New EU Law Removes Digital Privacy
patrick-breyer.de
patrick-breyer.de
Sexual assault is one thing, but it's worth taking a minute to realize how arbitrary and ridiculous some of these laws are before you start throwing children into jail for texting... let alone stripping away basic civil liberties on the basis of "some people are bad so we can't have nice things."
Yes.
When I was 15, I had nudes of a 17 year old. Age of consent is 16 in the UK but sexual images of people under 18 is illegal.
Having that content was illegal; and I have the criminal record to prove it.
Did you have those nudes with the consent & permission of the 17 year old in question?
Is there more to this story than you are letting on?
It's bonkers. But it happens. Unfortunately all of this has become something of a taboo, but teenagers having sex is ... kind of normal. What exactly is and isn't acceptable is very hard to decide as a general matter, and far too often any conversation is shot down with "pedophile apologist!" or, in this case, baseless "you must have done something wrong!" assumptions.
In some countries, you can have sex at 14, but only do sexting at 18. Total mindfuck.
Laws are far from being logical or always making sense.
Find enough innocent to change the jurisprudence, but I d bet that you can find so many more quilty parties that the law had to go one way.
Now I have a daughter and I was 16 before mobile phone existed. I m thinking what I would do if I see her sexting: probably nothing after 16 and a soft warning between 14 and 16 and a very strict one before, just because consent can only exist with maturity. Now if the guy is 30 and she s 16, I d tell her she s being an idiot sending him anything: it's not like he cares about her as a person, most likely and she s going to suffer under my responsibility or at best put him in danger. But, 16, starts to be her choice to listen or not and difficult for me to enforce anything.
Glad she s still 3 :D
I actually think that there were other EU countries that had even lower age limits than Germany.
Someone under 18 could have sex with someone over 14 (but also still under 18).
As soon as one of them is older than 18 it becomes child molesting, and the grown up is in serous trouble.
The law makes not sense of course. It was a more or less recent change. The old regulation may seem bizarre given that example of the parent, but it was more close to reality in most cases.
Before that a 18 year old was not in trouble when sleeping in consent with a slightly younger friend (which is a common situation in reality). Now you would automatically get prosecuted as child molester if authorities would find out; no matter a relationship and consent!
That's the outcome of the CP witch-hunt in Germany… Quite normal things are now outlawed and can ruin lives of young lovers quite substantially.
It's somewhat related to determining whether the child was capable of "sexual self-determination". But typically the abuser will only get punished if both the child and its parents file a legal complaint(at least that's what the law says).
I'm going to leave my opinions on this at the front door, but given how easily this law can be abused it's almost comical how often the german government has used the excuse of "think of the children" when they passed mass surveillance laws.
By the way as others have pointed out while the 14 and 17 year old can have sex legally, sending any kind of nudes actually triggers another law that may lead to imprisonment[1]. Making any kind of "pornographical" material available to children under 18 is a felony. Who would have known that the porn my classmate shared in highschool on VCR, if shared on an iPhone nowadays could have led to him being sent to the juvenile detention center.
[0] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schutzalter#Schutzalter_14_Jah...
The other child posts are correct, I'm wrong.
My confusion comes mostly form a not realized, but once planed change in this laws.
In the end the current legislation seems quite sane.
But this can't be said about the laws governing messaging intimate content between teens. That's the other source of my confusion.
Anyway, thanks to bmn__ and rjzzleep for pointing out my error!
Can you look first into Wikipedia, online law publication to verify before spreading misinformation?
You are morally obligated to edit your post and correct it with the true facts.
No, but he would be. She would merely be in possession of it.
For the record, Denmark has, indeed, punished a large number of underage offenders for spreading child pornography through social media. It's mostly been regarding clips spread without the participants' consent though.
Not sure whether other countries go by the age of sexual consent, but I've personally never heard any other definition of child porn than "sexually explicit/suggestive content involving people under the age of 18". Assuming that's valid everywhere, then it would indeed be child pornography since the Dane was under 18.
EU-wide harmonization of such laws would be a welcome step to take before privacy-invading measures were to be taken, and such legislation definitely should address underage sexting.
It depends on what country they are, right now.
Age of consent in both France and Denmark is 15.
For example in many countries age of consent threshold is not enforceable if both are minors and the age difference is at most 4 years.
