Germany Plans To Fingerprint Children and Spy On Personal Messages (fortune.com) 225
From a report: Germany is planning a new law giving authorities the right to look at private messages and fingerprint children as young as 6, the interior minister said on Wednesday after the last government gathering before a national election in September. Ministers from central government and federal states said encrypted messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Signal, allow militants and criminals to evade traditional surveillance. "We can't allow there to be areas that are practically outside the law," interior minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in the eastern town of Dresden.
Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Federal elections are coming up very soon and this would be one attempt to win over voters that rather want to feel safe than free. This is spurred by two major things, the recent terror attacks in Europe, which politicians use as leverage to win over
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
They do. The summary left out key details. a) the encryption thing is still covered under the same warrants and rules that apply to any other police interaction and b) they are only fingerprinting asylum seekers, non Germans, and the change is that they are proposing to change this age from 14 years old to 6 years old.
Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)
German interior ministers immediately lose their minds when coming into office and start to look up what the Nazis did to keep the population under control and then try to find ways to improve on that. It is not known what causes the effect, but the current office-holder is even more affected than usual, probably because he has no useful skills at all.
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Which, I believe is why they've tried not to act like Nazis anymore. Until now, it seems.
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nope, about 25 percent of the population support far right wing ideology. All those Nazis supporters and their children did not magically disappear in 1945.
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Not only that, but they are explicitly forbidden from announcing it in public, or espousing their views publicly, so attempts to count them fail. When I heard people talking all that shit about how Merkel is now the leader of the free world, I just shook my head. They don't even have free speech in Germany.
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And now they "need" to break encryption because Stormfront.org has now https too.
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Yes, you fucking idiot. That country that was ruled by Hitler a long time ago but has changed a lot since, and I must tell you this because you're too fucking dense to see for yourself.
The Nazis were not mutants, aliens, monsters, or psychopaths. They were us. Only their circumstances were different. Like other aspects of history, circumstances tend to repeat themselves over time. The changes that would be necessary to rule out a recurrence of the Holocaust cannot arise from our politics, but only from o
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So, even if a million of them are dangerous, psychotic extremists, you're still condemning 1200 people for every one bad guy.
That makes it a bit difficult to tell who the bad guys actually are, doesn't it?
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My point is, if you feel it's OK to kill 1,200 innocent people to make sure you get the one actual terrorist in their ranks, you might just be the bad guy you've been looking for all along.
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73 years is hardly "overnight."
Not to mention there's no shortage of right wing fervor in basically all Western countries right now -- Allies and Axis alike, so blaming the trend in Germany specifically on the Nazis kind of ignores the rest of the world in a way that makes little sense.
If anything, fear of their Nazi history being brought up has slowed down Germany's adoption of these shiny new oppression techniques that other Western governments have been salivating over for the past 10-15 years. But slow
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You don't know how it works because the summary left out a key word: Asylum seekers. They aren't fingerprinting Germans.
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On the other hand, unlike what we read about the US, if stupid laws are passed in Europe, they are usually just ignored. WhatsApp is not going to backdoor their encryption and Signal certainly not. Even Silence, the encrypted sms fork from Signal when they dropped encrypted sms, is developed in France and Canada.
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hmmm.... (Score:3)
""We can't allow there to be areas that are practically outside the law,"
And this in the country where if it weren't possible for many to be outside the law they would have been killed.
Isn't it better to shield citizens from the political apprentice and let criminals go free then to risk what may happen when the wrong group takes power? But the German's are a different culture. So trusting of government. The way my aunt who lived there for a while put it is ' The German people believe police officers never lie, which works pretty well so long as the police officers continue to believe they never lie too.'
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It's a cultural difference. What's the meme we get here? Never talk to police? That is the exact opposite of healthy advice in Germany where the police aren't actually out to get you on minor details to raise money or to put you away in prison to appease the prison industry complex.
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That is the exact opposite of healthy advice in Germany where the police aren't actually out to get you on minor details to raise money or to put you away in prison to appease the prison industry complex.
I don't know the ratio of good/bad US police, but here are some examples of good US police:
Big-hearted cop hailed for buying homeless man a new pair of boots - TODAY.com [today.com]
Caught on Camera/ CHP Officer Had This Stranded Pleasanton Motorist's Back - Pleasanton, CA Patch [patch.com]
Homeless Man in Florida Discovers Forgotten Bank Account Collecting Pension With Cop's Help [go.com]
Ohio cop praised for restraint, refusing to shoot suspect [foxnews.com]
Ohio cop takes homeless family to Walmart, books them in hotel - TODAY.com [today.com]
Police officer beats tee [cbsnews.com]
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I don't know the ratio of good/bad US police, but here are some examples of good US police:
I know, but people like to focus on the bad, that's why I called it a meme.
