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EU Sues Sweden, Demands ISP Data Retention
Death Metal writes "The EU passed the Data Retention Directive years ago, a law that demands ISPs and search engines hold onto data long enough to help the cops (but not long enough to cause privacy problems). But Sweden never passed it into national law, and the European Commission has now sued the country to make sure a bill appears."
Sues Sweden? And what if they don't obey?
Data retention is just a Big Brother tool.
You don't catch terrorists with this, nor pedophiles.
And yes, I emailed Osama. Now what? They don't log the contents of an email.
And if I gpg/pgp the email, what then?
Now lobbyists only have to bribe a handful of central political bastards to affect the whole of Europe.
...the three strikes law!
Wow!
Equality was the name of EU, wasn't it?
Sweden should show the middle finger to EU.
Its a pity it doesn't have any Rush Limbaughs there, one would be enough to shout hoarse about swedish nationality and violation of the same.
If i were the PM, i would take EU's action under advisement and in Brussels directly question the French about 3-strikes law which violates EU laws...
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
Maybe you'll discover that you simply cannot win in any democratic system...?
You seem to be under the impression that law enforcement agents are infallible and not susceptible to your average human's woes.
Of course we need law enforcement. Please point out to me who said we didn't. The problem lies in the mechanics that are supposed to make sure that nobody the police is supposed to 'catch' manages to actually become a member of the police.
In my opinion, management, be it of a corporation, a state or law enforcement, is more often than not corrupt. Such laws give these people more power over the people making law enforcement just another tool for the criminals to use.
THIS is the real danger of a police state. They are using our best weapon against us. THIS is what we must be sure to never allow.
The RIAA is a good example of how this whole thing is going wrong. Remember, all our laws are built upon a set of morals. We say it is wrong to kill. Therefore, manslaughter, murder and the like are covered by our laws. Yet quite a few 'modern' societies think its okay to have a death penalty.
In RIAA's case they argue that copying their products and making them available for free is theft. Many people might agree with that sentiment at first glance. Without wanting to get into semantics, the real problem her elies in the fact that an estimated 20% or more of our nations' populations participate in breaking this law.
The question now is thus: Morals are what we feel is right or wrong to do unto each other in our society. 20% or more of us feel its their right to download entertainment content. At what point will moral conform to public opinion? Is something wrong when 100% of the people do it? Is it wrong when 50% do it? 49%? When?
The whole system is fucked up. The system is being abused. That's just a hard fact. We are not against the system, we are against the abuse.
The United States is such a thing. The Federal government routinely issues mandatory directives to the states, and any disputes are decided by the federal government alone.
That's a really good question. I'm guessing there's something for this in those 10000+ pages of international treaties that form the EU.
See, if the EU was smart, they would first use the power of the purse to ensure that the individual countries are completely dependent upon Brussels for funding. Then when the individual countries refuse to do what you want you just threaten to cut off their funding.
And what do you know? Eventually you've managed to completely destroy the sovereignty of your member states without firing a single bullet.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.