4 ms·

”2 There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right EXCEPT such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democ

by karhuton 11mo ago

”2 There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right EXCEPT such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.” Are we reading the same thing? This linked statement clearly authorizes invasion of privacy by public authorities, in the name of any of the very vaguely listed reasons – as long as there’s some law to allow it.

pcrh 11mo ago
Mass surveillance has already been ruled to be in contravention of the Human Rights act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights#Violation_of_the_convention_by_mass_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Conv... >A 2014 report to the UN General Assembly by the United Nations' top official for counter-terrorism and human rights condemned mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core privacy rights guaranteed by multiple treaties and conventions and makes a distinction between "targeted surveillance" – which "depend[s] upon the existence of prior suspicion of the targeted individual or organization" – and "mass surveillance", by which "states with high levels of Internet penetration can [] gain access to the telephone and e-mail content of an effectively unlimited number of users and maintain an overview of Internet activity associated with particular websites". *Only targeted interception* of traffic and location data in order to combat serious crime, including terrorism, is justified, according to a decision by the European Court of Justice.[23]
- wmf 11mo ago
  The loophole there is "targeted" so they'll declare that Son of Chat Control is to be targeted.
- spwa4 11mo ago
  A decision by the European Court of Justice or any other court does not apply to any legislative branch like the EU commission (not parliament), when making new laws. New laws simply override old laws (to be interpreted as specializations, more or less exceptions, to the old laws)
  - BartjeD 11mo ago
    That's not true, because there is a hierarchy of legality. If a principle of the EU legal order is at stake, such as the right to privacy, then that constitutional imperative can very well override a new law. The commission and parliament are well aware of this risk. They often choose to have laws advised on by the courts, in advance. To avoid a legal mess. This is normal in a functional democracy. To avoid abuse of power / overreach by any institution.
marginalia_nu 11mo ago
Yeah the whole thing is full with these loopholes. Your rights are rights only as long as we wish at some point to add laws that inhibit them.
- ekianjo 11mo ago
  Basically a useless document.
  - athrowaway3z 11mo ago
    Companies like Flock and Clearview have set up gigantic dragnets in the US. I'm not happy with everything the EU does, but to call it useless is to be ignorant of the rest of the world.
    - marginalia_nu 11mo ago
      It's perfectly sufficient to have laws against that sort of thing. As governments are above the law (in that they can just add new laws that say they can do whatever they want), you need something else. A bill of rights is such a something else.
- yesco 11mo ago
  It's weird how "rights" went from "the government can't do X to you" to "the government can force private actors to do Y (but these rules don't apply to us)."
  - avmich 11mo ago
    Maybe it's because rights should be "government CAN do X to you", and whatever isn't listed in rules government CANNOT do?
realusername 11mo ago
It depends the version of the declaration, the french one has zero exception listed.
- pcrh 11mo ago
  It's the same in French (obviously), though equally this does not permit mass surveillance: >Article 8 de la Convention européenne de sauvegarde des droits de l'homme et des libertés fondamentales: >Droit au respect de la vie privée et familiale >1. Toute personne a droit au respect de sa vie privée et familiale, de son domicile et de sa correspondance. >2. Il ne peut y avoir ingérence d'une autorité publique dans l'exercice de ce droit que pour autant que cette ingérence est prévue par la loi et qu'elle constitue une mesure qui, dans une société démocratique, est nécessaire à la sécurité nationale, à la sûreté publique, au bien-être économique du pays, à la défense de l'ordre et à la prévention des infractions pénales, à la protection de la santé ou de la morale, ou à la protection des droits et libertés d'autrui. —
  - realusername 11mo ago
    I'm talking about the 1948 version which has the following: > Article 12 > Nul ne sera l'objet d'immixtions arbitraires dans sa vie privée, sa famille, son domicile ou sa correspondance, ni d'atteintes à son honneur et à sa réputation. Toute personne a droit à la protection de la loi contre de telles immixtions ou de telles atteintes. And that's it, no other additions.
    - mod50ack 11mo ago
      > arbitraires That's the key word.
      - realusername 11mo ago
        Since all chats would be monitored regardless of the citizen, this fullfills the definition.
- Muromec 11mo ago
Muromec 11mo ago
The way it's written and the way ECHR court works, the government has to actually argue it's way, not just say "national secirity". ECHR court however can't repeal the law, only fine the governmemt for actual violation of convention rights.
- pcrh 11mo ago
  Is there any mechanism for preventing the introduction of a law that violates the ECHR? It would seem obvious that that should be the case, no?
  - Muromec 11mo ago
    Not under ECHR, which has twice as much signatories as EU has members and the other half is twice less chill compared to the EU. I don't remember whether the EU top court can repeal EU laws, but general answer is no. It's politics -- if the government is full shitheads that somebody voted for and then haven't protested hard enough to boot out -- then they can ignore constitution, jail judges, behead journalists in a forest and send army to shoot at protesters of the wrong kind.
    - pcrh 11mo ago
      Do EU treaties per se contain any language that might be relevant to privacy? It seems axiomatic that legal systems contain provisions that prevent their violation. However, democracy requires that laws are voted on by elected representatives or plebiscites, which can of course mean repealing prior laws. However the EU institutions are not sovereign, which might be the loophole here? Edit: I'm aware that the EU is only afforded "competences" given to it by treaties, so perhaps human rights don't fall into any of these...? However, I also wonder if legislation such as Chat Control, etc, might fall outside its competences. In the end, the question is whether there is a legal mechanism by which the introduction of laws such as those in question here can be prohibited?
      - Muromec 11mo ago
        There is no loophole really, EU can repeal it's own laws the same way it passes them -- it needs to get the commission, the parliament and enough national governments on board. >Do EU treaties per se contain any language that might be relevant to privacy? Doesn't matter really. No right in any treaty is absolute. Not even the right to life itself -- the police can and does shoot people and it's legal for them to do under specific conditions. And of course the chat control law says that whatever it is supposed to be doing should be done in the most privacy respecting way possible. In theory the court (any court really) can weight whether the measures are proportionate and whether negative obligations (not invade privacy) are in a balance with positive obligations (you know -- protective children is also important) and whether the balance is appropriate of a democratic society. The problem everybody is trying to not see - there is no right to E2E encryption under any law right now. There is no right to have a communication channel that government can't possibly listen to. It's not a thing. The same way there is no right to have your house unsearchable by police and your freedom unbound by a court that can jail you. There are strict limits when any of those things happen, but they do fact happen all the time for good reasons and for bad ones too. Add: if I would attack it from a legal standpoint, I would not focus on privacy so much, but rather say that creating mass-scaning capability is a threat to the democracy itself.
deleted 11mo ago
[deleted]
jayess 11mo ago
Good god what a meaningless "right" where all of the exceptions eat the rule.

