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Europe Moves To Track Phone and Net Use
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Feb 20, 2007 04:24 PM
from the et-tu-Allemande? dept.
from the et-tu-Allemande? dept.
An anonymous reader writes with a NYTimes piece on the early moves by European governments to implement an EU data retention directive. The governments of Germany and the Netherlands are initially proposing much more stringent programs than the EU directive requires. For example, the German proposal "would essentially prohibit using false information to create an e-mail account, making the standard Internet practice of creating accounts with pseudonyms illegal." The Times notes that, early days as it is, nevertheless some people involved in the issue are "concerned about a shift in policy in Europe, which has long been a defender of individuals' privacy rights."
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That'll be real popular around here... (Score:3, Funny)
Slashdot posters TubGirlFan and IHeartGoatse adamantly expressed their opposition to the plan.
Re:That'll be real popular around here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
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Heck, you want to signup for SOME internet service, forum , whatever. IT WILL ASK YOU FOR A DARN EMAIL ADDRESS! , yes, they almost always do, but even assuming that the company/group holding the service is totally legit and won't use your email for the 50 different BAD things they can do with it, they are mos
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They've had mandatory data retention laws and the like for some time now. They aren't as bad as what Germany is proposing, but give them time.
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The same way DRM has given us "enhanced usability" of media files.
The only thing that's getting "enhanced" is the power of the people in power.
Fictitious Email Accounts (Score:2)
So for example if Mr. EU wants to send an email to "us@hotmail.com", he would email to "us__hotmail_com@mailservice.com".
Re:Fictitious Email Accounts (Score:5, Interesting)
I have said on several occasions, that we will find ourselves in trouble, when technology finally allows for constant surveillance of every member of society everywhere, all the time. Given historical and current precedents, it's logical to assume that once such capacity exists, it will be rapidly implemented.
I have this cold chill down my spine, telling me that perhaps Hitler was right about the 1000-year-Reich, but was just off by a few decades. After all, total surveillance will finally allow the government to fulfill what seems to be its chief purpose anyway - maintaining the status quo indefinitely.
Parent
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put at least some of the responsibility on the general public
I felt the same way at one time until I began to think in terms of a business m0del [slashdot.org].
you deserve what you get
The technique is diversionary. The taxpaying public is saddled with debt which they had no opportunity to opt out of. The taxpaying public is then distracted with vaporous issues. With the assent of popular opinion (which can be completely manufactured if necessary, eg. the Iraq war) money can be allocated. The allocation of that (tax) money serves to maintain social relationships and funnel money to preferred social g
Inevitability (Score:5, Insightful)
The common users in Europe will simply need to accept that there are now new sets of standards by which authorities can meddle in the affairs of the public. Either initiate a revolution or adjust behavior accordingly.
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We have quite nice examples of the latter coming from the west. And as we can see lately we take and follow all the examples of the west. Add the two together and check the result. The IYHNTH (i.e. if you have nothing to hide) policy will conquer Europe as well.
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Long live the EU, I suppose.
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Or it could be some crap.
> Vote 'em out
Polls [wikipedia.org] do not include the option of "no candidate".
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Right now those people simply dont exist.
What makes you think that you will always be given a choice, sure you can pick A B or C but what if all the choices are just the same choice?
In a system like that, revolution might be the only way, and even then you have to wait till things are so bad, people just wont take it any more, things have to reac
The EC is there to undermine national constitution (Score:4, Insightful)
They had a problem though, National constitions and common law throughout much of Europe is simply too "liberal" to allow this.
The solution, of course, is to make a new "supranational" government for europe which is designed from the ground up to be accountable only to the moneyed elite like Rupert Murdoch.
The solution for the people is to either resign themselves to the institution of a new tyrrany, or to pull their support for the EC and let them sit and sputter.
If i were european, i'd go for the latter.
Re:The EC is there to undermine national constitut (Score:5, Insightful)
Note also that it's the EU that successfully blocked software patents despite lots of lobbying from vested interests (well, the commission - remember, your government - wanted them, and the parliament - directly elected - sad get lost.. multiple times).
It's got a long way to go before it's nearly as sold out as the US system is.
Parent
Re:The EC is there to undermine national constitut (Score:4, Insightful)
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No, it doesn't. These laws are merely the implementation of a European directive [ffii.org] which was approved earlier on. Further, the article is plain wrong when it claims that the Netherlands is going further than what the directive requires by recording where you are during a mobile phone call, because that's literally required b
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The Commission mostly present itself as a legislative power, and when they make the various countries' legislatures pass laws that never would had gone through on the local level, the Executive branch moan that it's not their faults but that of big bad ol' E
Confusing terms (Score:2)
Being fascist has nothing to do with which side of the economic scale you are on. You need not look far to find a fascist of liberal or conservative persuasion. The main difference between the two is why they demand control. A liberal would propose such measures to keep corporations from engaging in consumer fraud or astroturfing. A conservative may do so to allow corporations to better keep tabs on employee whistleblowers. When doing it in the interest of national security, left or right doesn't matte
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The fact that both end up as a police state is merely poetic irony.
