The EU-funded plan to stick a “flag this as terrorism” button in your browser | Hacker News Reader

The EU-funded plan to stick a “flag this as terrorism” button in your browser

arstechnica.com

38 pointsevo_931 comments

"The remains of Mr Smith, of 59 Pringleton Crescent, were today identified in the ruins of his house. Mr Smith was killed when an automated anti-terrorist drone fired a missile through his bedroom window. Authorities are refusing to confirm or deny the rumour that his death was caused by an internet prank, as his stamp-collecting site was repeatedly flagged as terrorist material by members of the discussion site 4chan."

That seems pretty unrealistic. No developed country would use drones to kill people based solely on accusation, forgoing their right to a fair trial.

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic. If not, you may want to read up on prominent cases like Anwar al-Awlaki's assassination.

Perhaps it was inappropriate for HN, but I was absolutely being sarcastic. Thanks for pointing this out for others anyway.

I'm sickened by these "targeted assassinations", regardless of how effective they are at protecting our Homeland.

  > No developed country would ... [forego] their right to a fair trial.

My sarcasm detector is returning a superposition of both 0 and 1 with your comment. It must have something to do with the quantanumo uncertainty principle.

Since there won't be a trial, that superposition could continue indefinitely.

Well, to be fair, it is mildly unrealistic they'd target voters. Or at least, their voters.

1) the EU commission, the only EU institution with real lawgiving and executive power, is not elected (they are hand-picked by foreign ministers of EU nations, which are hand-picked by indirectly elected parliaments)

2) Jose Manuel Barrosso is an ex-communist (ex-Maoist to be exact). His style of government, shall we say, "reflects this".

3) You only have to visit Brussels and ask about the many CD signs on the road, or talk to a few people working for the EU and ask about "fonctionnaires" to hear exactly how responsible they feel towards their voters.

Your first point is what I keep asking pro EU people here in Europe about and for which I never get a satisfying answer on why this is acceptable. This and the cluelessness of their lawmakers when it comes to tech makes me thank the higher entity every day for not being an EU citizen (since I'm Swiss).

Basically at the beginning, the EU was an inter-governmental construct (like NATO or the UN). It has grown into something more government-like, but those with power in the existing inter-governmental institutions don't want to give it up.

Actually, the European Commission is elected by the European Parliament (after having been proposed by the European Council), which is directly elected by the citizens of the member states. From article 17 (7) of the Consolidated Version of the Treaty on European Union:

"Taking into account the elections to the European Parliament and after having held the appropriate consultations, the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, shall propose to the European Parliament a candidate for President of the Commission. This candidate shall be elected by the European Parliament by a majority of its component members. If he does not obtain the required majority, the European Council, acting by a qualified majority, shall within one month propose a new candidate who shall be elected by the European Parliament following the same procedure."

This is not at all different from how the British Prime Minister or the German Chancellor are elected; in fact, the British Prime Minister is technically not even elected; the requirement to have majority support in the House of Commons is implicit when he or she is appointed by the monarch.

The European Parliament can also force the EC to resign via a motion of censure (though that requires a 2/3 majority), which is what happened to the Santer Commission [1]. From article 17 (8):

"The Commission, as a body, shall be responsible to the European Parliament. In accordance with Article 234 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, the European Parliament may vote on a motion of censure of the Commission. If such a motion is carried, the members of the Commission shall resign as a body and the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy shall resign from the duties that he carries out in the Commission."

While there are plenty of issues with the functioning of the EU, it is simply not the case that the EC is not elected.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santer_Commission#Resignation

Where did I say that there isn't an election process for the EC? The point I'm trying to make is that the EC has way too much lawmaking power for it to be elected indirectly. The way I understand it, what the EC decides are not mere propositions to the parliament. Parliament seems to have to actively pressure to take down a new law by EC, which is a reversal of roles.

Also, concerning the parliament, I'm wondering: Do people actually have much choice in whom to elect? What do you need to do in order to rally for parliament? Are there different party lists for example? Is it depending on the national parties? E.g. do I need support from a national party to get into the EU parliament?