pcrh 11mo ago

Mass surveillance has already been ruled to be in contravention of the Human Rights act: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Convention_on_Human_Rights#Violation_of_the_convention_by_mass_surveillance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_8_of_the_European_Conv... >A 2014 report to the UN General Assembly by the United Nations' top official for counter-terrorism and human rights condemned mass electronic surveillance as a clear violation of core privacy rights guaranteed by multiple treaties and conventions and makes a distinction between "targeted surveillance" – which "depend[s] upon the existence of prior suspicion of the targeted individual or organization" – and "mass surveillance", by which "states with high levels of Internet penetration can [] gain access to the telephone and e-mail content of an effectively unlimited number of users and maintain an overview of Internet activity associated with particular websites". *Only targeted interception* of traffic and location data in order to combat serious crime, including terrorism, is justified, according to a decision by the European Court of Justice.[23]

wmf 11mo ago
The loophole there is "targeted" so they'll declare that Son of Chat Control is to be targeted.
spwa4 11mo ago
A decision by the European Court of Justice or any other court does not apply to any legislative branch like the EU commission (not parliament), when making new laws. New laws simply override old laws (to be interpreted as specializations, more or less exceptions, to the old laws)
- BartjeD 11mo ago
  That's not true, because there is a hierarchy of legality. If a principle of the EU legal order is at stake, such as the right to privacy, then that constitutional imperative can very well override a new law. The commission and parliament are well aware of this risk. They often choose to have laws advised on by the courts, in advance. To avoid a legal mess. This is normal in a functional democracy. To avoid abuse of power / overreach by any institution.

marginalia_nu 11mo ago

Yeah the whole thing is full with these loopholes. Your rights are rights only as long as we wish at some point to add laws that inhibit them.

ekianjo 11mo ago
Basically a useless document.
- athrowaway3z 11mo ago
  Companies like Flock and Clearview have set up gigantic dragnets in the US. I'm not happy with everything the EU does, but to call it useless is to be ignorant of the rest of the world.
  - marginalia_nu 11mo ago
    It's perfectly sufficient to have laws against that sort of thing. As governments are above the law (in that they can just add new laws that say they can do whatever they want), you need something else. A bill of rights is such a something else.
yesco 11mo ago
It's weird how "rights" went from "the government can't do X to you" to "the government can force private actors to do Y (but these rules don't apply to us)."
- avmich 11mo ago
  Maybe it's because rights should be "government CAN do X to you", and whatever isn't listed in rules government CANNOT do?