A 15 years old sending nudes to a 17 years old girl would not be punished as CP.
Authoritarian's universally believe individuals left to themselves make bad decisions either because they're too stupid or too cruel so we need benevolent leaders like themselves to order society.
Only in the last few hundred years countries in Western Europe began to reject this and accept while some individuals may make bad decisions the cost of "benevolent" leaders is too great.
Today in the West we seem to be forgetting that freedom comes with costs and this can only lead in one direction. We should understand China isn't the exception, they are the norm. It was in fact the West who was always more likely to revert to the mean than for China to embrace freedom. People like Orwell understood this very well.
The more freedom individuals have the more likely individuals will say and do things leaders don't like and if our leaders no longer celebrate this disagreement as progress they will seek to restrict freedom. Of course, some actions are almost universally seen as bad and in these cases it's worth carefully restricting freedoms, but this clearly isn't one of those cases. And most attempts to limit freedom of speech also aren't.
Which, to be fair, isn't entirely wrong. :)
That doesn't mean that the "authoritarians" would make any better decision of course.
But personal devices? Secure files you maintain for your business? No - this is a move on the part of the 0.1% to enlist the technical priesthood in spying on the 1-5%. It's a means to try to force fear on the functionaries closer to the apex of the system. Like some other reactionary revolutions, it draws support from a lower base, but its targets are exactly the people who carry out the sensitive functions of the state. That's somewhat scary. However, it's also a bit toothless because clearly it will force anyone who needs to keep their communications private to use other channels. Until or unless that becomes prohibited, as in China.
Then again, I'd never underestimate the spinelessness of the western bureaucrat when it comes to conforming to rules and regulations.
Even Monero?
> and Tor is a technology actually developed by "the man" with military purposes, and still funded by the US government
How does it matter if it's open-source?
> How does it matter if it's open-source?
You (and many other respondents) are responding to "Tor is supplied by the government, and therefore is an evil trap". What the OP seems to be saying is "Tor is an anarchist stand against the man, it's actually funded by the man".
There are literally hundreds of cryptocurrencies. The term does not imply anonymity nor privacy, just the concept of a somewhat decentralized ledger that relies on cryptography to ensure the authenticity and integrity of transactions. In those hundreds, certainly there are different goals with different currencies. The question remains though - are those who focus on privacy and anonimity field-tested? Are there cases of demonstrable attacks on the anonymity characteristics of a given implementation that can attest for their robustness? AFAIK no, but feel free to add any independent analysis or incident I may have missed.
> How does it matter if it's open-source?
OpenSSL is also open-source and every year there is a new vector of bad news. Being open source in some projects - specially crypto projects - means that motivated attackers can identify potential vulnerabilities quite easier, instead of "more people will look at it, ergo it will have fewer bugs". There is a huge potential for planned defects to go unnoticed on a complex cryptography product.
Tor is open-source and can be audited for government backdoors.
Why not use banknotes, they re well less susceptible to government control of spending but oh surprise a lot more to control of the cash grab speculative aspect - and hard to carry $600M of them in a hurry after a heist, unlike recent defi exemples.
How can you exchange bank notes electronically?
The first question is why would you want to transfer money from A to B electronically without any kind of reasonable guarantee or safeguard? The major use case is to avoid paying taxes. Feel free to add any other usage scenario that isn't skipping taxes directly or indirectly.
Mostly Monero. Paying for censored content with Bitcoin can be traced back to you and will get you in jail the same as paying via bank transfer.
And Monero is the odd one out here -- most other cryptos don't really help against censorship resistance.
That is not a problem for open source that has been audited.
We also know why the US government supports Tor: It goes against geopolitical adversaries like Iran and Cuba by helping dissidents in their countries.
Their activity. Not yours. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/04/tor-attacks-ns... https://edri.org/our-work/secret-documents-reveal-bnd-attack...
Big leap of faith. You probably won't need both hands to enumerate people capable of correctly audit a piece of modern crypto software in the hole world, and probably half of them work or have worked for governments. Even using those resources, one thing are obvious flaws, other are weakening of the robustness of the protocol in certain conditions. Even with your top 5 (first hand), no one would guarantee the protocol and implementation is free of backdoors.
> We also know why the US government supports Tor: It goes against geopolitical adversaries like Iran and Cuba by helping dissidents in their countries.
