EU Moves To End Surveillance Tech Sales To Repressive Regimes 132
superglaze writes "The European Union is asking companies that sell surveillance and law enforcement tech to repressive regimes to stop doing so. The EU is not taking concrete action yet, but has warned that sanctions may be applicable. All this comes little more than a week after Wikileaks published the Spy Files, a name-and-shame list of the companies offering tools for mass surveillance and interception to despotic regimes, but also to Western governments."
Repressive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Repressive? (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought that was public knowledge. The world is divided into the righteous and the unrighteous, with the righteous always the ones doing the dividing.
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Actually it is. It's just that non-retarded people know that reality is relative. So everyone is righteous from his perspective.
Also, obviously the EU likes to be the only repressive regime with that surveillance tech. ^^
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So everyone is righteous from his perspective.
You not should have used an universal quantifier as I am not.
Sometime, I lie, I deceive and even I betray, I don't feel especially righteous about it but I am not ashamed either as everyone (note the use of a universal quantifier) does it from time to time it's just that most of them (qualified quantifier) are not aware of it...
Re:Repressive? (Score:4, Insightful)
Whoever has almost as much streetside camera surveilance and warrantless wiretapping as us is repressive.
Re:Repressive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Repression involves restricting free speech, journalism and internet access. Nice to see our EU politicians taking a moral stand when our own governments won't.
Re:Repressive? (Score:4, Funny)
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In US politics, 'moral' has come to mean 'social conservative.' They hijacked the word to justify their policies, most of which seem to revolve around fighting anything to to with sex.
Or science.
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Or helping your neighbor.
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Or anything pleasurable, witness the war on (some) drugs while they claim to be for freedom and less regulation.
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But how much restriction of free speech
Don't forget about the hilariously strong libel laws in UK. That, the lack of the ability to legally own and carry a firearm, and the difficulty in justifying defending yourself with reasonable force are the three major reasons I would never live there. (And if it weren't for those three big things, I'd have moved there a long time ago.)
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What do you do in your everyday life that these 2 concerns are primarily on your mind?
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It's not like I go out starting fights. But I will defend myself if I'm assaulted, robbed, or my home is broken into. This is not an "if", this is practically an absolute. If the odds are stacked against me where I can't go hand to hand, I will escalate my response in order to survive and/or protect other innocent folks.
Meanwhile in Britain, a man will likely end up in jail [guardian.co.uk] for defending his home by killing an intruder.
In the linked story, I would have likely done the same thing. If I ended up in jail, so b
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...and the follow up [bbc.co.uk]: not charged, found to have acted in reasonable self-defence. Are you saying that when a man admits to stabbing somebody to death, but claims self-defence, the legal process is not necessary?
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Repressive technology also includes surveillance technology. In fact, it's mostly surveillance technology.
This is an extremely hypocritical move, implying that only a few enlightened countries are capable of using CCTV, face recognition software, network and cell phone monitors "properly." If they want to make a statement about repressive technology, the first step they should take is at home, removing or sharply limiting their own police forces' access to such repressive, undemocratic technologies.
Lead b
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What freedom? Store cameras are not available for mass-surveillance fishing expeditions by police and businesses, so what is the problem?
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Yeah, these days you also have to take the video tape with you.
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I take it France and Germany are fucked then...? Aren't they?
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So EU should stop selling surveillance equipment to the US (SOPA), France (HADOPI) and Sweden (Assange)?
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SOPA hasnt passed.
HADOPI doesnt involve government surveillance, as much as it may bug you to hear this. It also doesnt require "surveillance tech"'; an ISP can monitor any non-encrypted communication you make pretty trivially with a $30 router and a $150 switch, or 2 $20 USB ethernet devices bridged.
Assange is being accused of a rape crime, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with repression or surveillance; 2 witnesses are accusing him of a crime and the courts are trying to go through their process. Im
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Oh, so like the US crack down on Occupy Wall Street, the journalists arrested during the crackdown, and the US confiscation of domain names they have no jurisdiction over?
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Just to be clear I am European and would advocate bringing sanctions against the US for its actions over the past decade. Additionally the EU has been taking legal action against member states for, for example the spying conducted by BT and Phorm.
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I wonder if bombing Al Jezeera offices and trying to shut down Wikileaks would count as repression? Or what about in the case of Turkey, denying the genocide of the Kurds and arresting any journalist that talks about that?
My point is that many countries probably won't make the cut, just because it would be too politically inconvenient for the EU to exclude them.
