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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 ou
by 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 agoIt 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 agoI can leave my phone at home. I cannot leave flock at home. It’s about consent.
- derektank 11mo agoI'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 agoYou 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 agoPrivate individuals generally aren't systematically using their cameras for mass surveillance of you. The government is.
- eru 11mo agoMost of the cameras are attached to either Apple or Android devices. The companies that control these ecosystems could use them for mass surveillance. The government could 'politely' ask these companies to do that for them. Or they could just directly order the phones.
- ocdtrekkie 11mo agoSort of except for the fatal flaw that you are talking about battery powered devices that mostly live in peoples' pockets. The reason Flock cameras and Ring doorbells both serve well for mass video surveillance is consistent predictable location and power.
- eru 11mo agoMaybe, yes. On the other hand, there's lots and lots of people running around with these things, so you get pretty good statistical coverage, especially in cities.
- IshKebab 11mo agoCould, but don't.
- immibis 11mo agoIn Germany it's (very roughly speaking) illegal to film people in public. (Importantly, not the same as filming a thing or event and having people incidentally in the frame)
- nandomrumber 11mo ago[flagged]
- nandomrumber 11mo agoIt’s kinda good the planet gets to run both experiments, and more. The EU approach seems to want to insert government in to contracts between private individual and those they do business with, and the US approach seems to want to maybe allow too much power to accumulate in those who wield the mercantile powers. The optimal approach probably lies in the tension between multiple loci.
- hx8 11mo agoIt's one experiment because both systems are competing at the same time for global resources both in cooperation and competition with each other and other actors. Additional both systems exist in such widely different contexts that any comparison would be inaccurate because other factors such as geographic and historical have a large impact on any measured results.
- anonym29 11mo agoThe optimal approach appears domain specific and granular, too. As for domain specificity: I don't know any Europeans who'd prefer to have American healthcare. I don't know any European technology companies that hold a candle to the sheer breadth and depth of capabilities brought into the world by Google, Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, Nvidia, AMD, Intel, OpenAI, or Anthropic. Yes, Mistral, Nokia, OVH, and SAP exist, but compared to the alternarives, they exist in the way the American healthcare system exists compared to its alternatives. As for granularity: Perhaps we want American style governance for building the tech, but then European style governance for running it?
- veltas 11mo agoI don't agree with that at all. If anyone else tries to infringe your rights it's either voluntary i.e. you've consented to this, or it's involuntary in which case you can sue them or the state will prosecute them on your behalf.
- Broken_Hippo 11mo agoUnfortunately, the world contains nuance that your statement does not.
- veltas 11mo agoWhat I said is a very general statement that broadly applies to all civilised countries, reiterated because the parent comment was very incorrect suggesting that rights are mainly protecting citizens from their state in the US. It's simply not true.
- dpark 11mo agoWhat you’re missing is that the set of rights European countries recognize and the set of rights that the American government recognizes are not the same set. In Europe they recognize a right to be forgotten that simply does not exist in the US. Europe recognizes personal data rights that the US does not. These data rights impose requirements on the way companies manage your data and specifically do not allow, e.g., Facebook to get you to consent that your rights do not apply. The European government protects imposes citizens’ rights on businesses in several ways that the US government does not. On the other hand, US free speech rights are generally stronger. And of course no one else except US citizens have an inalienable right to sleep on a bed made of loaded handguns.
- veltas 11mo agoObviously the rights that the state grants are different in the US than Europe, but the rights of individuals are protected versus other individuals, corporations, and general organisations; just as they are in all civilised countries. To the extent you can have famous cases where people sue large coffee franchises for selling coffee that's too hot. So the statement that "the whole concept of rights in the US are, in the main, about restricting what the federal government and states can do individuals" is far from reality, and I felt it necessary to ground this conversation back in reality.
- marsven_422 11mo ago[dead]
- YouAreWRONGtoo 11mo ago[dead]
- casey2 11mo agoThat's because in the US we don't give non-state organization power over other people. At least not in the European way where you have to give your life to an org. A US citizen has the freedom to disassociate with any organization at any time for any reason. Of course this comes with a social cost, offset as this allows people who are discontent with their arrangements to forge a new path States like California have high job lock, so most innovation comes from side-projects as people checkout from work.
- smilespray 11mo agoWhat are you on about?
- cwel 11mo ago>in the US we don't give non-state organization power over other people. False.
- hansmayer 11mo ago> That's because in the US we don't give non-state organization power over other people Have you been following the news for the last few years?
- spare_farts 11mo ago[dead]
- mcv 11mo ago> That's because in the US we don't give non-state organization power over other people. How are credit ratings maintained again? > At least not in the European way where you have to give your life to an org. I have to what!? News to me. > A US citizen has the freedom to disassociate with any organization at any time for any reason. Maybe, but the EU is more militant in enforcing that right. Some US states are working on "right to be forgotten" laws, but they've got a lot of catching up to do, and I don't think there's a federal law in the works yet.
- anikom15 11mo agoWhat restrictions do European governments impose on the state?