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Comment by perihelions | Hacker News Reader

I think the best way to get rid of a horrible law like this is indeed to enforce against the people who wrote it. Enforce equitably, and enforce equally: the same misery everyone else already knows. If ministers worry about their private communications being read by strangers—if that makes them feel fearful, paranoid, violated—then let them feel fearful, paranoid, violated, just like the hundreds of millions of other people they would enforce those feelings on.

"Laws are to govern all alike — those opposed as well as those who favor them. I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." –Ulysses S. Grant (1869)—often misquoted and misattributed to Lincoln,

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Ulysses_S._Grant#First_Inaugur...

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Abraham_Lincoln#Misattributed

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When working for a large company, everyone was miserable with bad IT support outsourced to India (not about India). Then I learned, that one level above me, there was special director level IT support inside the country.

When working for a large company, when moving, my boss praised the virtues of the new open office and how our current team rooms were bad. Then we learned, that he had a private office in the new setup.

"Whataboutism". Brushing away hypocrisy is way to easy nowadays. It would be way better for morale if they just said that offices are a benefit then pretending to defend something they don't believe in.

I'd go further and say the more power you have the less privacy you should have.

Or at least, the more public resources you manage the less privacy you should have.

or why not both?

Spot on.

The silver lining about them clearly trying to exempt themselves is that they at least seem to be aware of the negative consequences of their proposal. So: not the right solution, but at least something that looks like a transition from blissfully ignorant -> aware of problems. Cogs are in motion, learning is happening.

are you crazy? it means they are aware, and WANT that for the population, but not themselves.

cogs are NOT in motion to fix this for the people, they are in motion to DO this to the people.

This makes harder to lie about the fact that this is a mass surveillance bill.

I don't think this stopped anyone before. Things like the US PATRIOT act were not passed because the politicians behind it didn't understand what they were doing.

Well, I learned not to attribute to malice what could equally be attributed to incompetence.

... But I get your point

so lets look at this from above..

1: a law is proposed, to solve some problem (real or otherwise is irellevant).

2: wait shiiiieet, this law kindof sucks, it could really hurt people.

3: I KNOW! lets fix it by making it not hurt us, only those we govern!

you do not get to claim incompetence to get you out of what you did in step 3. (and no, not you personally, obviously)

The incompetence will generally get you stuck in step 1, ignorance: law looks great because designers don't see deficiencies. Step 2 is progress: now you're wittingly incompetent. Step 3 is a misguided solution to 2 but the incompetence is that designers still deeply believe that step 1 was essentially a great plan.

Shielding yourself is a naive, human reaction. It isn't intrinsically malicious. This is where they slowly start realizing their good intentions result in a weapon of mass surveillance. I'm hoping for step 4 where they find a way to mitigate 2 for all people. One way would be: retract 1 altogether.

thats just naive, they shield themselves because they understand enough to know that its bad, and they dont want it.

its sorta like if i began spraying a harmful chemical on the local population because I thought genuinely that it would help reduce mosquito diseases and be a really great thing for everyone. Then I learn its really harmful to humans, so I equip myself with a hazmat suit and carry on with my plan. I do not get to claim "incompetence"

Fair enough, I suppose I'm naive and I like the analogy. You're right in claiming that wearing the hazmat suit has clear signs of competence, appreciation of the dangers.

I'm (naively) hopeful that wearing it day in day out will ultimately make them feel uncomfortable, maybe guilty about their activities, change their act, reconsider spraying a harmful chemicals, etc.

The incompetence I was alluding to lies in proposing these types of laws in first place. Well intended, but harmful. Understanding the dangers forces knee jerk reaction to at least make sure they themselves are safe from harm. Dumb solution, but progress made on learning about the dangers.

But I say dumb as in short sighted, not malicious. If they'd thought this through they'd understand these exemptions don't protect future-thems, their loved ones or whomever else is powerless, yet needy of their (political) support.

no, they are simply malicious.

The benefit of the doubt works well with personal friends or perhaps even individuals you have a one on one relationship with. It is a really naive approach to

* corporations

* anonymous strangers

* those who want to wield power over you

> * those who want to wield power over you

With shenanigans like this, it's easy to forget that the EU is a democratic institution. At least on paper, Europeans wield power over themselves.

It's good to be wary and have a healthy dose of skepticism, but let's not get nihilistic. I'd rather be naive and trust myself and the democratic system I live in, assume good intentions from anonymous strangers and even politicians.

Because what is the alternative? How would you organize society if everyone but personal friends or [..] individuals you have a one on one relationship with deserves distrust?

yes, sure, its a democracy, but remember the politicians are scummy salesmen essentially LYING to get elected. Even with the relaxed attitude towards false marketing for products, they would have been shut down LONG ago if they were selling regular products.

Would they get away with the lies they spout if they were selling medical products? I think not.

So yeah, they WANT to wield power over you, and those who seek to do such, are the least qualified.

>Cogs are in motion, learning is happening.

They know what power is, and have demonstrated that clearly. If there is a silver lining, it's that they've revealed their knowledge and desire for asymmetry of power.

I was going to say this. A real leader that truly believed in this would volunteer to be first in line to have it implemented on them, and be transparent about their experience (how many times did an alert fire? How did the police handle the response? etc).

This is a dog and pony show by people who think they're better than the people they represent, and they must think very lowly of the people they represent indeed if they think no one will notice their shenanigans.

Besides that, there have been a number of stories of politicians abusing children or possessing CSAM. If I were going to order the list of whose PC's get checked for CSAM first, politicians would be pretty high up there. Probably right after Hollywood, and right before the uber-rich.

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