Re:Repressive? (Score:5, Insightful)
"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
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...and then he proceeded to write a massive pseudo-autobiographical piece of fiction where he paints the government of the country where he was wrongfully imprisoned as pure evil, mixing facts with fantasy as it fits his agenda.
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It's called "fiction" for a reason.
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Too bad, two generations of Americans and at least one generation of Russians (briefly) were convinced that it was a true historical record.
Re:Repressive? (Score:4, Funny)
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I believe in right-ism. That is, the more someone is to your right, the more evil they are. Europe is bad, but Russia and the Middle East are worse because they're farther to the right (from our perspective.)
Don't even get me started on those Samoan bastards.
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The Declaration of Human Rights.
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US violates almost everything in it (not surprising considering that country was originally based on "rights" like slavery and genocide). EU countries are only marginally better.
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True, but there are major differences in the degree of violation. The problem is, the human rights are too broad, but there is a core of them that most civilized countries respect (for example, th one against slavery). No treaty is unviolable, but as I recall the torture of prisoners generated a great shitstorm in America, which is how it works.
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And yet in US it's OK to refuse long-term medical treatment whenever insurance companies can predict that a person will be unprofitable for them.
By severity of consequences, benefits gained and resources necessary to avoid such violations, it's many orders of magnitude worse than torture. Americans refuse to recognize this for the same reason why they prefer murderers to rapists despite murder having far worse consequences than rape -- one is a "hot button", another is not.
Re:Repressive? (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it really that hard? If there is a concentration of power with lack of democratic structure and widespread censorship, I think those are pretty good indicators.
I'm getting a little tired of this schizophrenic attitude of finger pointing at western governments for their foreign policy and dealings. There is always going to be corruption and power abuse and western governments are not exempt from that. But there are far, far worse things going on in most of the rest of the world. If anyone has the moral authority to define what constitutes a repressive regime and gang up on them to limit the harm they can cause their own people, than it is western Europe. We have our share of problems, but we are also the most important stronghold of democracy and civil rights in the world (I consider the U.S. with its two party system and rampant lobbyism more as an oligarchy as a truly functional democracy). We will make mistakes along the way, but if we don't send signals and push back against what we consider to be repressive regimes, nobody else will because nobody else cares. So stop nitpicking at every action that is taken. At least there are some democratically elected institutions thinking about and trying to deal with these issues.
that was pretty hilarious (Score:1)
Italy is about to throw democracy down the toilet so that they can implement 'austerity measures' to pay for Berlusconi's corrupt decade+ rule (a dude who ruthlessly censored the media, put protestors into the hospital, helped the US invade Iraq, etc etc).
European companies like Deutschebank, UBS, Credit Suisse First Boston, NYSE Euronext, etc, are every bit participants in the US 'oligarchy' and in the crash of 2008 and the bailouts. All of those Credit Default Swaps were invented in London, AIG's FP group
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Yes, obviously Berlusconi and what was going on in Italy is one of the worst corruption cases in the world. That is a result of combined media and political control which in my opinion should be prohibited.
Apart from that, the rest what you're talking about is a result of unconstrained capitalism. That's a whole different discussion. I'm sure it's not due to european companies that Assad has killed 4000 people in Syria and Gaddhafi was doing the same until he was finally stopped, with air support from NATO.
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What about countries where majority of population does not want democracy? They are not idiots -- for example, I honestly don't want democracy anywhere close to myself until at least 80% of Earth population will have college education with mandatory course on recognizing propaganda techniques.
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You have a problem with propaganda, but you want a government-implemented education system?
Brilliant.
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Imagine that!
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It's easy, just ask Them who we've always been at war with.
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One of the major differences, though, is that people can fight against the illegal spying and torturing without being horribly murdered for "falling out of line".
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Repressive = Middle-Eastern, Eastern-European (this one comes down to internal debate), African or Asian countries that either disagree with the EU's goals, or ones that happen to get into the news over alleged brutality.
Actual facts don't factor in.
Largely symbolic (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Largely symbolic (Score:5, Insightful)
They will certainly be able to get around it, but not helping them is still the right thing to do.
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Name them, shame them. Most have something about ethics in their written aims. Let their shareholders and competitors know.
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Exactly! Investors clearly care about ethics when they're factoring in where to spend their money, and not the oh-so-unimportant profit margins!
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A crack addict will still be able to find more drugs. That doesn't make it right to sell it to them.
Sometimes it's best just to take the morally correct standing on an issue even if it has little effect upon the outcome.
What about buying it from oppressive regimes? (Score:2, Insightful)
You can buy GPS trackers from China.