Re:The EC is there to undermine national constitut (Score:2)
Guv'ment is waking up (Score:2, Insightful)
Odd... (Score:5, Interesting)
early days as it is (Score:2)
"It's totally unenforceable and would never work." (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:"It's totally unenforceable and would never wor (Score:2)
Maybe some didn't notice yet, but such measures - as well as the passenger-nagging measures at airports - never seem good enough to be considered being able to stop anyone with bad intentions. But, maybe they'll just put off their plans when they see that how much hassle is to get along, even when staying clean. Of course I'm not serious. Terrorists and co. will probably find a way around any measure. This doesn'
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People keep repeating that, but is it actually true? The black hats make mistakes, too. Shouldn't increasing the number of ways in which they can trip up increase our chances of finding them out before they strike?
Re:"It's totally unenforceable and would never wor (Score:4, Insightful)
What black hats?
It seems a little 1984-ish to somehow claim there is an enemy "out there" and we need to enact a more draconian central government with more powers to somehow take on this unnamed enemy.
Do you see the problem? As long as no one will name the black hats, you can claim a constant war, and every time some random violence strikes, governments can claim the "black hats" are getting more and more clever and that even more laws need to be enacted.
Meanwhile, are we any safer today than in the year 2000? It appears we aren't. And worse, we keep putting more restrictions on people based on some crazy nutty idea of where a terrorist might or could strike. And every time you do that, you force this mythical bad guy to strike in a different way, which requires more and more restrictions.
It's a flawed way of thinking. You cannot guess even a fraction of the infinite ways to screw up a civilization. And I'm not sure I want to live in a world like that anyway.
Frankly there has never been a government trustworthy enough to give what amounts to unlimited access to our personal lives on the off chance that someone may be a terrorist. Worse, there's no proof that this type of intrusions into our lives has even a small impact on making safer.
Parent
Socialism (Score:2)
Red herring (Score:5, Insightful)
You see, when you have 27 member states that have a veto right on nearly everything the name of the game is haggling and compromise. It works like this: Member state A wants X that member state B is reluctant to agree upon. A then rallies member state C and D to put forward a preposterous proposal Y that shocks member states A, E, F and G. Then the negotiations begin and imagine that, member state A is willing to give up Y if it gets X. B is now under pressure from A, C, D, E, F and G to agree to X.
This is more likely a play for reducing fishing quotas or something similar. It is important to remember that the stated proposals are seldom what they seem to be and are always preposterous. Even if a proposed bill is vaguely on-topic, it starts with an extreme suggestion in order to allow a compromise solution. It's just the way it is played and it actually works very well.
The down side is of course that people not familiar with how things work in Brussels tend to get upset over the first batch of radical proposals.
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An obvious power grab (Score:2)
The Problem: The People (Score:4, Insightful)
The idea that the government could harm its subjects is completely foreign, apart from quips about the gov't collecting too much tax or the politicians playing their own games, rather than listening to the people. Certainly, if the government says that some programme is intended to protect us from black hats, that's what it will do. Only the opposition and a bunch of paranoid lunatics would tell you otherwise.
The point is that, even if, and that's a big if, the government has the best interest of its subjects in mind, that doesn't mean the programmes it proposes will have the best effect. You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist, you only have to realize that (1) just because someone is a politician doesn't mean they can't put their own interests above other people's, and (2) just because people mean well doesn't mean they're omniscient. In other words, things can go wrong. At some point, they will. Therefore, it is imperative to not just accept whatever the government says is good, but to stay informed, to look at things critically, and to make your own decisions.
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The problem is that you are either a bourgeois or an anglo-saxon (or both). Anglo-saxons have had
Doesn't surprice me. (Score:3, Interesting)
During WWII the Dutch government was as zealous about these things as they are now and had none whatsoever problem in sharing their records on Jewish and other wanted people with the NAZIS. The current political generation behaves not really different from that time so don't look strange if they sell out their populace again.
FALSE Information??? (Score:2)
What about using no information whatsoever to create an e-mail account? Last time I checked, you could just up and make an account on a whim. I have dozens on my domain, all of which have no false information, nor any true information. All they have is a username and password.
US influence (Score:2)
* Germany used to be very liberal in hacking laws
* We had (well, on paper we still have), strong privacy protection laws
* Thanks to CCC and others, German officials used to be somewhat educated in many privacy and general computing matters
Now it's not much of a secret that our new government, especially Mrs. Merkel, is very much more US-leaning than the previous one (which, for all its failures, at least kept us out of the stupid Iraq war). Ever since the governmen
Um (Score:2)
"European Union countries have until 2009 to put the Data Retention Directive into law, so the proposals seen now are early interpretations. But some people involved in the issue are concerned about a shift in policy in Europe,"
In democratic parliaments representatives keep proposing "something" all the time. Even crazy and unacceptable ideas. The point is that 90% of these ideas are never approved (not enough votes).
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Wrong, wrong, wrong... (Score:2)