I'm not a tor expert by far, and even I know that if you have enough entry and exit nodes under your control, you can identify both source and target of traffic. It makes sense for the USA to use a communist/Iran(terrorists!) excuse to pursue that goal. So, it makes sense to create a layered secure communication channel that only you can reverse, and pitch it worldwide as a safe means of communication for "dissidents".
It's not about privacy but governmental control and freedom.
You say that like its a separate concept from privacy and anonymity. Its not. The government is (should be) just a non-profit corporation. Other than that, those concepts are fundamentally equivalent.
The term useful idiots come to mind. There is no lack of them.
2001: Terroist attack, swing towards mass surveillance.
2010: Gov't went too far, surveillance seen as a greater threat than terrorism, swing pendulum back to privacy.
2021: Gang violence increases in Europe, swing pendulum to mass surveillance.
Can anyone guess what will happen 2030?
Obviously, Terrorists have won. I don't know how aware the American public is, but Afghanistan is being overrun by Taliban as we speak, causing another refugee crisis in Turkey that could easily spill into the continental Europe and the UK. Just before the pandemic, the Turkish govt was blackmailing EU with letting the refugees go wherever they want, you can expect this to repeat as the Turkish public is overwhelmingly against(polls show %80 want the refugees go) hosting refugees as many as %10 of its population. EU almost went bust with only 1M, Turkey alone hosts 5M to 8M at the moment and the Afghans are arriving in thousands everyday.
You can expect the governments to try to manage the situation by increasing their toolset. You can expect increased surveillance and decreased rights trend to continue. You can expect people with different aspirations to try to take advantage of it.
Speaking specifically of 9/11, no, not really. Bin Laden's stated goal was to commit such a crime on American soil that every average American will have to look up Al Queda, find out why they attacked America, and in the process discover all the attrocities comitted by American military and then finally and hopefully turn against their own government.
Obviously, none of the above happened - American government used the attacks as a pretext to spend another trillion dollars on a pointless war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, and then used them again at home to remove private liberties and introduce laws that would have had no chance otherwise. I'd argue the average American never bothered looking up why US was attacked beyond a "brown people hate freedom brrrrrrrrrr" nonsense.
So no, terrorists didn't win. They failed at their stated goals miserably, but the world's population still lost as the noose of global surveilence is getting tighter and tighter every year.
The way you put it, It looks like Al Queda had a noble goal. It's a shame that they did not win then.
But I am more cynical than that, I don't believe in the idealistic goals of these organisations. In my opinion, all local warlords fight for power, glory and spreading their influence.
Looking at the final situation, I would say that they achieved exactly that. Globalism is dead, the liberal culture of the west is significantly degraded thus cementing their influence in the region. Their power is now much less contested and they can rule happily thereafter.
Denying this is closing your eyes to some major problems and as long as you deny something you are categorically unable to fix it.
The increased polarization in the United States is a product of the end in the mid-1990s of the overlapping pair of partisan realignments starting just before WWII and a return to the normal condition encouraged by the US electoral structure of a strong, stable, sharp partisan divide, combined with modern mass media technology.
The 2001 terror attacks are coincidental, not a cause.
Denying this is closing your eyes to major structural problems with the political system in the United States and, as long as you deny something, you are categorically unable to fix it.
We agree that this was already happening prior to 2001, but I simply doubt it would have resulted in the extreme situation that we have today. Social media, similarly is an accelerator, not a cause.
But I’m not sure why. Are they trying to make me think that leaving Afghanistan is bad for America? I think it’s good. Time to stop spending money there. Trump and Biden are right to leave.
Surprising that even media outlets like the NYT seem to be writing doom and gloom about leaving. Biden just not be making globalists very happy with this.
So it's a huge mess, where they've been in control more or less, but they've failed to make the transition into a local civilian state into a stable one.
The offshoot of this is a wave of refugees that will engulf the neighboring countries, decreasing political stability in the Eurasian area.
This is a clear message to all governments - "Washington can no longer be trusted, it's a game of each for his own sovereignty now on".
I'm not saying US should be the guarantor of world piece, but this unmitigated disaster of immediate retreat is causing diminishing of political capital for Washington. It won't be considered as a dependable party from now on.
The situation is even more horrific from PR point of view since US helped to empower Taliban in 1980's to retaliate against Soviet forces. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cyclone
I think Afghanistan has failed itself. U.S. put a trillion dollars and 20 years into it and it collapsed within a month (at best). At some point you admit failure and move on.
