8 ms·

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 sh

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).
        gruez 6y ago
        >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. It's implied that we're talking about what happens after it's decided. We obviously can't talk about the action of the court before it's been decided. What matters is what happens after a decision has been made. The grandparent comment gave me the impression that in germany, after a law has been found to be unconstitutional by the courts, it doesn't get struck down. Instead, it gets sent back to the legislature for revision, while remaining valid in the meantime. >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). I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Is this supposed to be a flaw? What purpose does it serve to rule on laws that have already been revoked? To throw some shade on the legislative branch? To punish them somehow? Moreover, is this something that doesn't happen in germany?
- petre 6y ago
  It's complicated. I doubt that the right to bare firearms is effective deterrent against the abuse of power by the US federal government. It does enable use of force. I don't know any other country with the right to bare firearms protected by its constitution. Switzerland does have regulation in this regard.
- bobthechef 6y ago
  > I’d be surprised if people trust their governments in Poland, Bulgaria etc. > But I bet people having experienced autocratic regimes can never trust their government. If there is a lack of trust within the Polish public toward the state, then it stems in large part from a history of oppressive foreign or foreign-controlled governments over the course of the last 200 years. Of course, prior to that, the Polish republican tradition generally took a somewhat skeptical view of government and government power, introducing a system of checks and balances that ultimately tipped in favor of the nobility via the Sejm. But recent attitudes are IMO influenced by a kind of habit of viewing government as a foreign intruder dominated by foreign interests (which, frankly, continues to this day in the form of competing German, American, and Russian influence often represented by competing parties). The end of the Cold War did not, of course, lead to the expulsion of the entrenched interests and power networks formed during the years of the Soviet-dominated People's Republic which also contributes to the antipathies Poles have toward government.
- jedmeyers 6y ago
  > Maybe this generation in Europe trusts their government and thinks that its good. Which is strange, since there are people alive today who's relatives were executed in camps by the democratically elected government of Germany. People who think that democratic government is somehow a panacea against tyranny are constantly being proven wrong by history. The modern example is Venezuela and the fact that Maduro's predecessor, Chávez was elected by the majority of the population.
  - Tainnor 6y ago
    You can be certain that nobody in Germany has forgotten the Third Reich. The German constitution is a direct response to the experience of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and has been very carefully designed to avoid the same sorts of mistakes. There are consitutionally guaranteed, inviolable rights and principles that can never ever, legally, be changed ("Ewigkeitsklausel"). Nazi Germany can't ever happen again in any sort of legal way, nor whatever happened in Venezuela. No system is flawless and if shit really hits the fan and somebody makes a coup, who knows what may happen, but the German system is probably the most stable in the world, so I think some amount of trust in it is not misplaced. And the European, or at least Western European, perspective is that governments are elected and certainly more representative than any large companies that are incentivised only to maximise profit above everything, so having an oligopoly of companies dictating the rules of society is seen as a problem. This is a perspective I largely agree with. (NB: I'm not saying you should fully trust the government, I certainly don't always do that, but I do trust that the system generally works to keep the government in check.)
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.

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).
      - gruez 6y ago
        >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. It's implied that we're talking about what happens after it's decided. We obviously can't talk about the action of the court before it's been decided. What matters is what happens after a decision has been made. The grandparent comment gave me the impression that in germany, after a law has been found to be unconstitutional by the courts, it doesn't get struck down. Instead, it gets sent back to the legislature for revision, while remaining valid in the meantime. >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). I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. Is this supposed to be a flaw? What purpose does it serve to rule on laws that have already been revoked? To throw some shade on the legislative branch? To punish them somehow? Moreover, is this something that doesn't happen in germany?
petre 6y ago
It's complicated. I doubt that the right to bare firearms is effective deterrent against the abuse of power by the US federal government. It does enable use of force. I don't know any other country with the right to bare firearms protected by its constitution. Switzerland does have regulation in this regard.
bobthechef 6y ago
> I’d be surprised if people trust their governments in Poland, Bulgaria etc. > But I bet people having experienced autocratic regimes can never trust their government. If there is a lack of trust within the Polish public toward the state, then it stems in large part from a history of oppressive foreign or foreign-controlled governments over the course of the last 200 years. Of course, prior to that, the Polish republican tradition generally took a somewhat skeptical view of government and government power, introducing a system of checks and balances that ultimately tipped in favor of the nobility via the Sejm. But recent attitudes are IMO influenced by a kind of habit of viewing government as a foreign intruder dominated by foreign interests (which, frankly, continues to this day in the form of competing German, American, and Russian influence often represented by competing parties). The end of the Cold War did not, of course, lead to the expulsion of the entrenched interests and power networks formed during the years of the Soviet-dominated People's Republic which also contributes to the antipathies Poles have toward government.
jedmeyers 6y ago
> Maybe this generation in Europe trusts their government and thinks that its good. Which is strange, since there are people alive today who's relatives were executed in camps by the democratically elected government of Germany. People who think that democratic government is somehow a panacea against tyranny are constantly being proven wrong by history. The modern example is Venezuela and the fact that Maduro's predecessor, Chávez was elected by the majority of the population.
- Tainnor 6y ago
  You can be certain that nobody in Germany has forgotten the Third Reich. The German constitution is a direct response to the experience of the collapse of the Weimar Republic and has been very carefully designed to avoid the same sorts of mistakes. There are consitutionally guaranteed, inviolable rights and principles that can never ever, legally, be changed ("Ewigkeitsklausel"). Nazi Germany can't ever happen again in any sort of legal way, nor whatever happened in Venezuela. No system is flawless and if shit really hits the fan and somebody makes a coup, who knows what may happen, but the German system is probably the most stable in the world, so I think some amount of trust in it is not misplaced. And the European, or at least Western European, perspective is that governments are elected and certainly more representative than any large companies that are incentivised only to maximise profit above everything, so having an oligopoly of companies dictating the rules of society is seen as a problem. This is a perspective I largely agree with. (NB: I'm not saying you should fully trust the government, I certainly don't always do that, but I do trust that the system generally works to keep the government in check.)

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.