realusername 11mo ago

It depends the version of the declaration, the french one has zero exception listed.

pcrh 11mo ago
It's the same in French (obviously), though equally this does not permit mass surveillance: >Article 8 de la Convention européenne de sauvegarde des droits de l'homme et des libertés fondamentales: >Droit au respect de la vie privée et familiale >1. Toute personne a droit au respect de sa vie privée et familiale, de son domicile et de sa correspondance. >2. Il ne peut y avoir ingérence d'une autorité publique dans l'exercice de ce droit que pour autant que cette ingérence est prévue par la loi et qu'elle constitue une mesure qui, dans une société démocratique, est nécessaire à la sécurité nationale, à la sûreté publique, au bien-être économique du pays, à la défense de l'ordre et à la prévention des infractions pénales, à la protection de la santé ou de la morale, ou à la protection des droits et libertés d'autrui. —
- realusername 11mo ago
  I'm talking about the 1948 version which has the following: > Article 12 > Nul ne sera l'objet d'immixtions arbitraires dans sa vie privée, sa famille, son domicile ou sa correspondance, ni d'atteintes à son honneur et à sa réputation. Toute personne a droit à la protection de la loi contre de telles immixtions ou de telles atteintes. And that's it, no other additions.
  - mod50ack 11mo ago
    > arbitraires That's the key word.
    - realusername 11mo ago
      Since all chats would be monitored regardless of the citizen, this fullfills the definition.
Muromec 11mo ago

Muromec 11mo ago

The way it's written and the way ECHR court works, the government has to actually argue it's way, not just say "national secirity". ECHR court however can't repeal the law, only fine the governmemt for actual violation of convention rights.

pcrh 11mo ago
Is there any mechanism for preventing the introduction of a law that violates the ECHR? It would seem obvious that that should be the case, no?
- Muromec 11mo ago
  Not under ECHR, which has twice as much signatories as EU has members and the other half is twice less chill compared to the EU. I don't remember whether the EU top court can repeal EU laws, but general answer is no. It's politics -- if the government is full shitheads that somebody voted for and then haven't protested hard enough to boot out -- then they can ignore constitution, jail judges, behead journalists in a forest and send army to shoot at protesters of the wrong kind.
  - pcrh 11mo ago
    Do EU treaties per se contain any language that might be relevant to privacy? It seems axiomatic that legal systems contain provisions that prevent their violation. However, democracy requires that laws are voted on by elected representatives or plebiscites, which can of course mean repealing prior laws. However the EU institutions are not sovereign, which might be the loophole here? Edit: I'm aware that the EU is only afforded "competences" given to it by treaties, so perhaps human rights don't fall into any of these...? However, I also wonder if legislation such as Chat Control, etc, might fall outside its competences. In the end, the question is whether there is a legal mechanism by which the introduction of laws such as those in question here can be prohibited?
    - Muromec 11mo ago
      There is no loophole really, EU can repeal it's own laws the same way it passes them -- it needs to get the commission, the parliament and enough national governments on board. >Do EU treaties per se contain any language that might be relevant to privacy? Doesn't matter really. No right in any treaty is absolute. Not even the right to life itself -- the police can and does shoot people and it's legal for them to do under specific conditions. And of course the chat control law says that whatever it is supposed to be doing should be done in the most privacy respecting way possible. In theory the court (any court really) can weight whether the measures are proportionate and whether negative obligations (not invade privacy) are in a balance with positive obligations (you know -- protective children is also important) and whether the balance is appropriate of a democratic society. The problem everybody is trying to not see - there is no right to E2E encryption under any law right now. There is no right to have a communication channel that government can't possibly listen to. It's not a thing. The same way there is no right to have your house unsearchable by police and your freedom unbound by a court that can jail you. There are strict limits when any of those things happen, but they do fact happen all the time for good reasons and for bad ones too. Add: if I would attack it from a legal standpoint, I would not focus on privacy so much, but rather say that creating mass-scaning capability is a threat to the democracy itself.

deleted 11mo ago

[deleted]

jayess 11mo ago

Good god what a meaningless "right" where all of the exceptions eat the rule.