I think the rest of your messaging is confusing. Washington can't be trusted, but we shouldn't be the guarantor of world peace? Should I stay or should I go?
What do you want us to do? Stay in Afghanistan forever? Where and when does it end?
Like I said, I don't want Washington to do anything. I'm a disinterested observer.
I can be a disinterested observer while saying something is an objective failure. It does not mean necessarily that there might have been any other outcome, or that I was rooting for some other particular policy.
It's either that or don't go there in the first place. Afghanistan has been cynically used by world powers over and over again to get at each other and as a convenient battle field. Leaving it to the Taliban will only guarantee another chapter in that series.
And what good does staying do? If we stay we're bad, awful imperialists and playing global police. If we leave we're bad too for letting Afghanistan return to the year 2000. If you're damned either way might as well save money. Maybe the EU can step up and commit resources and money and prevent this outcome you're describing. Why does America have to do it?
I think most Americans hold this viewpoint too. If you don't like it, I think it might be beneficial to go back and look at the years of "America in Afghanistan bad" international press. No wonder Americans said "fuck it we're done".
Funny enough the more controversial war (Iraq) seems to have brought about the more successful long-term change. U.S. forces are effectively out and the Iraqi government is running Iraq. Would be great if the Iranians would stop meddling but is what it is.
In what specific ways?
No man, this is what's wrong with Americans who believe in Trump. "They" are not "trying to make" you "think" something. It's just the fucking news. Turn on France24 or Al Jazeera or BBC - you're not their audience. They're covering the fall of a new city in Afghanistan every day.
There is some psychosis among Americans who spend too much time online where you think every piece of news must be slanted bullshit trying to win an infowar on your brain. It's not. This is pure fucking cause and effect. America pulled out, which we wanted, and now the Taliban is going to massacre a lot of women and children, which America doesn't give a rat's ass about. That's the situation.
No one cares if they convince you or Joe Biden or America. This is just what's happening. For my 2 cents, I don't think we should have left before we eliminated the Taliban.
Don't want to do a back and forth here, but do want to make it clear I don't "believe" in any president. I certainly didn't vote for Trump in either election. He can be right about some things even if he's almost universally wrong on policies according to my own views.
> "They" are not "trying to make" you "think" something. It's just the fucking news. Turn on France24 or Al Jazeera or BBC - you're not their audience. They're covering the fall of a new city in Afghanistan every day.
But they're covering it with an opinion "America should do something", "this is bad", etc. Which is fine to have I guess, but that's the same spirit that got us in Iraq and Afghanistan in the first place. Which is the point of my comment.
I predict within a couple months they will execute American hostages and we will have to return to Afghanistan. It may be something like Carter's self-immolation in Iran. If so it will only lead to a more isolationist right-wing regime under Trump or someone else in the US. Isolationism does not work. America is a global power and needs to act as one. Globalism is the future and it shouldn't be controlled by China and Russia while we retreat from it. I'm no neocon or fan of Bush-style pre-emptive strikes. But we're the only ones who have some accountability and the capacity to prevent genocide, and we should do it.
Had. But after all the failures this has eroded quite a bit.
And yet America is still a great idea. That's what gives us accountability. That's why we can't retreat from the world into isolationism.
[edit] Just to expand on this, I'm from the immigrant side of America, and the working class side. In other words, I'm not a rich white guy whose family sailed here on the Mayflower, and I'm not someone with "white privilege" or whatever. This is the place you go if you have something you want to build, make, say, do, create, or a freedom you wish to exercise that you cannot exercise in your home country. Now. A lot of old-school right wing Americans think they don't want more immigrants. But without immigrants, America is nothing. The force of change and justice and creative power in America, in my mind, has always been about immigration and the freedom it unleashes in people who were repressed elsewhere in the world. And that is why we have a responsibility to help people, like the people in Kabul right now, who are being crushed by horrific violent forces like the Taliban.
All of these groups have their own idea of what America should stand for and their lack of agreement is materializing in a societal schism that I don't believe can be bridged under a single political system.
And yes, America has a responsibility to Afghanistan, but mostly because they are one of the major forces behind the current mess in the first place.
Swedish cities are now plagued by massive problems due to the large influx of migrants.