Why not? (Score:2)
Worked well for them last time.
Were to PC to actually protect you (Score:2)
So because it would politically incorrect to you know not let the militants into the country in the first place they will just abolish basic freedoms instead.
Pathetic.
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Its pretty politically incorrect to abolish basic freedoms as well. But I mean, as long as you can wrap it in a coating of "AMG terrorists!" we seem pretty willing to get those in power do whatever they want. This is not a new phenomena, and its hardly limited to Germany. The US and UK have been (publicly and proudly) doing shit like this for years now, and many other countries that we hear less about aren't exactly far behind.
Not the first time... (Score:2)
"We can't allow there to be areas that are practically outside the law," interior minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in the eastern town of Dresden.
Or as Mussolini said "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State".
Government-installed Spyware (Score:2)
From TFA:
Among the options Germany is considering is "source telecom surveillance", where authorities install software on phones to relay messages before they are encrypted. That is now illegal.
Wow, just wow. This is something you'd expect from China, not somewhere in the supposedly enlightened western civilization. It's things like this which make me think maybe those second amendment nuts really aren't so crazy. Give up one right, and pretty soon it's a slippery slope right to big brother being installed on your phone.
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A right guaranteed by a constitution may be a hindrance to those elected to conduct the people's business, but it's one that must remain if the society is to remain free.
The Germans can't help themselves. (Score:2)
Between this and Merkel turning the EU into the fourth reich. It's like the one country is composed of Bond villains.
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Between this and Merkel turning the EU into the fourth reich. It's like the one country is composed of Bond villains.
American's can't help themselves but to read garbage summaries not at all related about what is happening and drawing conclusions about them.
Germany = East Germany? (Score:2)
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Notice it talks about putting OS level monitoring software to relay everything typed etc. to the "good guys" to get around message encryption - the whole tech world looks like upgraded ankle bracelets to our governments.
Wrong. Headline is complete bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
German gouvernment is planning to pass a law that requires messaging services such as WhatsApp to be monitorable like phonecalls should a court order requested by the authorities give them the permission to do so in order to fight crime.
There, FTFY.
Like many politicians German politicians too have little clue about how the internet and computers work, but that's no reason to write headlines that are so sensationalist that they are flat out wrong.
My 2 cents.
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Holy crap - thank you for pointing that out.
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German gouvernment is planning to pass a law that requires messaging services such as WhatsApp to be monitorable like phonecalls should a court order requested by the authorities give them the permission to do so in order to fight crime. There, FTFY. Like many politicians German politicians too have little clue about how the internet and computers work, but that's no reason to write headlines that are so sensationalist that they are flat out wrong.
I doubt they're that ignorant. WhatsApp will tell them the system doesn't work that way, it's all end-to-end encrypted by the clients and they don't have the keys. The government will tell them that's not our problem, change your system to comply with the law or get banned/fined/jailed. And don't think asking the clients to send an extra copy to WhatsApp will suffice, the only way it can be implemented is if WhatsApp MITMs everything then only gives the police what they have a warrant for. Just like with th
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Germany will get legal court documents and present them to any band or telco in Germany.
The brand will then have to offer a front door, a trap door to be able to keep offering products and services in Germany.
If the code is free on the internet and been used? The user is good at trade craft? All Germany will need to find that user and their c
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Nope they are well aware how they work, which is why they are looking at things like requiring back doors on the source devices to intercept before the encryption takes place.
Also the rest of the headline is wrong too. They are only fingerprinting asylum seekers, and they are proposing changing that limit from 14 yrs down to 6 yrs.
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should a court order requested by the authorities give them the permission to do so in order to fight crime.
That part might is definitely important from a legal perspective, but technologically its still a clusterfuck. If the encryption can be broken at all, for any reason, then it can potentially be broken by hackers. And so far, history indicates that "potentially broken by hackers" is only a handful of days away from "has been broken by hackers."
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The part about the mass fingerprinting is misleading, as well. Refugees, or better stated, those who claim to be refugees, need to register with the German government authorities, and present an application requesting asylum. This can take a few years to process, and the system is extremely overwhelmed now. Only folks from certain "dangerous" countries are considered.
If you are from somewhere "safe", you will be turned back immediately. So a lot of folks just toss away any identification that they have
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Yet muslims are routinely gang raping girls in the streets and setting up zone of sharia law and no-go zones wherever they please? And all this is financed by the taxpayers?
