Secret report urges treaty forcing US web firms' cooperation in data sharing | Hacker News Reader

Secret report urges treaty forcing US web firms' cooperation in data sharing

theguardian.com

4 pointscentury195 comments

I'm surprised the UK government are pushing this, it would only legitimise other countries asking for the same kind of unfettered access.

I'm not because:

1) US and UK are the forefront of pushing for such laws recently first in "X Eyes" countries and then in others as well, because it's actually the NSA and the GCHQ proposing them

2) The UK is bound by the Human Rights Charter in the EU and some of the data collection and spying laws are actually illegal (even if they keep going for now). Through this "international treaty" (that supposedly the EU countries would sign, too) they could probably bypass that.

Well this is a government who had a manifesto pledge to abolish the Human Rights Act. And they won. So, indeed, maybe I shouldn't be surprised.

Seems very self defeating though. Data could end up being siloed in countries where the users are based so their government can decide who can see it.

How can "legal" and "secret" be in the same sentence? If something like this passes in secret without the people's support, that's clearly an illegitimate law.

I have a feeling that some country is going to become significantly wealthy simply by becoming the world's data storage where data is protected from the heinous hands of our governments.

All of this is somewhat only a nuisance at the moment even though it is ever increasingly revealing real implications. Just imagine though what happens when these governments that have shown such blatant disregard for even the most fundamental legal code of our country and have essentially committed high treason against the Constitution and America's people gain access to mind reading technology even beyond what is already possible through inferences based on your online activities, and written and verbal thoughts.

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