Another wave would destroy any hope of returning to normality in Sweden.
Sweden surely has a very difficult immigration problem to tackle. But it’s worth noting that it’s the migrants who suffer from this, not the existing Swedish residents.
Here is an example about shootings:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/fatal-shooting...
The thing is you can't just get the good migrants and those that are bad voids the whole idea.
At least until sufficient harsh laws can curb the problem.
Which isn’t to say it’s not a problem. It’s a huge problem. But it’s also important to keep in mind who’s actually suffering here.
Even though it's the EU countries that have contributed to the plight of people in places like Afganistan and Syria? That's super convenient point of view - very nice way to wash your hands of any responsibility.
And I'm saying this as an EU citizen - every country, including my own, that has participated in military excurisions in the middle east in the last 30 years has created this crisis for themselves. Saying that "oh, arab countries should take them" is beyond brutal, it's barbaric.
It's really not, so it's quite irrational to include that level of hyperbole to make your point emotionally loaded rather than factual.
Afghanistan is bordered by Pakistan and Iran - both countries which are a helluva lot more culturally and religiously aligned with the majority of Afghans.
> every country, including my own, that has participated in military excurisions in the middle east in the last 30 years has created this crisis for themselves
This is nonsense. Religious fundamentalism & oppression of the populace has created this situation - both of which were aided & abetted by (you guessed it) Iran & Pakistan. Both countries are the biggest funders of the religious fundamentalists as well as offering state level support and safety for those leaders.
Unless you find a way to make UAE etc. take the refugees to achieve the "Arabs take the migrants" goal, prepare for a dramatic increase in immigrants. If it happens that EU decides to fight it back, they will need all the surveillance power and get the rights removed to be able to enforce the restrictions on the movement of millions.
Sure the EU gave FAANG a slap on the wrist, but I know of now government that rolled back the increased surveillance that terrorist legislation gave them.
> in the entire EU there have been _only_ 800, let's say 1k such violations?
No, that's just the tip of the iceberg. Not all violations with fines/punishment are made public, and a vast majority of non-egregious violations will not result in a fine/punishment in the first place because the competent DPA will send a letter outlining what's wrong, how to fix it, and what the consequences will be if it's not fixed.
Those transgressors will simply very quickly come into compliance to avoid the trouble and the affair will not be made public.
If you go to the comment's page [0] you can click "vouch" to reincarnate the comment if you believe it should be part of the discussion.
Then there's the Irish who "oversee" Facebook and Google and do SFA.
So the GDPR is not enforced [to a level anywhere near what the legislation is supposed to do].
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/top-eu-court-says-natio...
Yeah.. GDPR works >assuming< everyone reports every violation of privacy, which is absurd to believe it would be the case.
Did something happen in 2010 that reduced surveillance and strengthened privacy rights?
If so, I think I may have missed it.
Others are pointing out the 2021 "Gang violence in Europe" claim doesn't make sense either soo...
Post 2010:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reactions_to_global_surveill...
Which culminated in: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Data_Protection_Regu...
Post 2021:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANOM
At least in Sweden, there is ongoing discussion to legislate Police mass surveillance capability at the expense of individual freedom.
Many Western Europeans on HN and reddit will deny this problem even though it is an actual problem and unfortunately our governments are already using it as an excuse for mass surveillance.
Military SIGINT planes flying over Copenhagen in 2017 to stop gang shootings should have triggered global outrage about mass surveillance:
https://www.berlingske.dk/samfund/politiet-tager-nye-vaaben-...
What are you referring to here?
Swedish police used FBI-provided data to arrest 155 indiviuals. Weirdly, the Swedish police cannot collect such data themselves, but need to act if they "stubble" across information indicating imminent crime.
We are heading the road of China and Russia where people try to get out because they don't want to live there anymore. No place for privacy or diverse opinions.
Did I miss something?
I strongly believe such a legislation would not be able to pass EU parliament if it would require actually breaking E2E encryption.
That's why we over here call it a democracy-simulation.
Breyer is one of the very few trustworthy people in that system. One should listen to his concerns as they're real.
I suspect that is nothing like the actual feeling of the residents of the EU
People who are motivated enough to know and comment about these proposals are not a representitive sample of the population.
If you were to stand outside Old Trafford and ask people who the best football team in the UK is, you'll get the vast majority saying Manchester United. Do the same thing in London and you'll get people saying it's Arsenal. Aside from both being wrong, you can see the bias.