Indeed, much of what you buy from China supports slavery.
Hypocritical move is hypocritical.
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So you'd rather do nothing and just say "it isn't going to amount anyway"?
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So you'd rather do nothing and just say "it isn't going to amount anyway"?
I'd rather they stop being hypocrites and do something substantive.
Why buy ANYTHING from oppressive regimes (Score:3)
I would be more enthused if they would take the action of not allowing any trade with repressive regimes. No aid, no trade, nothing.
The problem is, some repressive regimes are excused based on their status in the world either financially or militarily
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Nail, hit on the head. The only downmod I'm upset about above is the troll mod, because this is all based on fact.
Don't waste such pretty tech. on evil regimes... (Score:4, Interesting)
Why sell it to the evil regimes of the world when you can much better use all those pretty toys at home to check what your own citizens are doing?
In all fairness, some of the countries in the EU (esp. the UK) have the highest density of surveillance cameras and other equipment in the world - both per capita and per surface area. It's sad that the EU don't see a need to stop doing that, but wish the situation in dictatorships to improve.
Re:Don't waste such pretty tech. on evil regimes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't kid yourself. Cities in the US have got just as much CCTV, *and* you've got armed police everywhere too. Not to mention the proliferation of metal detectors in public buildings.
Scary stuff.
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Yeah, it's not so lonely at the top when it comes to having the most surveillance.
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Not to mention the proliferation of metal detectors in public buildings.
Thats neither "surveillance" (what are they seeing? What right is being violated?) nor is it government (theyre almost all privately owned buildings).
Surveillance in the US is nowhere near at the level that you are saying it is, unless DC is some anomaly and other cities are very different. I have never seen a surveilance camera in DC, and I actually look for that kind of thing.
Go to Shanghai, and THEN try to tell me "the US is just as bad". And there, the government really DOES listen to everything you
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I add two and two together: I already know that the government in China DOES monitor every cell phone call, and require a national ID for a SIM card. HMMM, wonder why that could be?
And that they also monitor basically everything you do online, have been known to issue phony SSL certs, have been known to hack into google, requested identifying info on blogger identities, have cameras in every church, etc etc etc.
None of this is the case in the western world, and to get access to a surveilance camera basica
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The US has the monstrous crime rates to justify it.
Because Americans have nothing much in common except location, our society is loosely bonded and subject to group competition including predation.
Not only are economic classes enemies by nature, competing cultures are enemies by nature, and nature takes its course. The US needs a police state situation in many areas to prevent anarchy. It's blashpemy to point that out, but that doesn't negate its truth.
Re:Don't waste such pretty tech. on evil regimes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you are recorded doing something criminal in front of a CCTV camera in Britain, you will (maybe, if the police can be bothered to deal with it, or if they don't just give you a warning) be hauled off to a justice system that is the product of a reasonably fair democracy.
The article talks about surveilance software that identifies disloyalty so that the local goon squad can have their daily list of victims.
Comparing the two is a huge insult to people who live under genuinely repressive regimes. "Oh so you were tortured for your political views were you? Well we have it almost as bad here! I keep getting this creepy feeling that somebody's watching me! Oh, and we're not free to stab people in public either, because the cameras are watching! It's terrible!"
Re:Don't waste such pretty tech. on evil regimes.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I get so sick of the people who say that "I have nothing to hide, so I don't care about my privacy".
Time and time again, this crappy argument shows up again in a different form.
My point was (a sarcastic remark) about the EU's desire to check on its own citizens. I did not condone torture or dictatorships, and I said nothing about any comparison. The fact that there are worse regimes out there than the EU does not mean that we're doing a good job in the EU.
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Thats not what he said, he was pointing out the fact that most surveillance in democratic countries is at the behest of a worried population. That doesnt mean the surveillance is a good thing, or that parent was condoning it (in fact, he stopped short of that in his comment); its just that its not in the same ballpark as cameras in China or a truly repressive country.
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Aren't the majority of CCTV cameras in Britain (and most other places) private, though?
I mean, a lot of this seems like an unfortunate collusion of events. Businesses want to protect their property and therefore they will install security cameras on the interior and/or exterior of their buildings. (I'm 90% certain that there are bonuses in insurance coverage for having a functional CCTV system, so there is yet another incentive.) There are very few places where businesses have exactly 0 presence (such as th
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Revealing text in TFA (Score:2, Troll)
Any shills care to defend Microsoft then?
