So, i've been trying to ignore the issue, but it is really difficult, so here is my rant, European politicians are about to approve a law that will force search engines to store searches for some time (from 6 month to 2 years). The official reason for that is creating a "early warning system against paedophiles and sex offenders".
There are lots of fishy things in that law:
* Do you really need from 6 months to 2 years of searches for a "early warning system"? I find that a bit contradicting at least
* When someone uses the "think of the children" reason, they are usually going for the lowest instincts of human, because obviously anyone opposing to protect the children is immediately evil. Well, that is going to end up forcing children to stay at home, or even forbidding them at all that way, with no children they won't be molested, right?
* The other thing that you get when you say that you oppose to such intrusive measures is "you should not be afraid unless you have something to hide", and they are right, i have lots of things to hide, it is called PRIVACY
* And finally the most important part, the law is going to be useless, if i am an *evil* dude i probably know how to use Tor or some other anonymous internet access so storing all that searches will not help at all.
So for me the bottom line is that:
a) Politicians are useless and fail to contact proper experts that confirm the measure is not going to help at all
or
b) Politicians are evil and even though they know the measure is not going to help at all, they are just going to approve it to fuck up with us citizens
And well, i don't know if a) or b) is worse :-/
12 comments:
I totally agree!
In Holland Bits of Freedom has started a counter offensive and a lot of people are e-mailing the (at least dutch) European politicians to not sign or to withdraw their signature.
So I hope we can prevent this thing from happening!
So true...
I think a bit of a) and b) mixed is the good answer. They're idiots, but they're evil too.
Amen, brother. Well spoken. And I hope Roeland voted Piratenpartij last week (didn't work though).
-- Marien
I'd go for A + B + some of C: They (at least some) know it will be useless but they go for it anyway since they think the "save the children" reason will get them some more votes come next election.
Then again, EU politicians seems to be schizophrenic...first they complain that Google retain too much data and then they're about to approve a law that mandates Google (and other search engines) to retain even more data???? Logic and sticking to one principle certainly isn't their strong suite...
This is extra-stupid because Google changed it's retention policy a couple of years ago in order to comply with E.U. law, reducing the time it kept identifying access logs.
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/news/docs/pr_google_16_05_07_en.pdf
The E.U. needs to make its mind up.
(reposted due to url concatenation)
If you knew belgian justice, then you would know that 6 months to 2 years is really early...
About (a) and (b): the politicians satisfy (a) and their advisors satisfy (b).
Hello president :P
Just in case you didn't know, a similar law is already in place in Europe since 2006, take a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention#European_Union
In the case of Spain we were the firsts to incoporate such directive in national law, in 2007, as can be seen in
http://bandaancha.eu/articulo/5093/publicada-ley-conservacion-datos
I wish I could say things are better here in the US, but that would be a lie.
Most politicians are lazy, not evil. Also, appearances are more important to them than getting things done. They go for the short term fix rather than any long term solutions, because they are easier and usually less expensive.
Elected politicians are the same the world over. Their greatest interest is getting re-elected, not serving their constituents. Because their constituents collective memory is short term, they do not think long term, so they do not see the long term effect such legislation can have on us all.
now c'mon guys. you are not that stupid. although it is always easier to lie to one self than to take the ugly truth...
how can you believe that politicians are truely stupid? in fact they are in power... most of them have are academics, have had a career in some public institution and worked for a party for years... and they exercise their argumentations, they get supported by think tanks etc.
no it is a systematical problem. otherwise there would be at least some exceptions (read parties). you don't get in power in these institutions if you don't comply to the integrated economics of lobbyism and party politics. politicians acting "stupid" are perfect to demonstrate you (the people) that you are in fact smarter and they are only average, too, but you are not smarter, we are not. it would take a complete systematical change of democracy (without big private property organizing a second, true level of power) and you know it. you just don't want to accept the consequences, because you have learned they are the true evil, extremism against our "middle-class-society" (read capitalism).
It is stupid to think they are stupid. Some maybe. but because they were put on their place by higher powers. And I dont mean god. those politicians just serve their masters. And teir masters are against the people. People are property to them. And we are too much in the world according to them. Anyways, search the web for NWO while you still can.
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