Accredited polling companies adjust results to minimise sample bias, but even then have to be careful to avoid leading questions as shown in this 'documentary':
No one removed digital privacy in EU.
The pirate party is desperate for attention among EU electors, it only has a total of 4 members, Breyer is the only German that was elected and the only one from a western European country.
They need to get titles on newspapers, they're good at doing it, but sometimes they go on a hyperbole.
Moreover: data retention is Breyer's pet peeve, he built a career around it so he obviously talk constantly about it.
If some of you here ever spent time in the environment of the EU elected representatives, you'd know how much each one of them lobby for their agenda, all the time, non-stop.
To add some more details: this is not a private company spying on its users, this is a coalition formed by 25 sovereign countries passing a law that harmonize the different legislation around searching for potentially unlawful digital communications.
But the article 5a) specifically states that
> Notwithstanding their legitimate objective, these activities constitute an interference with the fundamental rights to respect for private and family life and protection of personal data of all users. Any limitation to the fundamental right to respect for private and family life, including the confidentiality of communications, cannot be justified merely on the ground that certain technologies were previously deployed when the services concerned did not, from a legal perspective, constitute electronic communications services. Such interference is only possible under certain conditions. It needs to be provided for by law, respect the essence of the rights to private and family life and to the protection of personal data and, in compliance with the principle of proportionality, be necessary and genuinely meet objectives of general interest recognised by the Union or the need to protect the rights and freedoms of others as enshrined in Article 52 (1) of the Charter. Where such measures permanently involve a general and indiscriminate monitoring and analysis of communications of all users, they interfere with the right to confidentiality of communications.
Digital privacy is demonstrably being eroded on many fronts, all over the world. The EU currently has tenuous protections that are in danger of being superceded by concerns that are perceived as higher precedence. The article does seem to be doing a reasonable job of highlighting one such process and sets it in context with the bigger issue.
> The pirate party is desperate for attention among EU electors, it only has a total of 4 members [...]
Just because a political opinion has almost no supporters doesn't mean it's wrong. Historically, privacy alarmists got it right more often than not. None of the scenarios outlined in the article seem particularly over the top to me.
> Moreover: data retention is Breyer's pet peeve, he built a career around it so he obviously talk constantly about it.
I don't know this person, if you say they're untrustworthy I'll take your word for it. But being against data retention seems a reasonably stance in my opinion.
> If some of you here ever spent time in the environment of the EU elected representatives, you'd know how much each of them the lobby for their agenda, all the time, non-stop.
I'm not sure what to make of this sentence. I have no doubt that EU officials are lobbying for their agendas. But the debacle behind the upload filter / copyright directives has shown to me that those agendas either don't include digital rights (in which case they apparently default to deferring to industry lobbyists) or their agendas are not particularly well aligned with citizens' interests.
This is not the case though.
This case is EU against tech giants not wanting strict laws around data manipulation.
They have been subjected to the law in Europe, which is a fundamental right for us Europeans.
I know people here are against public intervention, but we generally trust the public in EU, more than Google or Apple for sure.
> if you say they're untrustworthy I'll take your word for it.
I'm not saying they are untrustworthy, on the contrary, they are to be trusted, but sometimes they shoot to the moon.
> I have no doubt that EU officials are lobbying for their agendas
I mean that if you read the personal website of an EU representative whose entire career revolves around data retention, you will only find his/her radical opinion on the matter, because it's their job to present it.
Even if you go out and have a drink with them, they won't stop talking about it (it happened to me personally many times).
They do it constantly.
Are you an lobbyist than? I can't imagine any other reason Breyer would talk personally to someone with our opinions while having a drink together.
> > Digital privacy is demonstrably being eroded on many fronts, all over the world
> This is not the case though.
Quite a distorted view on reality given all the surveillance laws passed over the last few years…
It feels by now as there would be new attacks on peoples freedom form the government almost on a daily base. Enjoy the a look at the tip of the iceberg:
No, I lived in Bruseels for a while with my girlfriend at the time that worked for the parliament.
Brussels is a small city and elected representatives are humans, just like us, they go out just like the rest of us.
I was shocked too when I realized they can't stop talking about their job, not even for a second.
> Quite a distorted view on reality given all the surveillance laws passed over the last few years…
Specifically, which one?
