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"In reality, the German government has a double standard when it comes to the right to privacy. They will fully support that right if it's company's violating y

• duxup 6y ago
  Isn't that government by default? We carve out privacy exceptions for law enforcement in given situations where otherwise we would expect them to be respected.
• _Microft 6y ago
  That's only double standards if one considers states and companies as being in the same position. A state and a company have vastly different goals. A state should care for its citizens, this includes protections against threats to public safety (terror, organized crime) and surveillance is a tool in the box for that. A company on the other hand, would have no issues fleecing people and abusing their power for profit if they only could. States are the entities actually powerful enough to keep companies in check and I'm pretty happy when they do that. I admit that this is a, I guess, pretty european view of things (i.e. govs are good, since they keep greedy companies in check), while the american view might rather be that govs are bad because they get into the way of companies (which are considered good).
  • terminalcommand 6y ago
    In many places in the world, the government is corrupt and there is no transparency. I’d be surprised if people trust their governments in Poland, Bulgaria etc. Government officials have more power to abuse people than companies. At least Germany has an established constitutional court that can still resist the politicians to some degree. I think the american view is that governments are bad because they can be used to establish tyranny. Every citizen’s right to be judged by their own peers, their right to carry firearms and freedom of speech are the things that allow people to fight against corrupt governments. This is my view being someone living in Turkey. I am even afraid of posting this comment. Maybe this generation in Europe trusts their government and thinks that its good. But I bet people having experienced autocratic regimes can never trust their government.
    • chopin 6y ago
      Rulings of the constitutional court have almost no real life consequences. If there is a negative ruling the parliament is given ample time before the unconstitutional law must be replaced. If there is any replacement within that time, the same law, formulated differently, is passed.
      • alborzb 6y ago
        so what you're saying is that the court... works?
        • gruez 6y ago
          It sounds different than something like the US, where if a law is unconstitutional it's struck down immediately (rather than giving time for the legislature to fix it), and the defendant acquitted (not sure what happens in germany).
          • realityking 6y ago
            It depends on the law. Often the law (usually just the specific provisions found unconstitutional) are immediately struck down. If there are wide decision to be made instead of the the status quo with the unconstitutional law, then the court will give parliament time to make the rules. This is currently the case with the election law where it's considered unconstitutional but there a multiple legal ways to design a legal one. The choice, how the law should look like, was passed back to parliament.
          • afthonos 6y ago
            > where if a law is unconstitutional it's struck down immediately What? Cases take years or decades to make their way through the court system. You might be thinking of the fact that some laws get an injunction on their enforcement until they are ruled on, but that is not mandatory. More important, they are not struck down, only enjoined. And of course if the legislature changes the law, the case becomes moot by the time it reaches the court (this happens semi-regularly, where the court refuses to rule on the constitutionality of a law that is no longer on the books).
  • dantheman 6y ago
    The state is responsible for more death than any other group/ all other groups combined.
    • erk__ 6y ago
      But is it not also responsible for saving more than any other group?
      • 1996 6y ago
        When you start a problem killing hundreds and save tens, do you think we should focus on the tens?
        • jacobush 6y ago
          I think they meant how somewhat organising instead of anarchy saves lives.
          • 1996 6y ago
            This bold claim requires proofs. We have no counterfactual than anarchy in a developed country would cost lives. We can see that the government "organization" of covid tests, messing up their official tests while forbidding private alternatives, costed lives.
            • jacobush 6y ago
              Humans congregate and organise, it's basically what makes us human.
  • dabbledash 6y ago
    You would think the Germans of all people would know better than to view the state with this kind of naivety. I don’t think the state is dangerous because it gets in the way of profit (though it can do that) but because it can directly oppress its people in all kinds of violent ways. The mitigating factor is supposed to be that people can hold their government accountable, but allow the government to snoop on everyone’s private communications and they’ll take care of that.
    • afiori 6y ago
      I can't really bring myself to agree with this view of the world. To me it sounds like saying that parents are dangerous because they can mistreat children or that employers are dangerous because they can oppress employees. Obviously those are true statements, but they are also horrible first approximations. Parents are supposed to be caregivers, employers are supposed to be source of opportunities, and governments are supposed to protect and safeguard the state and its people. To me this looks like a self fulfilling prophecy, if you treat parents as primarily evil oppressors you are in part forcing them in that position, same with governments. Some parents and some governments are evil and should be treated as such, but having an a priori predisposition that they will become evil seems inefficient
      • dabbledash 6y ago
        Employers will be good to you if you have bargaining power, but employees who have none are often mistreated. That is why we need a competing source of power (the government!) to regulate employers. The government, like an employer, needs to be checked by something if it isn’t going to grow abusive. Parents are somewhat different in that they tend to actually know and love their children. But even then we don’t give parents unchecked rights over their kids.
        • afiori 6y ago
          I completely agree, what I wanted to say is that in all those cases relationship work better when the basic nature of the connection is trust, not distrust. In a sense societies puts limitation on the power of governments/employers/parents so that they can be safely trusted even more (specifically so that those deserving of trust are allowed to have it), not because they are inherently untrustworthy.
