4 ms·

A great gesture, but sadly I'm sure all these national letter agencies will find a loophole in laws or pass some bills to push their agenda anyway. You know as

by kbart 11y ago

A great gesture, but sadly I'm sure all these national letter agencies will find a loophole in laws or pass some bills to push their agenda anyway. You know as a usual story goes -- "but terrorists!", "think of the children!" etc. Enforcing EHCR ruling was never a strong side, on the way of it becoming a national law (if ever), it often gets diluted or (purposely) misinterpreted.

sdoering 11y ago
And even if it does, even after clearly stating, that what they do/did is illegal, our national security agencies (BND in Germany) just go on doing their thing. What our parliamentarian investigation committee keeps finding does nothing to stop these practices. And why should it - imho they (national security agencies and respective politicians) have clearly left the space of the law, as it does only apply to them on paper, not in reality. I got cynical and fatalistic during the last years - and I do not see any real chance for a democracy left. We are living in post democratic times, where democracy is only there as a play being shown for the people, to keep them placated. Sorry, for my mood.
- jacquesm 11y ago
  > We are living in post democratic times, where democracy is only there as a play being shown for the people, to keep them placated. Democracy has always been only a partial implementation of one. The Swiss come closest, every other so-called democratic country is so only in name and always has some provisions to limit the direct impact a vote can have on how society operates. This has both good and bad side-effects, the bad ones seem to be the majority both in number and gravity. One large problem is that political systems are very slow to change once they are established, their founding documents take on some kind of religious aura and to question them and or those that laid them down is made tantamount to treason.
  - tremon 11y ago
    One large problem is that political systems are very slow to change once they are established This is mostly a good thing. However, the boiling frog approach is still available. So society must be vigilant and vocal about every small step in the wrong direction. Hopefully, this ruling will reinvigorate some of the debates. I know many defenders have become numb to the relentless attacks on individual freedoms (it can be seen in some of the comments here too).
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      I think it's more like a sawtooth curve. Some revolution takes place in a locality. Then, for a long time frustration with the system slowly builds until an overhaul is required, leading to a new point of very rapid change. This then plateaus at a level that fixes some of the old problems and therefore reduces the frustration levels to below where people pay a large amount of interest to the problems in the system. Depending on the location and the amount of external influences this can happen every so many centuries or every couple of decades (or even years in extreme cases). The essence of a real democracy is that I think that it forestalls any such desire to revolt in such a way that change is allowed to be gradually absorbed, rather than that it comes to a head, even if such change is perceived as 'unwise' it may be a better solution than to have a bunch of elders/wise guys/connected people to decide 'what is best for the masses'. Give them enough rope to destroy things and they may do so, or they may stop just short of doing it and learn from their mistakes. Take away their opportunity to do so and you get a sham democracy in return.
- jcranmer 11y ago
  The problem with democracy is that, in any large group of people, a substantial number of them will be uninformed or even misinformed on particular topics that come up for discussion. And when people become misinformed, they can get entrenched in that view, believing that it is so self-evident that people who think otherwise have to be part of some vast conspiracy or just plain idiots because no one could be that stupid. And this almost comical misinformation transcends political lines: I can think of several examples on both the right (e.g., climate change) and the left (e.g., TPP). Indeed, I think that the more critically-minded section of the population is, if anything, more prone to falling into this trap. I'm probably just as badly misinformed on some topics (although I don't know which ones--if I did, I wouldn't be misinformed!). I suspect that a large part of the cynicism comes from people who are merely unhappy that their minority (or what they see as the "silent majority") is not actually in agreement with the majority consensus.
  - Outdoorsman 11y ago
    Well spoken...it's a complicated world... We all have to keep parsing information as best we can, knowing that it's impossible to keep abreast of developments in every field...makes you wonder about voting for candidates that offer simple solutions to complicated problems, no?
paulddraper 11y ago
So they just ignore it? It seems like that would make legal matters really hard to understand.

by kbart 11y ago

sdoering 11y ago

And even if it does, even after clearly stating, that what they do/did is illegal, our national security agencies (BND in Germany) just go on doing their thing. What our parliamentarian investigation committee keeps finding does nothing to stop these practices. And why should it - imho they (national security agencies and respective politicians) have clearly left the space of the law, as it does only apply to them on paper, not in reality. I got cynical and fatalistic during the last years - and I do not see any real chance for a democracy left. We are living in post democratic times, where democracy is only there as a play being shown for the people, to keep them placated. Sorry, for my mood.

jacquesm 11y ago
> We are living in post democratic times, where democracy is only there as a play being shown for the people, to keep them placated. Democracy has always been only a partial implementation of one. The Swiss come closest, every other so-called democratic country is so only in name and always has some provisions to limit the direct impact a vote can have on how society operates. This has both good and bad side-effects, the bad ones seem to be the majority both in number and gravity. One large problem is that political systems are very slow to change once they are established, their founding documents take on some kind of religious aura and to question them and or those that laid them down is made tantamount to treason.
- tremon 11y ago
  One large problem is that political systems are very slow to change once they are established This is mostly a good thing. However, the boiling frog approach is still available. So society must be vigilant and vocal about every small step in the wrong direction. Hopefully, this ruling will reinvigorate some of the debates. I know many defenders have become numb to the relentless attacks on individual freedoms (it can be seen in some of the comments here too).
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    I think it's more like a sawtooth curve. Some revolution takes place in a locality. Then, for a long time frustration with the system slowly builds until an overhaul is required, leading to a new point of very rapid change. This then plateaus at a level that fixes some of the old problems and therefore reduces the frustration levels to below where people pay a large amount of interest to the problems in the system. Depending on the location and the amount of external influences this can happen every so many centuries or every couple of decades (or even years in extreme cases). The essence of a real democracy is that I think that it forestalls any such desire to revolt in such a way that change is allowed to be gradually absorbed, rather than that it comes to a head, even if such change is perceived as 'unwise' it may be a better solution than to have a bunch of elders/wise guys/connected people to decide 'what is best for the masses'. Give them enough rope to destroy things and they may do so, or they may stop just short of doing it and learn from their mistakes. Take away their opportunity to do so and you get a sham democracy in return.
jcranmer 11y ago
The problem with democracy is that, in any large group of people, a substantial number of them will be uninformed or even misinformed on particular topics that come up for discussion. And when people become misinformed, they can get entrenched in that view, believing that it is so self-evident that people who think otherwise have to be part of some vast conspiracy or just plain idiots because no one could be that stupid. And this almost comical misinformation transcends political lines: I can think of several examples on both the right (e.g., climate change) and the left (e.g., TPP). Indeed, I think that the more critically-minded section of the population is, if anything, more prone to falling into this trap. I'm probably just as badly misinformed on some topics (although I don't know which ones--if I did, I wouldn't be misinformed!). I suspect that a large part of the cynicism comes from people who are merely unhappy that their minority (or what they see as the "silent majority") is not actually in agreement with the majority consensus.
- Outdoorsman 11y ago
  Well spoken...it's a complicated world... We all have to keep parsing information as best we can, knowing that it's impossible to keep abreast of developments in every field...makes you wonder about voting for candidates that offer simple solutions to complicated problems, no?

paulddraper 11y ago

So they just ignore it? It seems like that would make legal matters really hard to understand.