In Europe I mean.
I'm familiar with statewatch, they are a reliable source, but they treat civil liberties as an absolute value, a parliament represent every possible political opinion that the people elected, they have different jobs and represent different interests.
Democracy is not the same thing as "the perfect place where nothing we disagree with ever happens".
As a term of comparison: do you think people are more surveilled in Europe or in the United States? (just mentioning the two champions of liberal democracy, even countries like Japan are worse put than these 2 in terms of state surveillance.)
> No, […]
So why are you talking like a typical right-wing lobbyist?
> > Quite a distorted view on reality given all the surveillance laws passed over the last few years…
> Specifically, which one? > In Europe I mean.
> I'm familiar with statewatch, they are a reliable source, but […]
Anybody having a look at the statewatch website will instantly notice that your question doesn't makes any sense given that we're counting the latest surveillance laws by the dozens (maybe even by the hundreds by now), and that your claim to know the website seems dishonest therefore.
Also you're trying to relativize that source by all what follows that "but"…
> As a term of comparison: do you think people are more surveilled in Europe or in the United States?
Why do you try to derail this conversation?
I'm surely not baiting into whataboutism…
https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/tu-quoque
The rest of that question is even loaded with a whole battalion of subtle attempts to completely derail that thread. Nice rhetoric for someone who's not professional in that field. ;-)
I am a programmer, I don't work in politics, never had, never will.
I have no horse in the race.
Honest to the god(s) that you might or might not believe in.
It's simply not what I am good at.
I just attended informal meetings with people working for EU institutions, it's not uncommon in Brussels, I met many more when I was working in the music concert industry, we shared few drinks and talked about the bands that played that night, not all the people working in EU institutions lobby, but the elected representatives usually do.
It's simply how things are.
I also have a few with people working for the UN in Rome, where I was born and live.
They enjoy a pint the same way I do, we happen to live in the same neighborhood, there's nothing fishy about it, believe me.
I have no chances of becoming the next Kofi Annan.
Can you debunk (some of) the specific claims made in the article?
It is not true, digital privacy is in fact still intact and it is, anyway, no less effective than it was yesterday.
On the contrary, the Google/Apple of the World could spy on you with he excuse of "searching for CP", now they cannot unless authorized by the law.
My (ex) girlfriend worked as a technical consultant on this law.
I also usually agree with the Pirate Party and many critiques to some EU proposals are my critiques.
I also voted for them in my country, I personally knew some of the candidates, we've been friends for a long time
In my country we specifically focused on the right to distribute copyrighted material (via torrent or other technologies) that was of importance for the public.
Like for example old movies or documentaries or film screenings in public open spaces, especially in smaller towns where there are no theatres.
Or material in possession of public broadcast networks that was paid by the taxpayers.
The national Television of my country produced something like hundreds of live recordings of bands that came here, but most of them never saw the light of day.
In their archives there is, for example, a two hours Sonic Youth live, from 1989, recorded at the TV studios that actually was a full fledged concert hall for classical music. How cool is that? It never aired.
But if you distribute it or show it to someone, technically you're breaking the law, even though citizen paid for it with their taxes.
Unfortunately we elected zero representatives.
Nevertheless how this vote is being presented is hyperbolic, to say the least, and doesn't reflect the work being done.
The law presented has as a primary objectives making the tech giants responsible while protecting the EU people from their abuses.
They are prohibited to spy on you, unless they have been authorized by the law.
That's the spirit.
Without legislation, in Europe what's not prohibited is permitted and people would be at the mercy of what corporations want to do with their data.
> That's the spirit.
Don't turn things upside down!
The spirit is that they are now REQUIRED to spy on all their customers.
Before that they where not allowed to do it any more as there were no exceptions to the new e-privacy laws.
So the companies stopped spying on people as it became illegal.
That caused mayor panic in the EU government as they couldn't use those company's data for mass surveillance any more (law enforcement has access to that data; by now even secretly without court warrants! Before that they had "general warrants" for secret services, "national security" interests, and such).
First thing the EU did was giving the companies an "emergency allowance" to do mass surveillance again.
This law now turn that "emergency allowance" into proper rules, which not only allow mass surveillance, but make it mandatory.
The story (like I told) up until the current point can be read here (frankly in German, by the biggest IT online-media there):
https://www.heise.de/news/EU-Parlament-erlaubt-flaechendecke...