What is a dictator? (Score:5)
In Tunisia right now a Muslim party has one the elections and this leaves women in fear that they will LOOSE the freedoms GAINED under the OPPRESSIVE regime of Ben Ali. Freedom is not a simple on/off switch. Are the people in Russia now better or worse off then when it was the USSR? What time period of the USSR? What people?
Cuba is rather famous for having better healthcare then the US and a far lower infant death rate. If you are a dying infant, communism apparently can save your life but that life will be less free. Then again, if you were the suspicious kind you might wonder whether the higher infant death rate is evenly distributed or concentrated in certain groups/classes of people. Free but only if you are rich?
The images of a cop peperspraying sitting protestors made the world. Does that make the west un-free? The cops were suspended and while true justice might not be done, there are far far worse examples.
Microsoft dealed with a regime that in western eyes wasn't terribly nice but a LOT better then a lot of other places and we yet have to see what the alternative will turn out to be. In many ways, if you want to blame companies for dealing in oppression they not only have to boycot the entire world but often themselves. Oops, Windows 8 is closed source, that is not free, so MS has to boycot its own software!
Of course, by accepting these exceptions you pretty soon are on a slippery slope were everything becomes an exception.
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Cuba is rather famous for having better healthcare then the US and a far lower infant death rate. If you are a dying infant, communism apparently can save your life but that life will be less free.
Allow me to post a counterargument from Wikipedia, emphasis from me:
According to Katharine Hirschfeld, criticizing the government is a crime in Cuba, and penalties are severe.[81] She noted that "Formally eliciting critical narratives about health care would be viewed as a criminal act both for me as a researcher, and for people who spoke openly with me".[81] According to Hirschfeld the Cuban Ministry of Health (MINSAP) sets statistical targets that are viewed as production quotas. The most guarded is infant mortality rate. The doctor is pressured to abort the pregnancy whenever screening shows that quotas are in danger.[81] Once a doctor decides to guard his quotas, patients have no right to refuse abortion.[81]
Sometimes I wonder if people have consumed a bit too much Michael Moore Kool-Aid when they start claiming that Cuba's health care system is the best in the world. Michael Moore does have many useful criticisms of the establishment within his work, but he pads it with a lot of manipulated fact / propaganda.
Amd the United States is... (Score:2)
Despotic... yes?... no?... We only do surveillance in the name of the baby Jebus and the sanctity of apple pie. In fact its not even surveillance... we only watch the little brown people because we care... and we hug them with our laser guided missiles.
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>we only watch the little brown people because we care... and we hug them with our laser guided missiles.
It's called tough love. Really really tough love.
The EU is not taking concrete action yet? (Score:2, Informative)
They are trying but sweden vetoed it, and I think it's a good thing. How would protesters organise and send videos etc without cellphones (and internet)?
These comes with "surveillance tech" as standard.
http://www.stockholmnews.com/more.aspx?NID=8116 [stockholmnews.com]
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But they all ready have mobiles and internet in Syria, don't they?
Aren't Ericsson in there with huge Euro-signs in their eyes, selling more advanced big brother tech to the government, as other countries/corporations are out of the game since they claim to frown upon locating and disappearing dissidents?
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How would protesters organise and send videos etc without cellphones (and internet)?
These comes with "surveillance tech" as standard.
There is a very, very important distinction between surveillance tools in the hands of a private citizen and surveillance tools in the hands of a corporation or private government.
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The point is that there would be no cellular network without surveillance tech. Keeping track of how much you call(minutes), when you call(day/night time), where you call(loca/national/international) is a kind of "surveillance" and the "tools" comes as standard so that the providers can charge you the correct amount.
If the protesters(or whatever) don't want to be tracked via cellphones they can choose not to use cellphones. We(the EU) shouldn't deside that for them.
"NO CELLULAR TECH FOR YOUR COUNTRY/PEOPLE
Fuck Sweden! (Score:2, Flamebait)
The "conservative" government of Swedens wants Ericsson to make lots of money selling mobile networks to Syria:
http://www.stockholmnews.com/more.aspx?NID=8116 [stockholmnews.com]
http://www.thelocal.se/37720/20111203/ [thelocal.se]
PEN club is diappoint:
http://www.pen-international.org/12/2011/ericsson-in-syria-statement-from-swedish-pen/ [pen-international.org]
Fuck you, Swedish government.
Re:Fuck Sweden! (Score:4, Informative)
Point the finger where the finger is due.
LI (Lawful interception) has been a requirement from the major western governments since the dawn of cellphone networks. You are not allowed to sell to the major customers without including it.
Are you surprised this functionality is included as standard in all systems now?
Swedens government wanting a major swedish company to be successful, yeah, big woop.