  • nmalka 6y ago
    I think we had enough evidence lately that the German government is corrupt and they all have their snouts in the trough, almost regardless of party. Talking about fleecing.
    • randomaces 6y ago
      Please feel free to provide the evidence you are referring to, thank you
      • gruez 6y ago
        he's probably talking about the wirecard scandal, where the german SEC equivalent didn't bother investigating wirecard despite the warnings, and instead went after journalists and short sellers. see: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23869480 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23869480 There's also some discussion about german corruption in the comments as well.
      • odiroot 6y ago
        Wirecard, Gazprom, McKinsey scandals. Not gonna name names.
    • imtringued 6y ago
      Corruption is relative. Something can be more corrupt than something else. Saying whether something is corrupt isn't helpful because most things are corrupt to a certain extent.=
  • petre 6y ago
    They're both orgs run by people. If the leadership is corrupt, there's not much of a difference.
  • Kalium 6y ago
    > I admit that this is a, I guess, pretty european view of things (i.e. govs are good, since they keep greedy companies in check), while the american view might rather be that govs are bad because they get into the way of companies (which are considered good). Here's another way of looking at it: Germany is adopting an incredibly hypocritical position on privacy. It's so hypocritical it's nearly identical to the American government's position that many here on HN rightly decry.
  • matheusmoreira 6y ago
    > A company on the other hand, would have no issues fleecing people and abusing their power for profit if they only could. Governments often abuse their power. They have absolutely no problem with that either. It's precisely because they do this that total population surveillance should be impossible rather than a standard government tool. Abuse of surveillance powers could manifest in any number of ways. For example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LOVEINT The only way to prevent abuse of power is to take the power away.
    • DataDaoDe 6y ago
      > Governments often abuse their power. They have absolutely no problem with that either. The way I think about it is this. Governments and companies are both organizations made up of people. Governments have additional powers (for instance, military force, police power, etc.) over companies. The checks and balances for gov't abuse of power depend on the type i.e. representative democracy, republic, etc. And the checks and balances for company abuse of power are however the markets are configured. There are different incentives at an organizational and people level both in gov't and companies. But in general, I tend to think its easier to prevent "company abuse" of power b/c ultimately they have to deliver a product which people can choose to buy or not - in this sense we all have a direct democracy with companies, unlike Gov't. For instance, if I choose to not buy any more Google products, then however small and insignificant it may be Google is going to notice my change of preference on the bottom line of financial statements just as will the other company whom I deem better aligned to my preferences. This type of direct control is currently not possible with governmental institutions unfortunately.
      • nickff 6y ago
        The difference is often referred to as 'voice vs. exit'. You have a 'voice' (your say/vote) with the government, but no right to 'exit'. In contrast, with a private party, you only have a right not to transact with them (exit), but no right to tell them what to do (voice). Your desired scope of government usually reflects how much you believe in exit and voice. For practical purposes, this usually translates to how efficient you think competition is, and how effective you think democracy is. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exit,_Voice,_and_Loyalty
  • peterwoerner 6y ago
    I don't think it is a fair point to say that the American view that govs are bad because they get into the way of companies. The view is more along the lines of they are corruptible and frequently serve the interest of the business and political elite at the expense of the median citizen. Moreover, the government will use its power to thwart attempts at fixing the government. Therefore we should limit the power of the government.
  • young_unixer 6y ago
    A state has coercive power over you, a company doesn't. From my point of view, the government can do (and does) 100 more damage to me than any single company could do. A company can sell my personal data if I'm not careful. The state can send me to jail for saying things they don't like or doing things they don't like, even when those things don't do any harm to other people (e.g. using LSD). The state also steals a big portion of people's money, usually for no good reason.
  • riedel 6y ago
    The problem starts if the state wants to save money and skills in intelligence to work around common challenges of anonymous services. The real criminals attacking the constitution often can invest time and money into unbreakable anonymization, such things mostly hinder easy access to privacy by the normal citizen like me. The german government has really a long record of distrusting anonymization starting with ISDN mixes and denouncing their users. But also little things like one time credit cards seem to be restricted only because it would take an extra step to link the data in a real criminal case. And regarding data protection: it was big on paper in germany for a long time but only because nearly nobody was actually sued. Now everyone shits their pants here about the GDPR because you at least there are fines ( the rules did not change much). At the same time even with the GDPR we only trusted other german corps with data as corrupt or leaky they may be and not other Europeans. I agree with the OP that there are double standards here. But mostly it is just a history great theoretical ethics combined with technical incompetence and the deep national feeling of moral superiority...
  • tjs8rj 6y ago
    I think most Americans agree with a more middle of the road approach: that both companies and govt can be evil and shouldn't be given too much power. Most disagree on where the lines should be drawn with both entities, but the root contention is that power can corrupt anyone, from a profit-seeking CEO to a power-seeking politician, and so the leash on power should be short and the barriers around it should be tall. The idea that Facebook and other companies have so much data is often a bi-partisan point of concern, likewise the dramatic govt surveillance power of the Patriot Act is a pretty bi-partisan concern on the civilian level (as opposed to politicians, who are inclined to tow institutional lines even in disagreement with the current constituent sentiment.