(There you can also see how "powerful" the EU parliament is, and that they again pass laws that are obviously against the constitution. Laws that than must be fought for many years in front the EU courts before those laws get eventually declared illegal; at this point the EU just passes a new illegal law; they're using this "trick" since inception by the way. It worked fine locally in the countries for decades now. At least it's like that in Germany, but I don't think the other countries are an exception as the EU does it also like that since day one).
Don't get me wrong with this last aside: I'm a big fan of the idea behind the EU. But the execution of this idea is more and more turning into a nightmare. Everything that would not be possible locally is cheated thru the EU institutions; than they claim locally "The EU wants it so. We must obey!". But the truth is, the EU is ruled by the governments of the countries, not by the people of said countries, so "the EU" actually does what the governments tell them — the obvious trick being here to "blame the EU" afterwards, pointing away form themself.
By the law.
Just like any shop owner is required by the law to report the same things if they happen in their shops.
The purpose if the law is to MANDATE some behavior, it's not a simple advice.
It's by design.
No need to turn anything, this is the law working as intended, the opposite would be no law hence no rules.
> But the execution of this idea is more and more turning into a nightmare
I've heard this sentence so many times that I would be rich if I received a euro every time.
Truth is EU is simply what European people want it to be.
Ironically Germany supported the EU membership for the former eastern block and now those are the countries that are causing the majority of the controversial issues.
> But the truth is, the EU is ruled by the governments of the countries,
Again, working as intended.
Governments are elected bodies.
But also wrong: the parliament is elected by the EU people directly.
I think it's time this silly argument dies, if we wanna have a fair conversation about EU.
At least in Germany it is a common pattern to pass controversial laws when big sporting events are happening...
> All of your chat conversations and emails will be automatically searched for suspicious content. Nothing remains confidential or secret. There is no requirement of a court order or an initial suspicion for searching your messages. It occurs always and automatically.
What, even the stuff that I have end-to-end encrypted?
Even this from the first line of the post:
> The EU decided to let providers search all private chats,
Which "providers" are being referred to here?
Anyone got any links to the other side of this same argument, hopefully as well presented, so us readers can read both to come to our own conclusions?
Basically the EU is saying, companies can't do it... but we can!
There is in fact a battle right now over who has primacy here. Allegedly it is everyone against Poland, but the details are more nuanced.
That's why it's a bit hypocritical on their part.
GDPR was about EU citizens rights and privacy. In fact they uphold public institutions to these standards, and have issued fines.
How is that hypocritical. We allow the state to have organized groups with automatic weapons and tanks, and don't allow private individuals or corporations to.
Is that the path you're choosing to go: that everything is justifiable because governments can have nuclear reactors and you can't?
But I'll go the extra mile: it's hypocritical because it's a citizen right within EU, it's a double standard, and it's being enforced on public/private organizations. You can't have rights and not have rights at the same time, you either have them or you don't.
In EU there are no rights for owning automatic weapons, nuclear reactors, organized armed groups, etc etc.
My point is that hypocrisy is a strange argument, because we already have a huge amount of things that the government can do, even if they would otherwise violate property rights/freedom of movement/etc, that private entities cannot.
After years of propaganda, debates and discussion for data protection and privacy rights for EU citizens, and approving such rights by law, you don't think it's hypocrisy that they approve a law that strips citizens from such rights.
They believe people have the right to have their data protected and to know what data is being collected, and demand collectors and processors to not hoard data and take only what is necessary. This is literally bulk collecting of chat logs and process them, without people consent.
I still don't get your point, there are no rights for citizens to use force, detain others or take land. At least in the EU countries I know. So what rights are being stripped from citizens?
It's the same if the USA government said they will abide by the people's rights to own weapons, but decided to ban the sales of all weapons so people can't buy them.
Which isn't to say it's the right move. I'm just saying your argument here is weak.
And it's not just that, I've seen first hand that even internal communication about customers are treated with more care as they can legally request all their data.
If there is some temporary marginal privacy benefit for users, it is a side effect.
Seems like data control was just the first step to data management.
I have several qualms about this proposal but the crying-wolf manner it is being presented is just ridiculous.
The author could have used the opportunity to raise the real risks (especially the false positive risks) instead of pushing for fear-mongering.