Facebook Faces PRISM Data Investigation In Ireland 86
judgecorp writes "Facebook's links to the NSA's PRISM program could be investigated in Ireland, thanks to the persistence of some Austrian law students. The group has challenged Facebook in Europe as it has its regional headquarters there for tax reasons. 'The [Data Protection Commissioner] simply wanted to get this hot potato off his table instead of doing his job. But when it comes to the fundamental rights of millions of users and the biggest surveillance scandal in years, he will have to take responsibility and do something about it,' said the leader of the student group, Max Schrems."
what is dpc (Score:2)
what is dpc
Re: what is dpc (Score:5, Informative)
Re:what is dpc (Score:4, Informative)
Office of the Data Protection Commissioner (ODPC)
Re: what is dpc (Score:3)
RTFA
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
to be fair, the editors went back and updated the summary, so my question wasn't totally out in left field.
Re: (Score:1)
Um, there is a very long tradition of making sure the summary of any article never contains all the facts of the article, but rather just a selected few, to completely mislead the reader as to what the article might be about. Thus you can determine how much each person posting has read:
-only read the title
-only read the summary [significantly fewer]
-read the article [occasionally someone does this]
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Quick, somebody do something! (Score:5, Insightful)
What gave it away? Sloppy work 'cause nobody gives a fuck anymore. Why bother hiding that you're spying on the people after you noticed that, hey, the people don't care?
Wouldn't you feel a bit let down? I mean, think about it, you spend resources, time and energy on hiding that you're essentially putting your citizens under total surveillance, you enjoy how you manage to deceive and fool your population, only to notice that the main reason it worked was that nobody gives a shit?
That must hurt some egos, really. And of course they go "ffft, why bother with stealth, they don't appreciate it at all!"
Re:Quick, somebody do something! (Score:5, Insightful)
What gave it away? Sloppy work 'cause nobody gives a fuck anymore. Why bother hiding that you're spying on the people after you noticed that, hey, the people don't care?
Wouldn't you feel a bit let down? I mean, think about it, you spend resources, time and energy on hiding that you're essentially putting your citizens under total surveillance, you enjoy how you manage to deceive and fool your population, only to notice that the main reason it worked was that nobody gives a shit?
That must hurt some egos, really. And of course they go "ffft, why bother with stealth, they don't appreciate it at all!"
The more central and pertinent issue might be that people feel powerless and don't know how to respond to such a broad and overarching system of checks that were unknown to them until recently. The mouse does not complain about the maze because the mouse knows no better. Cheese, wheels and conditioning.
God bless America.
Re: (Score:2)
The more central and pertinent issue might be that people feel powerless
that's definitely an issue, but GP's irony is spot on, the central issue is that most of us simply don't know / don't care. if we did we'd eventually find out that we're not so powerless after all.
God bless America.
abuse of power comes with power, it's not an "US mentality" thing. it's just US (elite) has (still) way too much power (right now), but don't believe for a second that EU powers, despite all of the public righteousness in these topics, don't incur in the very same abuse aswell. and even though current US policing
Re:Quick, somebody do something! (Score:5, Insightful)
The main reason the EU powers that are are so outraged about the spying is simply that it happens TO them, not BY them.
Merkel (German chancellor) just yesterday found out that her cell was bugged by the NSA. The outrage was all over the place. Just a year ago the total surveillance of Germans on the internet was "without alternative".
Don't ever think anyone of the polidroids that now get irate over the wholesale spying wouldn't do it to you in the blink of an eye. They only hate if if it's done ON them, but they love to have it done BY them.
Re:Quick, somebody do something! (Score:5, Insightful)
someone needs to reveal that Obama's phone was tapped by, say, the Korean government. Then, surely we'd see the American government continue to say how perfectly reasonable and normal phone interception of world leaders is.
Re: (Score:2)
The Russians and Chinese are keeping very quiet about their intelligence on world leaders, as well as everything else. Since Snowden apparently didn't bother to bring copies of documents on what is know about them we probably won't hear much about it.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the address for T-Mobile, if anyone wonders.
Re: (Score:2)
Our government didn't care JACK about it as long as spying was only done on US but not THEM. Didn't notice it? SWIFT? And all the other "data peering agreements"? Never heard of it, how they were bending over backwards to agree on data exchange with the US so they get all the juicy data about all of their subjects, I mean, citizens?
The only reason for the outrage is that now their own privacy is being violated. As long as it only happened to us plebes, nobody gave half a shit. Quite the contrary, they wante
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that, and the uneasy thought that some level of covert surveillance might actually be necessary, in some cases, to prevent things like 9/11.
I for one don't know exactly how much surveillance is enough to give the best tradeoff of (a) risk of mass murder by terrorist, vs. (b) risk of American becoming a full-blown dictatorship,
I suspect the NSA is over-reaching, and I definitely consider them to be violating the intent of the Constitution. But I don't know by how much, and most of my fellow citizens s
Re: (Score:2)
No, people absolutely do not feel powerless, they just do not care, if they are even aware.
1% might feel powerless, but that is probably an exaggeration.
Re: (Score:2)
Quick, you are outraged that the NSA has captured the metadata about every phone call you have ever made, what is your action plan?
Re: (Score:2)
The rabbit's default response is to freeze, then to run. Take away those options by cornering it and it will make sure you never forget that it has teeth and claws again.
Re: (Score:2)
What gave it away? Sloppy work 'cause nobody gives a fuck anymore. Why bother hiding that you're spying on the people after you noticed that, hey, the people don't care?
Wouldn't you feel a bit let down? I mean, think about it, you spend resources, time and energy on hiding that you're essentially putting your citizens under total surveillance, you enjoy how you manage to deceive and fool your population, only to notice that the main reason it worked was that nobody gives a shit?
