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Comment by Svip | Hacker News Reader

This sort of illustrates the striking difference between the American intelligence programmes and the European ones. While the Europeans are not necessarily better, they are at least public and - yes - you can request the information if you so please (of course, you cannot ask them to remove it).

I am not advocating the European logging of internet traffic, but I will give them the very least credit they deserve: Being public. The Swedish FRA, the Danish Logningsbekendtgørelse, the German Vorratsdatenspeicherung, etc.; while bad themselves, they are at least public knowledge.

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Especially since the German Verfassungsgericht has ruled the 'Vorratsdatenspeicherung' to be unconstitutional and had ordered that saved data has to be deleted.

In many recent rulings we Germans have the impression that the Verfassungsgericht has defended and also slightly extended our basic law (Grundgesetz) against the politicians and in favour of people's rights. This gives the Verfassungsgericht high respect.

Yes. Sweden needs a constitutional court.

Wait, you can ask European national intelligence agencies whether they have surveillance data on you, and expect to get back a truthful result?

How do I do this?

Depends on the country, I suppose. But you'd likely have to be a citizen of that country to get a response. For instance, Malte Spitz sued Deutsche Telecom for his metadata.[0]

The Danish Logingsbekendtgørelse does not have that functionality, as they claim the data to be non-identifiable and requires a warrant. I do not know what the FRA rules are.

Although, honestly, I doubt the intelligence agencies would give you a truthful response. Only ministries are required to do so.

[0] http://www.zeit.de/datenschutz/malte-spitz-data-retention/

I wasn't under the impression that a cell phone company was the same thing as a national intelligence agency.

Nor was I under the impression that 'asking for' was equivalent to 'suing.'

Actually, it is _exactly_ what 'to sue for' means. See, for example, the usage in 'to sue for peace' [1].

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suing_for_peace

Voratsdatenspeicherung has nothing to do with the secret services. It is a tool for the police they can access with a warrant. The BND is not complaining that this is currently ruled unconstitutional, they are simply not affected.

I apologise for the wrong wording. I merely meant to say they are in the same category, i.e. collecting data on 'everyone' and only making use of it later.

But at least it's not under the blanket term of "terrorism" :)

Actually some EU programs will reply to you that no data exist "to their knowledge", while data actually does exist. At least the NSA ain't lying. :P

> At least the NSA ain't lying

Sorry, wrong. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYgkjczoBYk

It appears to be highly likely that were it not for the recent leaks, NSA would have just outright lied and told you that they had no data on you.

How can you be sure all of the intelligence programs are public, and that the information you request is all the information that they have on you?

Keeping a big secret like that is hardly possible. Most people with a brain knew the NSA was monitoring domestic communications before the Snowden fiasco.

So, people would know because if it wasn't so, such a secret is simply too difficult to keep. Citizens have to work in the intelligence positions, too.

Ha! That's hysterical. Fantastic.

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