[citation needed]
It has been done before (Score:2)
You'll never stop it (Score:2)
People have been speaking in code and enciphering messages since beginning of civilization and will continue to do so as they please regardless of impediments erected by their governments.
From "lets get a pizza" = meet me at 5:00 PM at the square to exchange drugs, weapons and unstable ordinance.
To 6 year old children knowing how to encrypt and decrypt messages over ANY communication medium using a pencil, paper and codebook.
You can't stop it no matter what you do. The only thing anti-encryption and governm
They should be more thorough (Score:2)
Ipocrisy? (Score:2)
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"One" is not the same as "the government." Governments, not just in Germany but everywhere and pretty much by definition, have many powers that are not entrusted to individuals and even a few that we haven't yet entrusted to corporations.
If you personally went around fingerprinting 6 year olds, you would probably find yourself in a fair bit of trouble regardless of the powers the government gives to itself.
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Because of the US after 9/11 all of Europe is issuing passports only with biometric info, aka fingerprints.
What exactly is your point?
Turning point (Score:2)
Just another evidence pointing out we're right at the turning point for totalitarian regimes sprouting once again in response to a politics of fear and complacency from citizens. Time is a flat circle.
Those words (Score:2)
Clever word crafting. They want to soften the blow of invasive privacy violations with the word "traditional". Traditional surveillance is a stake-out, or phone tapping with a warrant. Traditional surveillance is not monitoring all communication and movement of the entire citizenry.
Is encryption even a problem? (Score:2)
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I never thought I would see Nazi tactics return to Germany! Guess I was wrong...they have failed to learn from their own history.
I've you've ever been a USCIS biometric center you would have seen that the US government fingerprints children all day.
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I've you've ever been a USCIS biometric center you would have seen that the US government fingerprints children all day.
That, and the ubiquitous fraud of suggesting that children be fingerprinted because if someone snatches your kids, the fingerprints might help the cops find them. Thanks for believing that bullshit, mom, you fucking idiot.
Re: too bad! (Score:3)
Well, then you should be fine with what Germany plans to do. The summary fails to mention that the fingerprinting only applies to refugees.
Disclaimer: I'm German and I think this descision is wrong. But I gave up hope that our minister of the interior (Innenminister) understands the necessary balance between security and freedom long ago.
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Not really, he should not let any new muslims in the country anyway. If they come anyway, there are some nice places in Poland where to send them.
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And on which legal and moral basis should he do that?
Kill them at the border? Or hunt them down after they sneaked through the border?
You are an idiot.
Re: too bad! (Score:2)
LOL
If you enjoy living in Brazil, you must be one of the luckier ones who isn't a slum. I've visited your country. It has some nice features, but it's a corrupt shithole, pretty much everywhere - except for the wealthy and tourists.
Re:So Hitler taught them nothing? (Score:4, Insightful)
The current lurch towards authoritarianism in Europe is profoundly disturbing. You really would think Germany of all places would know better than to give in to the politics of fear.
It is also rather depressing that here in the UK, apparently Ariana Grande has a more mature view of the attacks in Manchester and the appropriate response to them than Theresa May.
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What happens, the govt comes door to door and demands you bring your kid out for fingerprinting?
Geez....why would the populace stand for this?
Re:So Hitler taught them nothing? (Score:5, Informative)
hmm... when my son was born here in the united states the put his hand prints and foot prints in his birth records. Probably attached to his birth certificate. I guess I didn't think to ask if it was 'optional'. It certainly wasn't presented as such.
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Wow?? Really?
I wonder when they started doing that in the US? Maybe it is only at some hospitals?
I'd certainly not want that done to my kids.
I know of hearing of such programs available if parents wanted them, but never heard of it being forced upon US par
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Wow?? Really?
I wonder when they started doing that in the US?
I was born in 1960, and my birth records include my handprints and footprints.
Re:So Hitler taught them nothing? (Score:5, Informative)
I was also born in 1960.
Those birth certificates with hand and foot prints are issued by the hospital. They are just a souvenir, not the official birth certificated file with the state.
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Wow?? Really? I wonder when they started doing that in the US?
I was born in 1960, and my birth records include my handprints and footprints.
I was born in 1953, and mine include them as well.
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"I wonder when they started doing that in the US? Maybe it is only at some hospitals?"
Forever. It's a souvenir from the hospital and not an official record. My father and grandfather both had prints on their hospital-issued 'certificate' as well as did I.
