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Reading things like these in other (even developed, Western) nations: - UK surveillance state powers, anti-porn laws - Australian laws to detain you, break en

Reading things like these in other (even developed, Western) nations: - UK surveillance state powers, anti-porn laws - Australian laws to detain you, break encryption - This German incident I sure am glad to live in a country where freedoms are explicitly guaranteed by a constitutional decree.

jhgb 5y ago
Ironically, said country with freedoms explicitly guaranteed by a constitutional decree rubber-stamped the German constitution that allowed for this.
- l33t2328 5y ago
  Blaming America for Germany’s draconian speech laws isn’t right at all. It’s been almost 80 years.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    Who says I'm blaming anyone? All I'm saying is that apparently some major people in the US saw it proposed and thought nothing of it.
paranoidrobot 5y ago
> I sure am glad to live in a country where freedoms are explicitly guaranteed by a constitutional decree. I can only assume you're referring to the US's Constitution. Rights that are apparently guaranteed by the US Constitution are routinely ignored by all levels of US Government. You may get your day in court, you may even have the court rule in your favour. That does not mean you're made whole, or that the government will back down and stop doing things that infringe upon your rights.
- calvinmorrison 5y ago
  Rights do not emenate from a dusty scrap of parchment a few hundred years ago. They are immutable.
  - danielheath 5y ago
    Moral rights, perhaps. Legal rights? Extremely mutable.
  - swiley 5y ago
    The constitution carries more weight than you think: the highest governments in the US are the states which delegate their power to DC via the constitution. It’s a contract, and when violated the power is removed.
    - calvinmorrison 5y ago
      Please sir show me the contract Americans have signed without duress or coercion. Simply put all governments exist via the rule of force and individual sovereignty does not depent on despots in power.
girvo 5y ago
Which is at the mercy of interpretation from the court; we must always be vigilant and be ready to agitate against this becoming common, as your constitution doesn’t actually guarantee anything: humans are still the ones who run and decide things. The constitution isn’t the silicon American society runs on, it’s more firmware, to use a shitty analogy.
nautilius 5y ago
If this refers to the US: Is this sarcastic? Does the name Edward Snowden ring a bell, and the total surveillance state programs in the US, against US citizens, he revealed? -the perpetual drive of FBI etc to have e.g. phones decrypted, or have companies install back doors? (e.g. Bernardino)? - the last administrations systematic programs against ‘unpleasant’ journalists? - black sites and places like Guantanamo that you could just disappear to? - civil forfeiture laws that allow the police, without any process, to take your personal property, without any wrongdoing on your part? - how many people are killed by police in those other countries (at all), and also, how many times does this lead to a prosecution of the officer in question? Etc.
Littlebigo 5y ago
Freedom to not have any vacations for years, freedom to not get medical aid, freedom to get fired over Twitter on a whim, freedom to get shot by the police, freedom to be subject to government surveillance, freedom to have a flawed democracy, freedom to have your children shot in school by deranged classmates... Freedom doesn't necessarily mean "better".
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar, and please don't post in the flamewar style generally. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
robbedpeter 5y ago
America has had its overreaches in recent history - the Florida covid whistle-blower and so forth. I have to think that officials are hesitant to engage in many of the petty tyranny we see in other western countries, however, at a rate proportional to the degree to which their constituents are armed. If a police raid has a non trivial chance of turning into a shootout, it's a tool frequently withheld, and probably never used over a tweet. The wrongful death process in civil courts would also destroy the life of any official who provoked a deadly raid over social media.
- PixyMisa 5y ago
  The Florida COVID "whistle-blower" has been arrested at every job she has ever held.
  - robbedpeter 5y ago
    https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/is-florida-covid-data-activist-rebekah-jones-grifter-or-hero-villain-or-role-model-liar-or-whistleblower-maybe-all-of-the-above/Content?oid=29505424 https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/is-florida-covid-data-... No she hasn't. She was a stupid kid and did stupid kid things, millennial style. She went through the legal system for crossing the line, but by the time she held the job for Florida state government - a decade later - she seems to have married, had children, found a respectable job, and was otherwise a normal human being. And she is probably mortified over the student/professor bad soap, stalker drama she inflicted on the world. At worst she was a psycho college girlfriend cliché. At best she's a redemption story, and good for her if that's the case. She never finished her degree, but still found a job as a data scientist, then blew it up because Florida officials wanted to lie. Have empathy and practice forgiveness, especially on people who did nothing to you. It costs you nothing to withhold what amounts to snide gossip.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
MiddleEndian 5y ago
The US is not without flaws, we have SESTA and FOSTA, which restrict website content, passed with minimal outcry, and the potentially upcoming EARN IT[0] and LAED[1] acts, which will threaten end-to-end encryption and more. The only senator vaguely aware of these problems seems to be Ron Wyden. No reason to assume we are able to simply relax. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020 (despite the year in the name, it's still an ongoing potential bill) 1. https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/06/there%E2%80%99s-now-even-worse-anti-encryption-bill-earn-it-doesn%E2%80%99t-make-earn-it-bill-ok https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/06/there%E2%80%99s-n...
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. Last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jhgb 5y ago

