanket search for possible terrorism.
... this is not about blanket searches, and:
> I'm not saying that privacy is an absolute. Foiling criminal activity often means breaching privacy - a database of phone calls can be helpful tool to investigate a criminal network.
And I say that as a Brazilian, you're comparing an European country with 10 million people (that's less than what my hometown of São Paulo has, now sitting at 11.8 million as of 2014 census) to a country of 200+ million of mostly uneducated people.
Sorry to tell you but you don't change a whole society way of thinking in less than a generation, much less when there's no politicians' desire for that.
Yeah, anyway it should be decriminalized (as it's for users right now) or legalized, but if you want to be real about it, come up with a plan, because realistically speaking there's no way to do it in the next 10~15 years.
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/americas/12/30/brazil.usa.immi...
They could fight the subpoena but decided to do nothing, so, I kinda agree with the court on this one.
That's what it comes to. The court requested three times, increasing the fines each of the tries and it was received with [legal] silence from Facebook. That's why they went ahead and issued the arrest warrant.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habeas_corpus
Our ex-president Lula has just avoided questioning/testifying on a corruption case. He's suspected of having gotten an apartment from construction companies as a bribe. It was on someone else's name, so he doesn't pay taxes on it etc (also illegal apart from the bribe). This is much more serious than this Facebook case, and there's so much evidence now that it would be a slam dunk case in any decent country. And Lula got out of it legally.
If you do something illegal you should expect punishment from the law sooner or later.
1: Greenwald is an American so the actions of the US government are relevant to him and his readers.
2: Greenwald is a lawyer, trained in US law, therefore the actions of the US Government vis-a-vis US Law is a suitable topic for him to cover.
3. China and Russia have been oppressing their people and their peoples rights for a long time. Neither have a constitution that is supposed to enshrine the rights of the citizens. SO there isnt much of a story there i.e. russians have no constitutional right to privacy, when that privacy is invaded by the state because the state has enacted laws that allow it to do that, there is no story. Plus even if there were there are probably russina lawyers and journal;ists who would be more knowledgeable on the subject and could bring it to the awareness of their russian readers. I doubt many russian media watchers read a lot of greenwald.
4. The US sells itself as the land of the free, so their hypocrisy makes the story worthwhile/interesting. China and Russia have never really hidden the fact that they will spy on anyone and everyone that they can. US says "we are your friends" and then spies on everyone regardless of their status as friend or foe.
But you know handy to throw in a straw man argument to try and deflect attention away from the US government and make the journalist the bad guy in this situation.
Counterpoint: If something goes without saying for long enough, people stop knowing it, because they never hear it.
The "drunk looking for his keys under the streetlamp" model of news reporting is indefensible. Let it go long enough and you end up with a large population of belligerently uninformed people, like we have now, who think the United States is the most violent, oppressive, and brutal government in the world, and that Americans have no human rights. This has real world consequences of an increase in relative political power and legitimacy for genuinely oppressive states.
Really?
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_People's_...
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Constitution_of_Russia#CHAPTE...
I find it an interesting puzzle that the U.S. constitution is so well-respected that people routinely win court cases (and invalidate legislation) by asserting rights under it, while in China apparently the idea that the constitution should substantively constrain the government is considered naive and harmful.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weiquan_movement#Retrenchment_...
In the past two weeks:
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/19/for-russia-censors-only-...
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/17/the-horror-story-of-publ...
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/15/putin-doesnt-need-to-cen...
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/24/bahrain-finds-opposition...
https://theintercept.com/2016/02/23/egypt-bars-journalist-fr...
Obviously there's more if you look further back. They did a whole documentary series on the Greek austerity deal, for example.
Our government aren't making requests secretly. They aren't requesting data in bulk. They aren't asking for a backdoor.
They are requesting data about specific people who are suspects in a specific case. Essentially using a search warrant.
http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2015/nov/26/seco...
https://www.cpj.org/2012/02/attacks-on-the-press-in-2011-bra...
http://www.forbes.com/sites/andersonantunes/2013/11/28/the-c...
Most interesting is the Petrobas scandal. The lead rep of government's side of the Snowden debate on Schneier's blog kept arguing spying on Brazil was legitimate, esp Petrobas. He said they're more an instrument of the state than a typical company and probably highly corrupt. That could lead to problems for the U.S. that leverage from spying could help deal with. Brazil is in process of proving him right.
So, there, I've done more to get word out to Brazilians than Greenwald has his whole time living there. :P
At that point the authorities are left holding the bag.
Though maybe your point is that it is the VP that has the responsibility of taking care of that? In that case I'd agree with you.
How should that be possible if FB doesn't store this information in the first place? I mean, if there would be a legal requirement for data retention on behalf of the state, I could understand the issue. But there isn't...