EU Wants Air Passenger Data Collected 151
An anonymous reader sends news of the EU following in the footsteps of the US in that they are contemplating requiring all 27 member states to collect data on airline passengers and to retain it for up to 13 years. No centralized database would be created; instead states would be encouraged to store and to share their own data as needed. All states would have to pass enabling laws before the measure could come into effect. The rules would not apply to flights entirely within the EU. The proposal is part of an anti-terrorism package that also includes tighter laws to control hate speech and bomb-making instructions.
EU needs more security (Score:2, Interesting)
I had a stop over in Germany on my way back to the states. Every single person gets a pat-down and a metal detector wand treatment... serveral times. The passport guy in Germany in fact gave us a hard time because we didn't have the Italy stamp. We explained that they wouldn't even look at our passports and he just shook his head and made some comment about the way things are run down there.
I don't get it (Score:3, Interesting)
Also I don't understand the priorities. How many people were killed by terrorist actions last year in the EU? 100? 1000? And how many traffic deaths were there? How many died from obesity or diseases related to smoking?
If they are concerned about protecting lives they should track how much candy or tobacco/alcohol people buy and use. If they monitor/forbid overconsumption of that it would probably save more lives.
Yes, it would really suck to be blown up buy some nutter but the fact remains that I'm so much more likely to get killed in a car accident that the "terror threat" hardly deserves mentioning.
I just don't get it. Why are people so dumb that they fall for these tricks.
Is there ANY evidence that all this crap works? (Score:3, Interesting)
Measures like reinforced cockpit doors are good. As are measures to make passports harder to forge (including measures requiring that the information on the passport be stored electronically as well as physically and that said information be digitally signed against tampering such that only the governments have the private keys to digitally sign the information) And the measures designed to stop bombs from being taken onto aircraft disguised as otherwise harmless looking objects.
Unfortunatly, the world has turned into a mass of sheeple who only care about their bread (i.e. mass-produced consumer goods made by the lowest bidder and full of hidden unwanted stuff like lead paint and illicit drugs) and their circuses (i.e. mass-produced media content made by big corporations designed to keep you distracted whilst other big corporations ruin the planet in the name of the almighty Dollar/Euro/Pound/Yen/etc) and are unlikely to stand up to the crap the governments of the world want to inflict on them (especially since the few people who DO care enough to stand up to the governments end up in secret jails that make Auschwitz look like Club Med)
Re:Welcome to the USSR (Score:3, Interesting)
Seems to be true. Red or Blue -- they both screw you.