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People who grew up in Cold War West Germany (like me) got fed the propaganda that mass surveillance is totalitarian, communist evil because communist East Germa
by copx 13y ago
People who grew up in Cold War West Germany (like me) got fed the propaganda that mass surveillance is totalitarian, communist evil because communist East Germany was infamous for it, so they are more likely to view these things as a serious infraction.
I think Germany has the strongest anti-surveillance, pro-privacy movement in the world in general. We have a special word for it "Datenschutz" ("data protection"), which means:
- protection against information about you being recorded without your consent
- information about you being passed around without your consent
We have a lot of Datenschutz laws and activists. And well the activists tend to be IT guys, and those tend to be well-paid. So lots of activist money available for the cause.
- walshemj 13y agoBut you in Germany seem happy with ID cards and reporting house moves to a police department which struck me as very odd given the recent history and especially the stazi in East Germany Id cards facilitate stop and search which is more worrying especially given the recent judgement by german judges that its fine to do this disappointingly to black citizens. In both the UK and the USA - there is more disquiet about this than what the NSA and GCHQ get up to.