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That happened to me as a kid as part of a Boy Scout event and I remember being a little weirded out about it later. I recently did a forensics demonstration at an middle school and I made a point of letting the kids keep their fingerprint cards to do with as they pleased. They were the standard FBI cards that say "Applicant", so I did tell them that they were the first step to join FBI if they wanted to hold onto them!
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http://aceproject.org/electora... [aceproject.org]
Re:So Hitler taught them nothing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Geez....why would the populace stand for this?
Probably because they're afraid. Remember, as an expert on the subject infamously observed, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
(That was Gestapo founder Hermann Goering, for those who missed the reference. The original comment was about the futility of relying on popular elections to avoid a war that the political leaders want, but the principle seems just as relevant in this context.)
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Goering founded the Gestapo. Himmler took over about a year later.
Re:So Hitler taught them nothing? (Score:5, Informative)
Its fingerprinting for asylum seekers as young as 6 (current minimum age is 14), not all residents.
Summary fails to note that point.
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There are cultural difference between how children are raised in Germany vs America. In Germany, kids are viewed as more of a collective responsibility rather than just the concern of the nuclear family. Other cultures take it even further. In Japan, it is common to see five year olds traveling alone on the subway everyday on their way to kindergarten. That would be unthinkable in America, and probably get the parents arrested. But in Japan, it is perfectly safe, because everyone is watching out for
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It's too bad that "collective responsibility" doesn't extend to preventing the groping of female subway riders in Japan.
Re:So Hitler taught them nothing? (Score:4, Informative)
It's too bad that "collective responsibility" doesn't extend to preventing the groping of female subway riders in Japan.
They provide "women-only" subway cars during busy periods. Other than that, anyone that has boarded the Yamanote line at at Shinjuku station at rush hour will know that there isn't any obvious solution. Courts have been tightening up penalties, but that only works if the groper gets caught, which is rare. There has recently been a backlash because of people falsely accused [wikipedia.org]. Since Japan has such a low crime rate, any criminal conviction has severe social consequences, often resulting in losing your job, becoming unemployable, and basically destroying your life.
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Yes, the Japanese in particular seem to have a much more enlightened view of parenting and more generally how to look after young children than certain heavily controlling trends in the West.
I'm not sure that such cultural differences excuse the kind of intrusions we're talking about here, though. I see no evidence that fingerprinting all children is somehow necessary to preserve their safety or security. Indeed, the examples you just gave yourself seem to show clearly that it is not.
Democracy in Action (Score:2)
There are cultural difference between how children are raised in Germany vs America. In Germany, kids are viewed as more of a collective responsibility rather than just the concern of the nuclear family.
This is not about fingerprinting German kids, nor is it really about children at all.
On its face it's about surveilling people thought to be at risk of committing acts of terror. Primarily this would involve listening in on electronic communications and attempting to regulate encryption. As a (minor) pa
Re:So Hitler taught them nothing? (Score:4, Interesting)
Not really, it's just not talked about.
In some ways, Japan is more open about it. For instance Japan has sex dolls for pedophiles [yournewswire.com]. Although data is preliminary, these dolls appear to reduce predatory behavior by giving pedos a harmless outlet. It is unthinkable that America could do something this sensible.
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The current lurch towards authoritarianism in Europe is profoundly disturbing. You really would think Germany of all places would know better than to give in to the politics of fear.
Note: The following is intended as clarification - NOT in defense of the measure.
While TFS doesn't mention this... this new measure only affects asylum-seekers. Currently German law allows fingerprinting of all refugees age 14 or older - they're lowering that now, to age 6.
I'm sure there are people here who will have no quarrel with fingerprinting 6-year-old Muslims.
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Thank you for posting that. I'm not sure whether it should make any difference to the ethical or practical position here, but it's certainly a significant detail that was omitted from the original summary.
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Depends on how much choice economic migrants have. Sounds fine to me to say "if you want to bypass our normal immigration rules, we'll let you in under these different rules, or you can pick a different nation in Europe".
.
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It doesn't apply to migrants, who by definition would be abiding by "normal immigration rules," but to asylum seekers, who are instead relying on their Asylrecht.
Ah, the imaginary asylum seekers. Dude, they're looking for a country with a real economy. More power to them for that, but they're economic migrants.
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They should not let them in in the first place, but with Merkel in charge that's not going to happen. And she needs to break encryption to prevent anyone being able to organize against her.
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They really do know better but not in any good way.
In the 1920-30's Germany faced communist issues so the German gov had to use the telco networks to see how the communists got funding, support.
From the 1930's-1945 Germany had to worry about many different spies moving around.
So a really good understanding of the telco network was needed.
