Comment by caseyy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by caseyy | Hacker News Reader

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On the other hand, there are EU countries like Lithuania, which have a very privacy-conscious culture, and have not had any meaningful terror attacks for nearly all their history. The last notable one was 30 years ago[0]. No one died. In Lithuania, privacy is quite meaningfully enshrined in its constitution[1].

I remember that Google StreetView faced significant regulatory challenges in simply photographing people’s homes, and today, many buildings are blurred out. This is only one example. But you can see that everyone takes privacy very seriously in the country. A lot of social engineering-type phishing for personal data does not work because people understand which boundaries cannot be crossed intuitively.

More privacy does not mean more terrorism. There may be situations where reducing privacy does reduce terrorism, but privacy is not the cause. I wish governments would rather address the cause.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Terrorist_incidents_i...

[1] https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2022/12/lithuania-pr...

Lithuania? Just pitch it as a way to fight back against Russia, and it will pass in a jiffy just like all the other anti-russian laws they've been rolling through

I know you are somewhat joking. But there is an undertone of truth in what you say.

Oppressive state surveillance in the USSR (commonly verging on persecution of undesirable groups) was a strong reason for countries breaking away from it between 1990 and 1991, when the union collapsed. Lithuania was arguably the first one.

The privacy protections we see today are a reaction to some extent, but Lithuanians enjoy them. It was not an over-reaction.

It would be wise to use the examples of heavy-handed state surveillance in history in arguments for privacy laws. The US did this to argue for their economic model quite effectively. Whether that ultimately is good — I mean that some people have become so afraid of communism that they can’t agree on some fundamental social welfare systems and duty of care for each other as people — I don’t know. But contrasting liberal capitalism with planned-economy communism was effective in galvanising people towards the former. “Enemy of my enemy is my friend” and all that.

Anti-russian? Russia is a major security threat to Lithuania that engages in cyber warfare, disinformation and sabotage campaigns.

- Two months ago there were major arson attacks and failed attempts linked to Russians in multiple states like Poland and Germany.

- Russian linked agents at the beginning of school year dissiminated false information about bombs being planted at schools in Lithuania which disrupted the process in general and undermined trust of parents and children.

- They are also constantly creating false narratives about ongoing social events with ant-lithuanian anti-european spin and spreading them online.

- Lets also not forget that Russia is constantly using migrants to attack borders of European states.

Russians are trying to wage war in every gray area they can find. Why this paragon of free speech (kekw) constantly engages in anti-lithuanian policies?

Even more interesting recently they started mapping out locations of optic fibers scattered across the ocean. Lets hope they wont use this information.

So you agree with OP. Just say it’s to stop Russia.

The point here is -- it's not like the threat from Russia isn't (unlike the hypothetical threat from terrorists) entirely real.

Threat from terrorist isn’t real?

All of these are real threats. Even the CSAM arguments have a grain of truth to it. What changes overtime is people’s relationship to these threats and their perception of what mitigating factors are actually going to be effective

No I disagree, what are you even refering to? What are these particular actions?, curiously we never refer to russian actions as anti-ukrainian, anti-polish, anti-european. Its always the other way round.

I think you should go read the comment chain again.

The person was saying that you can use a “Russia” line to get the population to agree to a measure or chat control.

You just went in and basically proved their point.

If he worded it like you did now "Russian line", I would agree--but he didnt. He used a word that Russia loves to use in cry bully situations. It implies that Lithuanians are doing this because they just happen to hate poor russians while they have legitimate reasons to be scared and are forced to react.

You may think that Im pedantic or whatever but Russia has history of subtly playing with words and thus dictating the discourse. For example term eastern europe was hijacked by soviets to enshrine and justify their sphere of influence which was a completely made up term which descends from germans and their ostsiedlung--the settling of lands to the east of germans states by germans.

> In Lithuania, privacy is quite meaningfully enshrined in its constitution[1].

You do realize that Lithuania is supporting chat control?

I presume you are talking about WK 10235/2022 ADD 10[0], as I found many blogs and journals[1] talking about Lithuania's position there and how it is anti-E2EE, pro-Chat Control. Some things should be clarified:

Firstly, it is a working document that someone obtained through a FOI request. So it is important to understand that this was not meant for the public, and therefore the opinion Lithuanian representatives provided there was not scrutinized as such prior to release. This is not a comprehensive position of Lithuania's government or any of its branches.

Secondly, the document follows positions expressed in and around a police (LEWP) meeting. It is difficult to imagine that law enforcement would support E2EE or stand against Chat Control in principle, because it makes their daily work more difficult. This context should be kept in mind and is also pointed out by the Stanford Center for Internet and Society article I linked.

Thirdly, the opinion of a limited group of Lithuania's law enforcement workers does not impact Lithuania's constitution, nor culture. I also believe that it is not an opinion shared by many Lithuanians who have some distrust of authority following years of state surveillance, persecution, and the trauma this entailed. So it is important to understand that the culture, the constitution, and the opinion of law enforcement workers contributed to this working document are three distinct things.

Finally, this "let's sacrifice anything and everything to protect the children" narrative unfortunately exists in Lithuania as well. It's a polarizing political issue where people have very strong opinions on each side. It seems likely to me, as I read the document, that there was a strong bias towards one of the sides in the working group.

Overall, this consultation is not the overall opinion of Lithuanian people nor their government; law enforcement working groups will generally be biased towards access to encrypted information rather than privacy; and that no country can escape today's polarizing political debates, so individual people will sometimes have strong opinions without having ever thought them through.

This is not to say that Lithuanian representatives could not have acted more responsibly. They could have. Frankly, as the Stanford article illustrates, Lithuanian reps' opinion is naive to the point of incompetence. Many other countries did better. That is evident. But does this say Lithuania is against privacy? No. It is still one of the most privacy-respecting countries I have ever been to and done business in.

[0] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23819681-law-enforce...

[1] https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2023/06/eu-member-states-...

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