• peroporque 6y ago
  That is the definition of government, a power monopoly, to avoid chaos. To obtain legitimacy to exercise that monopoly, we vote every couple of years. To avoid abuse, we split the power in three independent parts: legislative, executive, and judicial. Not sure what you would prefer?
• qayxc 6y ago
  Sure, relocate to Russia - you know, a country that doesn't even have free internet anymore and just like China pushes for totally state-controlled national network... Yeah, right. To point a finger at Germany while recommending Switzerland or Russia of all places as alternatives is just beyond retarded. So there have been a few (two, apparently) raids/seizing of documents in past 15 years, so what? Why no mention of other illegal raids or seizing of documents? Ah, right - bias. You know THESE raids were different, because they affected the radical left instead of kiddie porn, drug dealers, neo nazis, or religiously motivated terrorists. So we now know were the author draws the line, since apparently it's more important WHO does the spying than that there's spying at all. And of course a country where illegal raids can actually be brought before a judge and ruled illegal are much worse than regimes that don't even give you the option... I'm not a fan of the German government, but I'm even less a fan of political extremists with a "the enemy of my enemy is my friend"-attitude.
  • smart_jackal 6y ago
    From what I've heard, the Nordic countries like Netherlands, Norway, Finland, etc. and some Eastern European countries like Romania are people friendly (at least for now).
    • qayxc 6y ago
      I quickly checked for the Netherlands and it seems there's no big practical difference. The 2017 Act on Intelligence and Security Services allows Dutch intelligence and security services to tap into internet traffic without giving clear reasons or oversight. Doesn't sound all that "people friendly" to me. There's a difference between privacy laws concerning companies and public institutions (where the countries you mentioned score indeed very high) and access to internet traffic by certain government agencies. The latter is legally possible (often without requiring strict legitimisation) in all of them. Officially there might be differences when it comes to legal requirements, but in practise government intelligence and security services have full access to internet traffic anyway.
      • 6y ago
• hintbits 6y ago
  Recently the German constitutional court ruled the government can't spy on foreigners outside Germany, as they enjoy constitutional protections: https://www.dw.com/en/german-intelligence-cant-spy-on-foreigners-outside-germany/a-53492342 https://www.dw.com/en/german-intelligence-cant-spy-on-foreig... Of course, in a democratic country where the judicial system is separated from the legislative powers one should wait for the law (or the lawsuit) to know how it is enforced in reality.
  • whatshisface 6y ago
    >one should wait for the law (or the lawsuit) to know how it is enforced in reality. Of course, as we discovered that the NSA was gamboling, if you're doing it in secret, and the secret that you're doing it is protected by law, then if you do something illegal, it won't be legal to take you to court...
    • IAmEveryone 6y ago
      This assumption (i. e. that everything bad is done anyway, only in secret) is a truism. People who buy into this sort of cynicism will rely on the non-existence of evidence as evidence of their theory of all-powerful government able to suppress all evidence. The idea is also destructive for any effort to improve matters: if everything and everyone is corrupt, there's no point in trying to hold anyone to account. And if those in power continually get hit with the wildest accusations people can think of, they will at some point abandon the idea of trying to do a good job and/or being honest because there are no incentives whatsoever when the discourse is dominated by narratives that are no longer in any way tied to their actual behaviour.
      • whatshisface 6y ago
        Assumption? I was describing a historical anecdote. >if everything and everyone is corrupt, there's no point in trying to hold anyone to account. What's your plan for holding anyone to account without limiting secrecy? Seriously, there are zero ways to have accountability to the public without the public knowing what they're judging. The authority knowing the facts is the absolute most basic element of decision-making, and it precedes all other organizational or procedural designs. >if those in power continually get hit with the wildest accusations people can think of, No accusation was made. I am merely pointing out that there is no system of accountability. Zero accountability plus human nature plus power always leads to the same thing - and although we don't know the details, we can be sure there's some kind of mold growing under the counter so to speak.
• odiroot 6y ago
  This is actually really ironic. When the government wants to charge you for the "non-tax" obligatory TV fee they get your data automatically from your local citizens' office. You cannot protect your data from that. But when you want to claim unemployment, suddenly you need to physically pass printed pages of paper between different offices because they cannot exchange data due to data protection rules. These sort of idiosyncrasies are a commonplace in the Federal Republic.
• IAmEveryone 6y ago
  Germany doesn't "give itself as many powers as it can". Just recently, the courts affirmed that even foreigners have a right to privacy that intelligence agencies have to respect. Privacy regulation in Europe is the mot stringent anywhere, and contrary to popular myth it applies to governments just as it does to corporations and citizens. Conservatives have been clamoring for metadata retention requirements afor communication companies for about a decade or so, but all of their ideas failed either in parliament or in the courts. Video surveillance is illegal by default, and is only done in sensitive areas such as airports. Even as a private citizen, you can get fined for installing a camera that points at public spaces. Some landlord was even fined for installing a fake camera in the public staircase, because the possiblity of surveillance was considered harmful.