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Comment by Aissen | Hacker News Reader

It's funny, I was listening to the Hanselminutes, and in a recent episode, his guest (a lawyer) was underlining that the US partially created the current situation where current its companies are at loss in front of GDPR: by refusing to take the lead on data privacy issues, the US didn't have a framework for privacy laws, and couldn't negotiate a convergence of laws with the EU (I'm paraphrasing).

https://www.hanselminutes.com/647/how-gdpr-is-affecting-the-...

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While I haven't listened to your linked episode, 'privacy laws' by definition come into direct conflict with the 1st amendment (i.e. free speech) to the U.S Constitution.

I admit I'm not an American citizen, and have never actually stepped foot on American soil, but I do see the "first amendment" and "free speech" arguments being trotted out for almost anything that involves communication between two parties being restricted. This, in my experience has been common in (privately owned) web forums when an American user is banned for misbehaviour, or rules are changed to prohibit certain types of content or speech on those forums.

The text of the amendment, as I'm sure you're aware, reads as follows:

> Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

I admit I fail to see how this prohibits introducing a law preventing an organisation from collecting data from individuals without them explicitly opting in to it.

In the same way that recording your interactions with the police is protected.

I'm also not an American, so I might miss subtle cultural context, but I would also be astonished to learn that the first amendment is absolute. There must be at least provisions that limit speech that would harm others, as [1] suggests (child pornography, fighting words,...).

The EU (you might be surprised to learn) also recognises the freedom of speech (in fact it's a universal human right, see [2] article 19). However, this does not mean GDPR is not valid law, just as I have a hard time understanding how the first amendment would prohibit privacy laws to exist.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

[2] http://www.un.org/en/universal-declaration-human-rights/

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