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Comment by ikmckenz | Hacker News Reader

Ah yes, the civilized legal system where everyone is breaking the law all the time, so the law gets selectively enforced and used as a weapon on people the police don’t like. But the police are never ever assholes so there’s no problems?

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I'm sorry that you have issues with the police or other groups where you're from. Where I live in the EU I personally never had any issues with these groups and the people I know that had issues were able to sort them out without any major consequences to their lives.

Not saying that it's a perfect system, there will always be problems because there's not such thing as a perfect law, just a less imperfect one.

The difference between the EU and the US is the people. The mindset is different, that's why things can be so lax and still work.

FYI all continents and societies around the world are simultaneously burning and blooming with success. What changes is the bubble you're on. If you go on YouTube you can find an equal amount of videos and people saying that the US/EU is horrible/amazing. It all depends on the person and the person's values. I'm happy here and I completely understand those that are not, same for the the people in the US.

It has its own share of issues, but I’d argue that we have a lot fewer issues than most places. It’s part of our legal system though, that our police officers have a lot of discretion. I’d argue that strictly enforcing the photography laws would be a huuuuuge waste of police resources though. I mean, how would you really police it? They do in London due to anti-terrorist reasons, but only if you’re taking photos of thing some people might want to blow up.

Of course it has issues though. Not so much in the way you seem suggest here though.

They do occasionally do coordinated operations on usually enforced laws. Like set up control points at universities and check if all bikes passing by are legal. But they won’t regularly pull you over if you’re missing a reflex or similar, unless your bike is extremely unsafe.

It's largely selectively enforced because the executive doesn't enforce it unprompted.

I.e. in practice it gives everyone the right to have their right to their own likeness enforced. Which most of the time isn't taken too serious, but is an important feature at times.

You mock it, but implementations that allow people to do things if they're not a problem isn't awful if the police are fair, reasonable people who want the best for their community.

I'd sooner have that than people being a pain in the arse because they're explicitly allowed to exercise rights at the cost of society.

Both concepts cut both ways.

> You mock it, but implementations that allow people to do things if they're not a problem isn't awful if the police are fair, reasonable people

Seems like the smarter thing to do would be to outlaw "the problem" and not leave every single person's safety/freedom entirely up to the whims and benevolence of police.

that doesn't work because you can't define "the problem". creating a long list of cases where photography should be allowed and where it shouldn't would require the photographed person to prove that their photo falls into the cases that are a problem. that puts to much burden on them, and makes it more difficult to protect themselves.

each person has a different feeling in how they are comfortable with having their pictures published. therefore the only sane thing to do is to give each individual the right to control that.

it's like copyright. by default all rights are reserved, but i can give permission to copy if i wish.

Pretty much. Same in for example the Netherlands. Weed is technically illegal. But nobody cares. Police won’t stop you, unless you’re being a dick. That’s precisely the point.

But your cops can already do this as well, they’ll just name it disorderly conduct instead.

You could of course always choose to not break the law to begin with.

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