You're quite mistaken. Somebody cares [nationalpost.com].
Re: (Score:2)
US intelligence saying that Snowden informing the public about illegal wiretapping is bad because now the badbadbad terrrrrrists change their tactics. Umm. Sure. And I'll believe that... why exactly?
Assertion without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Sorry, but the intel boys have about as much credibility left as the average used car salesman.
About fuckin' time! (Score:3, Funny)
Re: (Score:1)
Both of those things will be okay -- as long as there's no *gasp* side-boob!
Re: (Score:2)
Knowing the current proceedings, I wouldn't be so happy about seeing someone's balls being cut off. It's far from impossible that in some twisted way OUR balls will be on the line.
Potatoes (Score:5, Funny)
The DPC simply wanted to get this hot potato off his table
I thought the Irish liked potatoes.
Re: (Score:1)
Just like the Americans like invading other countries and bombing them into oblivion!
Re: (Score:2)
Someone mistook a steaming turd for a baked spud. Do not offer me your mashed potatoes, thanks.
HA-ha! (Score:4, Insightful)
See where your tax dodging schemes got you, Facebook?
Re:HA-ha! (Score:5, Informative)
We should rather say: "See, even your tax and judical review dodging schemes didn't help you."
Re: (Score:1)
Setting up a European headquarters was the mistake, not which country it was set up in. Create an actual legal presence somewhere and you have that many more legal systems to contend with.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
There's a much better solution. Subcontractors, my friend. Subcontractors.
Email and Social Network for Europe (Score:4, Insightful)
What we need is a European Email and Social Network company. One that we know won't offer back doors to the US Security Organisations. One that is free from interference
Re:Email and Social Network for Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
Federated or disitributed is the only solution.
Everything else is useless. As Eben Moglen would say: everything can keep their own logs.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Email and Social Network for Europe (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but it's not up to the average user to get the network going. It is the technically proficient that should install diaspora, if enough of us have a server signing up won't be difficult. And as time passes and the network grows, diaspora will become easier to install. Walk throughs get written, makeuseof and lifehacker write articles, then some of the steps get automated as more people post the subtleties of their particular configuration, and finally you get something that's as easy as installing mint.
I dislike it when technical people complain about average users finding things difficult that average users shouldn't be doing anyway. It's not their job, dummy, if we want a better network it's up to us to build it. What do we run servers for anyway?
Re: (Score:2)
And right here the dogma of "the free market will provide" breaks down.
Re:Email and Social Network for Europe (Score:5, Interesting)
Same problem with that proposed new EU law: if adopted, it will forbid companies to share data to non-EU law enforcement agencies without an EU judge approving the matter. I am much in favour of this idea: if the law does not compel you to share data, you are forbidden to share it; none of this voluntary cooperation crap. But I was disappointed to note that no-one spoke up to make the law universal, i.e. to also forbid voluntary sharing with EU-based agencies.
Re: (Score:2)
And, for a number of the smaller European countries, they don't really have security agencies of this scale and capability at all.
You'd think so. And you'd be wrong. These agencies may not have the capability to do covert surveillance abroad on the scale of the NSA operation, but domestically some of them are quite active and capable.
In Germany, various police and security agencies have infiltrated the extreme right Nationaldemokratische Partei Deutschlands, but refuse to disclose the names of their inside men to each other. The joke goes that the party leadership now consists entirely of government agents.
As for "legal" survei
Re: (Score:2)
As for "legal" surveillance, there are days on which the Netherlands performs more (court-mandated) wiretaps than the entire USA conducts in a year.
Wait, is that legal wiretaps vs legal wiretaps? Or legal, avowed wiretaps vs. illegal, unavowed wiretaps?
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps if you count the NSA's continual, ubiquitous surveillance to be just one wiretap.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, that way we'll make sure it will only bend over to any and all EU governments, but it will be fortified against US requests. Well, unless the US wants to get into a data exchange agreement with the EU, that is.
Frankly, I'd rather use some Chinese or Iranian social service. About your only chance to not have the NSA dig through your privates at leisure.
Re: (Score:2)
People forget about the whole reason for Echelon's existence. It was illegal for the US and several other foreign intel agencies to spy on their own people. The way they got around this was to have the US spy on their people, spy on US citizens, and then the two sides would exchange data. Of course that was before the US promoted a former head of the CIA to the White House, so the intel agencies had to at least pretend to follow the laws.
Re:Email and Social Network for Europe (Score:4, Insightful)
I suspect most of the European national security services (well, all except GCHQ) are delighted the NSA has taken the heat off them.
A few insincere sound bytes from Merkel and Hollande and it's Vive la liberté—when all the time the deceitful bastards know fine well "there but for the grace of Snowden go I."
My point being that I have totally no reason to prefer snooping from by government over snooping by another.
Re: (Score:3)
errr ... that was meant to be "snooping by one government over snooping by another"
Re: (Score:2)
Americans always assume everyone else is at least as bad as they are, usually worse. They are most often wrong.
Re: (Score:2)
Not sure why you addressed that reply to a Brit (sig gives it away, right?), but kudos all the same for an admirably constructed generalization.
Re: (Score:2)
Link to source (Score:1)
http://europe-v-facebook.org/ [europe-v-facebook.org]
Lazy submitter, bad editor, silly techweek for omitting it...
This feels like Christmas for me (Score:2)
Activist citizens using Europe's consumer data protection laws attacking the NSA and Facebook in one fell swoop?
I just feel so giddy.
NSA into music now? (Score:2)
Stop Using Facebook (Score:1)
Just stop.
http://inc.anphicle.com/2010/07/they-trust-me-dumb-zuckerberg.jpg [anphicle.com]