10 ms·

If that's the gist of it, then: > Government actions that restrict the ability to privately... This seems weirdly backwards. The main problem is not generally

• BrenBarn 11mo ago
  That's the notion of "rights" we have in the US though. It's the same with the Bill of Rights. It's true some states do go further and bestow more affirmative rights. But it's deeply ingrained in US political thought that "right to do X" means "government won't stop you from doing X", not "government will stop anyone who tries to stop you from doing X".
• gameman144 11mo ago
  This seems to have the positive effect that patching applications on your own device (a la Revanced patching Spotify) appears blessed, since government prosecution would need to demonstrate a public interest case, if I'm reading this correctly.
• samdoesnothing 11mo ago
  No, the problem is the extent to which private parties can use the power of law to legally restrict your usage of property you own. And that's the reason it's a right. If you don't like the restrictions a product has you can simply not purchase the product, no "right" has been infringed.
  • makeitdouble 11mo ago
    > you can simply not purchase the product You should explain how you'd see the majority of the population not buying a smartphone from a major brand.
    • samdoesnothing 11mo ago
      ...by not purchasing one?
      • eru 11mo ago
        Thirty years ago no one was buying smartphones from a major brand. No one was buying any smartphones at all.
        • AnthonyMouse 11mo ago
          But 30 years ago there were also no government services or major companies who require you to interact with them using an app on a major smartphone platform.
          • samdoesnothing 11mo ago
            Nothing has changed, there are no government services or major companies who require you to interact with them using an app on a major smartphone platform.
            • eru 11mo ago
              I doubt that. The world is a vast place with many governments and there are lots of major companies.
            • novok 11mo ago
              There are many that do require SMS or a phone number of some sort at this point. We are mostly saved by the part of the 70+ crowd who is completely computer illiterate and own significant investment resources. But that will only last 10-20 more years.
            • michaelgburton 11mo ago
              Require, maybe not? But it's a comparatively huge pain in the ass to use a lot of government services where I live without a smartphone.
• a_humean 11mo ago
  Yeah, the whole concept of rights in the US are, in the main, about restricting what the federal government and states can do individuals. Whereas in Europe our concept of rights include restrictions on the state, but also also might restrict non-state actors. We also have a broader concept of rights that create obligations on the state and private actors to do things for individuals to their benefit.
  • mbac32768 11mo ago
    It is oddly funny that people in my town are ferociously protesting the police force's adoption of Flock surveillance cameras when everyone already carries total surveillance devices (smartphones) on their person at all times.
    • TehCorwiz 11mo ago
      I can leave my phone at home. I cannot leave flock at home. It’s about consent.
      • derektank 11mo ago
        I'm pretty sure the point parent was trying to make is that you can't get other people to leave their phones at home and there is very little recourse if a private citizen decides to record you without your consent from their phone in a public space. There's of course a difference in the powers involved, but people have had their lives ruined because somebody captured a video of them out of context or in their worst moment.
    • vineyardmike 11mo ago
      You can (generally) tell when a person around you is filming, and you generally don’t have to worry about tons of random individuals bringing together footage of you for tracking and surveillance.
    • rjdj377dhabsn 11mo ago
      Private individuals generally aren't systematically using their cameras for mass surveillance of you. The government is.
• txrx0000 11mo ago
  One step at a time. First the citizens ought to ensure that their own government is actually aligned with them.
  • eru 11mo ago
    Citizens aren't even aligned with each other.
    • txrx0000 11mo ago
      Citizens don't need to be aligned with eachother, but they should ensure that the government is aligned with the citizenry as a whole. Everyone should have the freedom to polarize in different directions and hold different opinions as each individual sees fit. The government is only supposed to implement the laws that most people want in common, not enforce alignment of opinion in the populace (that's an authoritarian regime). If people are allowed to freely misalign, then they'll be misaligned in different directions, and their conflicting wishes will cancel eachother out like random noise when they vote, leaving only what most people want in common to be written into law.
      • eru 11mo ago
        What is the 'citizenry as a whole'? As a simple example, Finland's national government just passed a smartphone ban in schools. That's fine by the criteria you brought up, but I think it's utterly moronic. Not because I disagree with the Finnish people, or their elected representatives on the issue itself: that's for them to decide. I disagree that this should be handled at the national level at all! See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity > Subsidiarity is a principle of social organization that holds that social and political issues should be dealt with at the most immediate or local level that is consistent with their resolution. The Oxford English Dictionary defines subsidiarity as "the principle that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed at a more local level".[1] The concept is applicable in the fields of government, political science, neuropsychology, cybernetics, management and in military command (mission command). The OED adds that the term "subsidiarity" in English follows the early German usage of "Subsidiarität".[2] More distantly, it is derived from the Latin verb subsidio (to aid or help), and the related noun subsidium (aid or assistance). In this case, I lack the imagination to see the reason why this issue couldn't have been handled at eg the city level, so that the good people of Oulo get the policy they want, and the good people of Helsinki get the policy they want. Or even lower: there's no reason to even go as high as the city level, each school individually can decide what they want. But just to give you the limits of subsidiarity here: I can see why you'd want to have a unified policy per school instead of per teacher or per class: the logistics are easier, and the individual teacher doesn't have to use their own judgement and authority on this. (Of course, individual schools should be free to let the teachers decide, if that's the policy they want.) You can surely create your own example that cover more familiar territory, eg legal drinking ages in the US (which are ostensibly a matter for the states, but have been hijacked by the central government.)
• immibis 11mo ago
  Also, government actions that restrict your ability to lawfully compute. If the government is restricting it, then isn't it by definition unlawful?
  • eru 11mo ago
    Yes, but that's why the rest of the text gives some more meat to right. It's not so much that the government can't restrict you, but this law would raise the bar for what justifications would be necessary.
• AnthonyMouse 11mo ago
  > The main problem is not generally what government can and wishes to restrict, it's all the proprietary/private restrictions such as not being able to run whatever code you want on hardware you own. But those come from laws, like DMCA 1201, that prohibit people from bypassing those restrictions. The problem being that the DMCA is a federal law and Montana can't fix that one, but at least they couldn't do state one? Although this language seems particularly inelegant: > computational resources for lawful purposes So they can't make a law against it unless they make a law against it?
• novok 11mo ago
  Well if you want to really get pedantic about it, it comes from the government enforcing those restrictions, like the DMCA, patent, or copyright, otherwise people would just do it willy-nilly for the most part.
• sophrosyne42 11mo ago
  The proprietary restrictions are an extension of government, because the government grants private actors protection of their IP and enforces that IP. The only issue is that because we take IP protections for granted, we see it as an issue of the private actor rather than the state which has increasingly legislated against people's ability to execute code on computers they themselves own. But it should be simple. The government grants a monopoly in the form of IP to certain private actors - when that monopoly proves to be against the interests of the citizens, and I believe it is, then the government should no londer enforce that monopoly.
• deleted 11mo ago
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• hyperliner 11mo ago
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