Slashdot Mirror
EU Moves Forward with Data Retention
KokoBonobo writes "
euobserver.com reports on controversial proposals to require EU service operators to retain data about telephone calls and e-mails as part of an overall fight against crime and terrorism. The retained data would not only consist of logs, but of entire conversations and contents of the e-mails and SMS messages. This document from the European Commission's Information Society goes into further detail."
Well, if anything is going to drive people to personal encryption, this type of brain-damaged legislation will be it.
My username does not make me Apathetic. It's irony, get it?
It seems that with the rapid pace of new technology and the slow pace of legislation, that this will be largely ineffective.
Already it's easy to see how existing technologies could be used to effortlessly circumvent the proposals.
"Telephone calls", does this cover Skype? Does it cover VOIP in general which is just data passing over the network and could always be wrappered, encrypted, or routed via several points (to ensure no single intermediary could capture the whole conversation).
It's great that our politicians can find ever increasing ways to enforce a climate of fear whilst wasting the monies that could help alleviate problems fced by the citizens that they represent.
Damn! Now I've posted what do I do with these mod points!?
Now I know the Belgians can speak French. If they can't communicate properly, this data retention law isn't going to help at all. What would help is for the various member states to get their act together and start working together more closely on international crimes.
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
The one representative who was supposed to speak in favor of it never showed up (remember Inger Marie Sunde?), nor did she send a replacement. Now what kind of message does that send? It gives the impression of "the majority doesn't care for long-term storage of traffic data, but we don't care what the majority thinks. We're going to impose our way on you whether you like it or not."
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
"You mean we're gonna need how much disk space exactly?". "We're gonna have to invade which small nation just to get enough physical space to store all this stuff?".
Worry not, it will blow over soon enough :-)
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Hrmf. WTF are you even talking about? Something like this tried in the USA would result in a ton of out-of-work Congress folks. The EU, on the other hand, has already proven that it will vote however it wants, regardless of how the actual people in the member countries feel about things (the patent issue). That's what you get for being represented in the EU by appointees. That's also what you get for believing in the compete-with-the-US propaganda that got you the EU in the first place.
:P
Instead of storing all that data, the EU should just ask the CIA for the data nicely.
95% of the terrorism I read about lately are the paranoid laws by the (uber)governments of the world on it's own citizens.
I have a newsflash for you. You are a victim of the old trick that has been repeatedly used by national politicians to pass necessary, but painful reforms: "the EU made me do it". What they don't tell you is that they made the EU make them do it.
The so-called "democratic deficit" in the EU is a myth. The EU executive is currently shared between the European Commission and the European Council.
The Council is made of all of the elected national heads of government, or the appropriate ministers (depending on the issue).
As for the Commission, it is appointed by the heads of government, which is hardly less democratic than, for instance, the (directly elected) French President appointing a Prime Minister from the majority party in the Parliament. Moreover, just as a national government, the European Commission has to be approved by the Parliament. Remember how Mr Santer was forced to resign, or how Mr Barroso was forced to remove contested Commissioners because he'd have failed the confidence vote otherwise?
If you remember the EU software patent debacle, the non-democratic decision (i.e. not giving a flying f#ck about the EU Parliament) was made by the European Council, i.e. the government of the member states that the EU citizens themselves elected!
It is high time the disinformation stopped. While I would welcome a major increase in the Parliament's powers, the EU executive is definitely held accountable. The current situation is not a "democratic deficit", but rather excessive powers in the hand of national heads of state.
By the way, I'd trust the Commission much more than my own national government... Give me a Prodi over a Chirac or a Berlusconi any day.
The right way to treat encryption is the same way they treat safes and lockboxes.
If the police are searching your house (with a warrant) and they find a safe, there are rules about when they can and cant force you to open that safe.
The same rules should apply to any ecrypted information they find.
For example, if they have an encrypted email or file, the same rules should apply as apply to them finding a safe in your house.
As for this new data retention crap, are the cops going to pay for the huge servers and disks required to hold all this information? And the people to keep everything going?
Yes, in the UK, under the RIP act, you can be sentenced to moderate jail time for not giving up your key. This is supposed to stop terrorists, child molesters and drug smugglers from using encryption.
Of course, any drug-smuggling terrorists with a penchant for child-molesting will immediately surrender the keys to incriminating information. Why would he take up to three years vacation at her Majesty's pleasure for encryption, when he could easily get 18-25 or even life for his real offences?
It's because of well thought out, useful laws like this that crime is virtually unheard of on our sunny islands! Thank you New Labour!
no taxation without representation!