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Point the finger where the finger is due.
Agreed.
Why isn't EU proposing to ban use, sales and manufacturing of all surveillance tech in it's own member countries? There's something to think about.
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Oh bollocks. Ericsson would be just fine without Syria, and Finland didn't complain because of Nokia.
Our government just needs to grow a spine.
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Grow a spine? The swedish government is like lobster with ketchup. It makes my head explode.
Is nokia still in there selling equipment to the Syrian big brother?
Well, the fuck nokia too, and motherfuck Finland.
I get to say fuck Sweden and fuck Finland, because I'm a finnish immigrant (2:nd generation) to Sweden. And I get to say fuck the USA, because we're all subjects of the american empire.
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You're just not supposed to be dealing with oppressive governments.
Weapons sales will continue (Score:2)
because "good" countries wouldn't misuse this tech (Score:4, Insightful)
Or are "good" countries allowed to use surveilance tech for all the purposes they want including spying their own citizens even if its for the "noble" goal of combating intellectual property theft?
Yes, I am cynical
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While 'we' in the west (and on slashdot) may see many freedom of speech and surveillance problems, comparing them to more serious situations isn't fair to citizens of countries like Burma and Syria. Just because the west isn't perfect, doesn't mean that we should just sit by and watch while people are killed and tortured. Rather than invading them and telling them how to live their lives, European politicians are trying to at least make it more difficult for these governments to obtain what they need.
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In non-repressive regimes we elect that folks that use surveillance on us ourselves.
Does that make us a bunch of stupid fucks? Yes it does. Does it make our governments repressive? Only to the extent that we want to repress our fellow citizens.
No worries (Score:2)
Certain US companies will happily step in.
Homeland security budget 1 Trillion Dollars (Score:2)
Oh and by the by... Quantum Computers + wiretapping = http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=sneakers [isohunt.com].
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Homeland security does not have a budget of a trillion dollars. They don't even have a budget of 100 billion. In 2011, they had a budget of $55 billion.
The entire US military doesn't have a budget of a trillion dollars (though depending on which defense-like categories you throw in, you can get it up over 900 billion).
Now, I will readily agree that we could FAR better spend that by sending it directly to 3rd world dictators and Taliban militants, who would do less to oppress the US populace with the same
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Homeland security does not have a budget of a trillion dollars. They don't even have a budget of 100 billion. In 2011, they had a budget of $55 billion.
The entire spending of the Greek government is about $110 billion. Croatia, Syria, Ecuador or Luxembourg have a GDP of around $55 billion.
Sure those countries are a lot smaller, but $55 billion is still a lot of money.
Russia and has a total government budget of about $300 billion, and is about half the size of the USA in population, if you want to put things into perspective. India and Canada get run on about $270 billion.
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To be fair, though, that's just the budget on the books.
I mean, wasn't the CIA basically propping up cocaine lords in the 70s/80s in exchange for funding? What's to say that that exact thing is not happening in another fashion elsewhere? It's not as if you can look up the national budget and see "Afghanistan heroin sales: $230,241,532,000" as a line item.
Wrong place (Score:2)
People - dissident or otherwise - should not for their safety rely on technology that can be listened to.
ITAR (Score:1)
They should use ITAR [wikipedia.org] as a model. Though the A stands for Arms, it covers a lot more than firearms from my experience.
Good News! (Score:2)
More profits for US companies, hooray!
What? No emoticons here, oh, well.
Cutting off the US (Score:1)
While it's nice to hear the EU wants everyone to stop selling surveillance gear to the US and other repressive regimes, I fear the US makes much of its own.
Missed business opportunity.... (Score:1)
Now if you wanted to look at it from a higher moral standpoint: these regimes will get surveillance tech one way or another, if you do not sell it to them someone else will.
The money from the sale will further surveillance tech development by your immoral competitors.
Not only that but they probably will not provide any means for the citizens to circumv
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Funny that you are British, and you say you never asked for a Unites States of Europe.
With statements such as Winston Churchill's 1946 call for a "United States of Europe" becoming louder, in 1949 the Council of Europe was established as the first pan-European organisation. In the year following, on 9 May 1950, the French Foreign Minister Robert Schuman proposed a community to integrate the coal and steel industries of Europe - these being the two elements necessary to make weapons of war. (See: Schuman declaration).
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_European_Union#1945.E2.80.931957:_peace_forged_from_cold_steel [wikipedia.org]
I believe Winston Churchill was the democratically elected representative of the British people at the time?
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EU President is basically a Bilderberger
Ok, I think we're done here.