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The term "emergency legislation" always makes me nervous. Laws are the nation's source code; precise wide-scoped constraints that need careful design. I'm happy

by an_ko 11y ago

The term "emergency legislation" always makes me nervous. Laws are the nation's source code; precise wide-scoped constraints that need careful design. I'm happy this legal equivalent of technical debt is being combated, but how did this happen in the first place? Who decides a piece of legislation must be "fast-tracked"?

switch007 11y ago
It was a result of the European Court of Justice in April 2014 ruling against previous legislation. The usual reasons were given: ISIS, pedophilia, Syria, general terrorism.
- higherpurpose 11y ago
  To which they always make sure to also add words like "other serious crimes" in such legislation, or even shamelessly add "drug crimes" in there, too.
- nailer 11y ago
  Those same reasons would support live cameras in everyone's bedroom.
  - JupiterMoon 11y ago
    Note sarcasm follows... If you've nothing to fear you've nothing to hide. Why would you not want the government to be able to check what you do in the bedroom? Are you doing illegal things in there?
  - arethuza 11y ago
    Don't most people already have cameras and microphones in their bedrooms that we hope aren't "live"?
mseebach 11y ago
> Laws are the nation's source code Not really. Laws are the nation's monitoring server's source code. Further more, the monitoring server is running on a notoriously buggy, laggy and leaky interpreter, and most of the systems interfacing with the monitoring server uses arcane, often proprietary, and always poorly documented protocols. Amazingly, most of the time it pretty much just works, although the interesting (and severe!) bugs are all surfaced through user reports, never from a monitoring alert. But yeah, not the sort of thing you'd want to emergency patch a lot. Unfortunately, no staging environment exists.
- Silhouette 11y ago
  Unfortunately, no staging environment exists. I think a lot of civil liberties advocates would argue that mass surveillance has been implemented before, and we do know what kind of society can develop as a result, and that is one of the reasons why those people campaign for civil liberties today.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  To follow the analogy. This is why changes usually undergo serious code review prior to being pushed to production. This bill underwent none of that - in fact it reimplemented with bug compatibility a broken module that had been removed from production previously.

by an_ko 11y ago

switch007 11y ago

It was a result of the European Court of Justice in April 2014 ruling against previous legislation. The usual reasons were given: ISIS, pedophilia, Syria, general terrorism.

higherpurpose 11y ago
To which they always make sure to also add words like "other serious crimes" in such legislation, or even shamelessly add "drug crimes" in there, too.
nailer 11y ago
Those same reasons would support live cameras in everyone's bedroom.
- JupiterMoon 11y ago
  Note sarcasm follows... If you've nothing to fear you've nothing to hide. Why would you not want the government to be able to check what you do in the bedroom? Are you doing illegal things in there?
- arethuza 11y ago
  Don't most people already have cameras and microphones in their bedrooms that we hope aren't "live"?

mseebach 11y ago

> Laws are the nation's source code Not really. Laws are the nation's monitoring server's source code. Further more, the monitoring server is running on a notoriously buggy, laggy and leaky interpreter, and most of the systems interfacing with the monitoring server uses arcane, often proprietary, and always poorly documented protocols. Amazingly, most of the time it pretty much just works, although the interesting (and severe!) bugs are all surfaced through user reports, never from a monitoring alert. But yeah, not the sort of thing you'd want to emergency patch a lot. Unfortunately, no staging environment exists.

Silhouette 11y ago
Unfortunately, no staging environment exists. I think a lot of civil liberties advocates would argue that mass surveillance has been implemented before, and we do know what kind of society can develop as a result, and that is one of the reasons why those people campaign for civil liberties today.
JupiterMoon 11y ago
To follow the analogy. This is why changes usually undergo serious code review prior to being pushed to production. This bill underwent none of that - in fact it reimplemented with bug compatibility a broken module that had been removed from production previously.