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EU Moves To End Surveillance Tech Sales To Repressive Regimes
superglaze writes "The European Union is asking companies that sell surveillance and law enforcement tech to repressive regimes to stop doing so. The EU is not taking concrete action yet, but has warned that sanctions may be applicable. All this comes little more than a week after Wikileaks published the Spy Files, a name-and-shame list of the companies offering tools for mass surveillance and interception to despotic regimes, but also to Western governments."
Who exactly defines repressive and from which side is this judgment passed?
They'll find a way. If you can't buy direct, buy via proxy - and failing that, it only takes one oppressive state with the resources to design and manufacture their own and a willingness to sell to the others. China comes to mind as the ideal supplier, as they already have extensive experience with censorship and surveillance technology, government-controled telecoms and networking companies with engineering knowledge and the manufacturing capability to produce it for export.
Point the finger where the finger is due.
LI (Lawful interception) has been a requirement from the major western governments since the dawn of cellphone networks. You are not allowed to sell to the major customers without including it.
Are you surprised this functionality is included as standard in all systems now?
Swedens government wanting a major swedish company to be successful, yeah, big woop.
Don't kid yourself. Cities in the US have got just as much CCTV, *and* you've got armed police everywhere too. Not to mention the proliferation of metal detectors in public buildings.
Scary stuff.
The funny thing is that if they allow selling the tech to countries without "repressive regimes" how can they be sure is not used for evil?
Or are "good" countries allowed to use surveilance tech for all the purposes they want including spying their own citizens even if its for the "noble" goal of combating intellectual property theft?
Yes, I am cynical
If you are recorded doing something criminal in front of a CCTV camera in Britain, you will (maybe, if the police can be bothered to deal with it, or if they don't just give you a warning) be hauled off to a justice system that is the product of a reasonably fair democracy.
The article talks about surveilance software that identifies disloyalty so that the local goon squad can have their daily list of victims.
Comparing the two is a huge insult to people who live under genuinely repressive regimes. "Oh so you were tortured for your political views were you? Well we have it almost as bad here! I keep getting this creepy feeling that somebody's watching me! Oh, and we're not free to stab people in public either, because the cameras are watching! It's terrible!"
In Tunisia right now a Muslim party has one the elections and this leaves women in fear that they will LOOSE the freedoms GAINED under the OPPRESSIVE regime of Ben Ali. Freedom is not a simple on/off switch. Are the people in Russia now better or worse off then when it was the USSR? What time period of the USSR? What people?
Cuba is rather famous for having better healthcare then the US and a far lower infant death rate. If you are a dying infant, communism apparently can save your life but that life will be less free. Then again, if you were the suspicious kind you might wonder whether the higher infant death rate is evenly distributed or concentrated in certain groups/classes of people. Free but only if you are rich?
The images of a cop peperspraying sitting protestors made the world. Does that make the west un-free? The cops were suspended and while true justice might not be done, there are far far worse examples.
Microsoft dealed with a regime that in western eyes wasn't terribly nice but a LOT better then a lot of other places and we yet have to see what the alternative will turn out to be. In many ways, if you want to blame companies for dealing in oppression they not only have to boycot the entire world but often themselves. Oops, Windows 8 is closed source, that is not free, so MS has to boycot its own software!
Of course, by accepting these exceptions you pretty soon are on a slippery slope were everything becomes an exception.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.