Europe Moves To Track Phone and Net Use

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."

Great...

[Anonymous Coward]

we're back to Nazi Germany again.

Inevitability

[HomelessInLaJolla]

Mankind has demonstrated, again and again, that if something can be done then it will, eventually, be done. Whatever justification is supplied for these directives the bottom line is: the bottom line. Information (eg. network logs) creates data. Data can be made to say anything. There is money to be made in making data say what the people with money want it to say. If justice is ever enforced it is a secondary consequence. The primary goal is always to allocate money to promote someone's bottom line.

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.

The EC is there to undermine national constitution

[plasmacutter]

Pro corporate and pro-fascist extremists want to make the EU into the same ultra-right regime in place in the US.

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.

Guv'ment is waking up

[Anonymous Coward]

to the fact that the internet gives a voice to those that dissent, and that can't be allowed to go unchecked else the powers that be might be upsurped. Doesn't matter who it is or where it's at, Governement is Government.

Re:That'll be real popular around here...

[purpledinoz]

That's ridiculous. I don't trust any free e-mail service provider with my information. In fact, I never provide real information unless I have to make a payment or something. I just don't trust Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, or any website with any real information.

"It's totally unenforceable and would never work."

[RichPowers]

There's the million-dollar phrase. I wonder if these EU legislators really understand how the Internet works. Those who wish to use emails, telephones, etc. for nefarious purposes will find a work-around. In the end, this legislation will only punish the grandmothers, kids, e-novices, and clueless users who simply tried to sign up for a junk email account. Joe Terrorist will be using encrypted communications and the like - stuff that already requires a team of specialists to track. So even if this legislation passes, you'll still need special enforcement units to track the real bad guys - exactly where we are now. Sounds like a lot of time, money, and hassle for a false sense of security.

Re:The EC is there to undermine national constitut

[Tony Hoyle]

Well.. the EU parliament is elected and the EU Commission is appointed from elected officials in each country. The EU is not in itself a government - it only has the power granted to it by the member states, so if it's trying to make more restrictive laws it's because *your* elected government wants them to.

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.

Re:The EC is there to undermine national constitut

[Tony Hoyle]

Should have read TFA also. This is clear that the EU is *not* trying to implement this it's the *individual governments* that are going the draconian route - so your argument goes out of the window completely.

Re:"It's totally unenforceable and would never wor

[RichPowers]

Any legislation that controls the Internet will probably deter small-time hackers and the like. But is dealing with fewer script kiddies and spam really worth giving up more of our privacy?

Red herring

[denoir]

This proposal is like many other similar ones a red herring. The article shows that the NYT doesn't understand EU politics.

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.

Re:Confusing terms

[plasmacutter]

exactly, which is why it makes reasonable sense that marxism, the "dictatorship of the proletariat", is the polar opposite of any reasonable definition of fascism.

The fact that both end up as a police state is merely poetic irony.

The Problem: The People

[RAMMS+EIN]

The problem is that the vast majority of people I talk to don't see the government as a threat. The idea that the government is there to help is completely accepted over here. In fact, people get upset when the government doesn't take care of something (up to the point where they demand the government take action about money people lost on investments, or salaries of top executives perceived to be too high).

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.

Re:"It's totally unenforceable and would never wor

[tkrotchko]

"The black hats make mistakes, too"

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.

Re:Great...

[Noonian Soong]

How can this be insightful?

I live in Germany and I'm really afraid that civil rights will be cut back too far and I don't like the recent development. Yes, our minister of the interior, Mr. Schaeuble is a total lunatic and goes too far. I don't like him or the laws that were passed lately. But the whole world has been acting crazy in a deluded sense of improving protection since 9/11 and I think I don't need to point out that the anglo-saxon countries have been spearheading the recent hysteria about terrorism.
Of course, this is no excuse for Germany to cut back civil rights and I will criticize that anytime but Nazi Germany was yet another dimension of evil.

If you want to discuss this matter seriously, than don't hide beneath anonymity and provide some honest arguments!