After 1945 the mission was to keep communism and fascism out of West Germany.
In East Germany the CI
Re:So Hitler taught them nothing? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ariana Grande isn't going to be the one standing in front of thousands of constituents trying to figure out how to protect innocent citizens from being murdered
It's remarkably clear what needed to happen to prevent that particular attack, and the authoritarian dross Theresa May has been advocating since then certainly isn't it. The bomber was brought to the attention of the authorities on at least five occasions over a considerable period before the attacks, but the resources weren't there to follow up on a credible threat and we all know the tragic result.
At least the locals stood up that night and showed solidarity and support over anger and hatred, and the celebrities turned up a few days later to show that life goes on and we shouldn't give in to fear. That's two groups of people who are both doing better than our national government.
I also don't recall New Yorkers holding hands and singing kumbaya around the fucking campfire after the 9/11 attacks either.
And truly, the way the US responded to 9/11 was an example we should all follow, what with the vast numbers of innocents killed or injured in the resulting wars, destabilisation of an already precarious region of the world, and consequent creation of the largest terrorist threat to the West today.
The US leadership of the time would have done better to show some actual leadership, instead of just ramping up the anger and revenge and fear. The world would be a much, much better place today if they had.
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Yes, maths is still maths (and this is why the argument for banning encryption is futile).
But you shouldn't have to risk jail time just for wanting to communicate with someone privately. That is not at all how civilized, free societies work.
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Big brand encryption junk will not work and be open to the gov.
Any attempts to download and use free, open source or create encryption will be discovered.
The connected telco device or networked computer will be accessed and a created private app will be giving plain text, files and voice due to device changes.
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Merkel is a product of the DDR (former East Germany, notorious for its secret police STASI) and it shows.
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You are an idiot. ... They are in such denial about the Nazi time that they don't teach it in school....
Germans learn in history classes in school: 25% greek roman stuff, 25% Napoleon, and 50% world war II/third reich/Hitler.
And there are "weiÃY Gott" plenty of things that are equaly or more important history things to learn in school.
You are bloody damn stupid idiot.
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You Europeans complain about the US spying and how our government is out of control....
Not all Europeans are the same.
Like Americans, different Europeans have different opinions and say different things.
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Even when the source is Reuters, unnamed parties quoted in an article of any kind is sufficient motive to cast enormous doubt up on the veracity of the information imparted.
Fakes news, propaganda, gov't-sponsored memes, these are all tools of the "unnamed". It can therefore be considered as clickbait fodder and nothing more.....
Re: Don't laugh at the Germans... (Score:2)
The German minister of the interior who is responsible for todays descision is a member of Merkels conservative party.
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At least they're spying on Personal Messages and not on Personal Massages.
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You missed something. They are only cracking down on the privacy and free speech of muslims.
Yes that's right the entire fingerprinting thing is for asylum seekers, and the idea of intercepting encryption in some way is still governed by the same laws that cover every other form of communication which are far more strict than anything the rest of the world has on the books. Good luck using Stingrays to spy on everyone in Germany.
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They are only cracking down on the privacy and free speech of muslims.
Actually they/we are not.
What has fingerprinting to do with privacy and free speach?
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That was a typo on my part. They aren't cracking down on the privacy of normal people any more than it already is. There's no new allowances for data collection here only for the facility to collect data unencrypted.
What has fingerprinting to do with privacy
Do you really have to ask this?
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Yes, I have to ask this. As I don't see any connection to real life.
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Yes, I have to ask this. As I don't see any connection to real life.
So you would also be happy to adopt a national ID scheme, facial recognition scheme, maybe barcodes on the back of people's necks? Part of privacy is anonymity.
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Face recognition and fingerprints are already (thanx to the USA) on all passports in the EU and most other nations.
What bar codes on the neck have to do with that is escaping me ...
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You fail to acknowledge that fact that the majority of the terrorist attacks post-911 have been by home-grown Muslims. There's no "importing" required.
And worse, it becomes a bit of a death spiral since the more we persecute the Muslims in our community, the higher chance that at least a few of them are going to be thinking about getting involved with more accepting communities. Occasionally that new community will be a terrorist organization, and only a small number of those otherwise-displaced people ne
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Importing more muslims will get you a new home-grown generation in 25 years. And you can look for a solution to the same muslims: the Turks showed it to us when they wanted to get rid of the Armenians.
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Or they become a community that supports your existing Muslim population and a few less start looking toward ISIS and friends for a place to belong.
Fear and hatred have never done much to stop violence. Occasionally though, an olive branch can.