Why? Less voters + money = more certainty ;)

May I suggest you use <sarcasm></sarcasm> tags?

To be fair, as one commentator notes, “this document—in this phase— [is] nothing more than a status report without strong countermeasures against terrorism.”

They propose a potential method to combat terrorism online, as they were chartered to do, but note how difficult such a task would be and also how ineffective it is likely to be.

Some points from the document, quoted in the article:

• The Internet is not a single virtual society governed by one system of rule of law.

• It is often difficult to determine which content on the Internet is illegal, also because  illegality depends on the context in which it is presented and can differ worldwide and  even between EU Member States.

• EU and Member States legislation and jurisdiction covers only a part of the Internet.

• Illegal content itself does not always lead to radicalization and terrorist acts, while  content that does contribute to radicalization is not always illegal.

• Many activities of (potential) terrorists start in ordinary, easy accessible parts of the  Internet and are not illegal.

I don't think it is wrong to investigate how to mitigate organised crime and terrorism on the internet; the real concern is the cost in doing so, and what comes from such investigation. From how it stands now I doubt the proposal to implement a 'report terrorism' button will precipitate.

Typical braindead EU bureaucracy at action. I expect illegal crypto laws soon.

That is the problem with regulators - first they regulate sane stuff. Everybody benefits from clean water and food. Then we regulate the semi sane stuff - like how much space a cow need and what is humane - well that makes some sense. It may not be the urgent problems, but animal cruelty is bad.

And then when they run out, just to keep the staff employed and budgets growing they try to regulate unregulatable stuff.

Just put that unfiltered, unmonitored and encrypted internet is a human right. And then hear the scream of the bureaucracy.

Ever expanding bureaucracy is a problem, and the EU has a track record of turning several truly idiotic ideas into law. But people discussing EU regulations should be aware that the level of bullshit and outright lies coming out of the UK press in this regard is staggering.

Some nice examples: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqVJEZnYiZo

"level of bullshit and outright lies coming out of the UK press" ...

...staggering would imply a degree of shock. They've been doing this since the EU/ECM began.

The worst bit is that there's actually a chance it'll pass into law.

I remember laughing about the proposed cookie law and the incandescent light bulb ban before they actually managed to successfully get both through the European Parliament.

I hope the British people do get a referendum on Europe soon. We've had enough of this rubbish.

They must've stolen this "brilliant" idea from Lieberman.

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111125/14202016898/sen-j...

Or Robot Chicken http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Srv_V3-oqsc

How quickly do you think the button will go away when some malware author writes something that flags every site a person goes on as a terrorist site (or some activist makes a voluntary browser plugin)?

Or botnet, or terrorist organization goes about flagging the 1 million most popular sites?

So, now you can flag your stupid ex-boyfriend or your unwary buddy as terrorist and have some laughs with only a simple clic, wow...

No need to search for a phone box anymore! Brilliant!

Because people are already so good at differentiating crass arguments from just plain ol' trolling right?

Just the mere implication would be enough for some ISPs to pull the plug on certain sites as they really can't be bothered to take on cyberbullying (by people is a cakewalk, it's different when governments do it). So censoring a disagreeable site is the least stressful method for them.

And I wonder how this will work with .onion sites... Oh, right. They'll just jail node ops.

The picture example in the article is of an Irish terrorist group. Interestingly, supporters of this group are quite likely to flag official UK government, police and armed forces groups as terrorist web sites.

Then again, an even greater number of people will flag sites like Facebook and Google, for "humour value".

If this does become a "feature", I only hope that they will publish statistics on what has been flagged.

Make false flagging illegal! It's always possible to improve a dumb idea with a dumber idea.

Then we will see false flag false flag attacks by government agents.

They could have just bought delicious.com that way there would be stake for different types of terrorism. The whole process woulda cost 1 million USD right?

I suppose if you crowd-source wild accusations, then anything becomes justifiable with enough up-votes. Welcome to the Reign of Terror 21st century style.

Sounds like the perfect platform for trolling.

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