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European Countries Seek Sweeping New Powers To Curb Terrorism
New submitter cooler-than-ice (3981829) writes with this story from the Washington Post: Belgian leaders on Friday sought sweeping new powers to monitor and punish their citizens for involvement with terrorism, joining France in an effort to rewrite laws just hours after dozens of arrests across Europe offered dramatic evidence of the threats security officials say are facing the continent.
From the article: Apart from expanding powers to strip citizenship for dual nationals, Belgian leaders on Friday proposed devoting an additional $348 million to counterterrorism efforts. They also said they wanted the ability to take away identity documents to make it more difficult for people to travel to Syria and elsewhere. ... “As a result of the events in Paris, combined with what happened yesterday in Belgium, the political unanimity is quite great,” said Rik Coolsaet, a terrorism expert at Ghent University. “It is a bit of 9/11 syndrome.”
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats — and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism. Leaders this week called for new legislation to significantly bolster domestic intelligence agencies.
The stripping of citizenship for dual nationals will be popular as all heck, and its popularity has nothing to do with the current round of terrorism. Look how long it tooks to remove the citizenship of former Nazis hiding under new identities.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
I was hoping your be the ones to bail us out when the U.S. went full fascist. Alright, New Zealand, all eyes are on you. No pressure!
"Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right" - Salvor Hardin
Perhaps we in the west should start with curbing muslim immigration.
an ill wind that blows no good
We have exited the steaming waters of the Acheron and now the maelstrom of the Lethe pulls on our prow.
'Cause the Patriot Act worked out so well for us.
Never mind worrying about the terrorists winning, it's the fascists who are doing the winning
"Yes, you called the terrorists evil, damn, evil S.O.B.S. But you paused before you said evil. Take him away BOYS."
It's bad enough to punish those that use their freedom of speech to praise criminals, but to go that far pushes you beyond the bar of reason and into tyranny.
If we used this in America, I think Obama could arrest the entire cast of Fox News for praising Putin. That is just plain wrong. Fox news should be laughed at, not arrested.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats -- and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism.
WTF? R'ing TFA... not a whole lot, but here's a bit more from the article:
France is also charging forward with attempts to expand government powers to monitor threats -- and to punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism. Leaders this week called for new legislation to significantly bolster domestic intelligence agencies.
Another law, a fast-track judicial process for accusations related to terrorism, was on the books as of November but had not been widely used before the Paris attacks. In recent days, however, prosecutors have filled the dockets with more than 100 cases that are speeding through courtrooms. People who have expressed support for the attacks have been sentenced to as much as 15 months in prison.
A top French opposition politician, Eric Ciotti, said this week that the government should withhold social benefits from the parents of children who failed to observe moments of silence in schools.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
that the issue is pretty much totally muslims - when governments start to accept this we might have a chance
that escalated quickly.
You know, the Nazis sought sweeping powerrs to curb terrorism after a building was set on fire. How did that slippery slope work out in the 40s'? Are the 2010's the new 1940s?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstag_fire
... about responding to violent threats.
It's irrational not to respond to violent threats.
It's the rogues, the Islamists that they need to go after
Why are they snooping around the non-Islamists?
Why?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Wouldn't it make much more sense to devote some effort and expense to promoting the values of the enlightenment? In particular, devoting some educational effort towards eradication of irrational beliefs. Why not actually treat Islam (and Scientology, and Christianity) as the mental equivalent of a public heath hazard, where those who believe need to be helped to overcome it?
I think we make a serious mistake in our public discourse, by considering that:
violent minority = extremists = misinterpretation of scripture vs. peaceful majority = mainstream = correct interpretation of scripture.
whereas it would be more intellectually honest to consider:
violent minority = literalists = correct interpretation of scripture vs. peaceful majority = reformists = those who wilfully mis-interpret their scripture.
In other words, while almost all humans (of all faith and of none) are decent, good, tolerant peaceful people, they are decent to the extent that they discard their holy books, not to the extent that they follow them. The holy books themselves are beyond redemption, and should be considered to be "on the side of the devil".
Consider the spectrum of belief: (a)Secular humanist ---- (b) "Moderate" religion ----- (c) Extremist religion.
Position (b) involves belief in gods, prophets, and veneration of "perfect" scriptures. Position (c) is a very small step beyond, namely to actually read those scriptures, already considered perfect, and interpret them the literally, as they are written. So, if we want to prevent Islamic terrorism, the most effective argument is not detailed discussion of which Koranic verse overrides which other one (an argument which the moderates can never win), but instead, to argue for the wholesale abandonment of holy books.