Ironically, said country with freedoms explicitly guaranteed by a constitutional decree rubber-stamped the German constitution that allowed for this.

l33t2328 5y ago
Blaming America for Germany’s draconian speech laws isn’t right at all. It’s been almost 80 years.
- jhgb 5y ago
  Who says I'm blaming anyone? All I'm saying is that apparently some major people in the US saw it proposed and thought nothing of it.

paranoidrobot 5y ago

> I sure am glad to live in a country where freedoms are explicitly guaranteed by a constitutional decree. I can only assume you're referring to the US's Constitution. Rights that are apparently guaranteed by the US Constitution are routinely ignored by all levels of US Government. You may get your day in court, you may even have the court rule in your favour. That does not mean you're made whole, or that the government will back down and stop doing things that infringe upon your rights.

calvinmorrison 5y ago
Rights do not emenate from a dusty scrap of parchment a few hundred years ago. They are immutable.
- danielheath 5y ago
  Moral rights, perhaps. Legal rights? Extremely mutable.
- swiley 5y ago
  The constitution carries more weight than you think: the highest governments in the US are the states which delegate their power to DC via the constitution. It’s a contract, and when violated the power is removed.
  - calvinmorrison 5y ago
    Please sir show me the contract Americans have signed without duress or coercion. Simply put all governments exist via the rule of force and individual sovereignty does not depent on despots in power.

girvo 5y ago

Which is at the mercy of interpretation from the court; we must always be vigilant and be ready to agitate against this becoming common, as your constitution doesn’t actually guarantee anything: humans are still the ones who run and decide things. The constitution isn’t the silicon American society runs on, it’s more firmware, to use a shitty analogy.

nautilius 5y ago

If this refers to the US: Is this sarcastic? Does the name Edward Snowden ring a bell, and the total surveillance state programs in the US, against US citizens, he revealed? -the perpetual drive of FBI etc to have e.g. phones decrypted, or have companies install back doors? (e.g. Bernardino)? - the last administrations systematic programs against ‘unpleasant’ journalists? - black sites and places like Guantanamo that you could just disappear to? - civil forfeiture laws that allow the police, without any process, to take your personal property, without any wrongdoing on your part? - how many people are killed by police in those other countries (at all), and also, how many times does this lead to a prosecution of the officer in question? Etc.

Littlebigo 5y ago

Freedom to not have any vacations for years, freedom to not get medical aid, freedom to get fired over Twitter on a whim, freedom to get shot by the police, freedom to be subject to government surveillance, freedom to have a flawed democracy, freedom to have your children shot in school by deranged classmates... Freedom doesn't necessarily mean "better".

dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN threads further into nationalistic flamewar, and please don't post in the flamewar style generally. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

robbedpeter 5y ago

America has had its overreaches in recent history - the Florida covid whistle-blower and so forth. I have to think that officials are hesitant to engage in many of the petty tyranny we see in other western countries, however, at a rate proportional to the degree to which their constituents are armed. If a police raid has a non trivial chance of turning into a shootout, it's a tool frequently withheld, and probably never used over a tweet. The wrongful death process in civil courts would also destroy the life of any official who provoked a deadly raid over social media.

PixyMisa 5y ago
The Florida COVID "whistle-blower" has been arrested at every job she has ever held.
- robbedpeter 5y ago
  https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/is-florida-covid-data-activist-rebekah-jones-grifter-or-hero-villain-or-role-model-liar-or-whistleblower-maybe-all-of-the-above/Content?oid=29505424 https://www.orlandoweekly.com/orlando/is-florida-covid-data-... No she hasn't. She was a stupid kid and did stupid kid things, millennial style. She went through the legal system for crossing the line, but by the time she held the job for Florida state government - a decade later - she seems to have married, had children, found a respectable job, and was otherwise a normal human being. And she is probably mortified over the student/professor bad soap, stalker drama she inflicted on the world. At worst she was a psycho college girlfriend cliché. At best she's a redemption story, and good for her if that's the case. She never finished her degree, but still found a job as a data scientist, then blew it up because Florida officials wanted to lie. Have empathy and practice forgiveness, especially on people who did nothing to you. It costs you nothing to withhold what amounts to snide gossip.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

MiddleEndian 5y ago

The US is not without flaws, we have SESTA and FOSTA, which restrict website content, passed with minimal outcry, and the potentially upcoming EARN IT[0] and LAED[1] acts, which will threaten end-to-end encryption and more. The only senator vaguely aware of these problems seems to be Ron Wyden. No reason to assume we are able to simply relax. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EARN_IT_Act_of_2020 (despite the year in the name, it's still an ongoing potential bill) 1. https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/06/there%E2%80%99s-now-even-worse-anti-encryption-bill-earn-it-doesn%E2%80%99t-make-earn-it-bill-ok https://cyberlaw.stanford.edu/blog/2020/06/there%E2%80%99s-n...

dang 5y ago

Please don't take HN threads into nationalistic flamewar. Last thing we need here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html