Education, science, secular values, and human rights are the most potent weapon we have against faith, and yet politicians refuse to deploy them! If we took the money from the security services, and put it into schools, I think it would be far more effective.
... are second and third-generation immigrants ...
France belongs to the French
Germany belongs to the Germans
Sweden belongs to the Swedes
Italy belongs to the Italians
In other words, they are the indigenous for their ancestors, for thousands of years, have settled in that place
And immigrants ? No matter if they are 2nd / 3rd / 4th or whatever generation, once they have decided to harm the indigenous they should be kicked out, immediately !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Rome's biggest enemy was itself, the upper classes saw only their own gain, disdained the masses, and ignored the changing world around them
While them Islamic savages are destroying the social fabric of the European countries what the Europeans leaders want to do?
To open Europe up for even more of them Islamic savages!
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
The Islamist terrorist groups perform attacks in order to limit free speech, and in response, these counties help the terrorists along by limiting speech even further?
Who's side are these guys on anyway?
France belongs to the French
Germany belongs to the Germans
Sweden belongs to the Swedes
Italy belongs to the Italians
In other words, they are the indigenous for their ancestors, for thousands of years, have settled in that place
And immigrants ? No matter if they are 2nd / 3rd / 4th or whatever generation, once they have decided to harm the indigenous they should be kicked out, immediately !
America belongs to...
Australia belongs to...
Ah, never mind.
Donate free food here
European Countries Using Terrorism to Seek Sweeping New Powers
Because terrorism is a red herring, and this looks like a shiny new power they can grab without much hassle from the rabble. Fear is a great vehicle for stripping away liberties. Freedom is *far* more at risk from our own governments than it ever was from terrorists.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
America is a civil state.
The European countries are ethnic states, have been for thousands of years, and their borders are almost literally written in blood.
While Europe is exceedingly liberal and politically correct in general, it would be 'unwise' indeed, to mistake generosity and kindness for weakness.
Japan and China has the right idea WRT their citizenship law. Germany is also quite strict in comparison to the rest of Europe.
I expect that after the next couple of major terrorist attacks here, the situation will rectify itself...
Thank you for joining us. We welcome your embrace of the new world order.
Sincerely,
The United States
P.S. Chancellor Merkel, we were amused with your joke about Klinsmann you shared with your husband yesterday. See you in Russia in 2018. And no, changing your cell number doesn't help.
Chalk up another victory for the terrorists.
Good show everybody! You are all in the process of confirming all that was put forth by the psychologists and scientists in the early 1900s, especially Pavlov. You are all very good subjects.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Not even in the remotest incestuous Swiss Alp valley have people been sedentary "for thousands of years". There isn't a single place in Europe that was not completely shaped by migrations over the centuries. You must be an immigrant if you don't know that ;)
It isn't always easy to identify Islamists.
America belongs to...
. . . the rich.
Australia belongs to...
. . . the largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet.
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
As Admiral Ackbar discovered, it's a trap!
The word "terrorism!" can be mis-used, much like the word "treason!", if it is not formally defined in Law. So, if such a definition has not been codified, the politicians have no business requesting powers to do such things as "punish those who praise or do not readily condemn terrorism" --after all, the person you want to punish might be using a different definition than YOU used (the one YOU used was specifically intended to help you steal political power, see?).
This is why the US is the greatest nation. It took 3000 horific deaths to get us to buckle under and sell out on civil rights. Europe? 17. Bunch of wimps.
America is a civil state.
The Americas were, for the most part, colonised by European immigrants that kicked the shit out of the people that already lived there. I really don't see how that's different than what happening now (or is about to happen) in Europe in the mind of many scared/aggressive people. And for the record: I don't hold current day Americans responsible for that, it's not like they got to choose what their forefathers did or did not do, although of historically/societally you do have some kind of responsibility (just like e.g. Belgium has one vis-a-vis its ex-colonies).
The European countries are ethnic states, have been for thousands of years, and their borders are almost literally written in blood.
Ethnic states? Our borders are indeed written in blood (then again, so are many in the Americas), but I doubt there are many "ethnic Belgians" in existence. Or have ever existed, other than one tribe in a distant past that was termed as "the bravest of all Gallic tribes" by Julius Caesar.
While Europe is exceedingly liberal and politically correct in general, it would be 'unwise' indeed, to mistake generosity and kindness for weakness.
The way many people are reacting, it seems they did find a quite weak spot though.
Donate free food here
Australia belongs to...
. . . the largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet.
:)
Donate free food here
I thought it belonged to people living there. Anyway, I hope you are trolling, because otherwise you just sound like a Nazi.
No matter if they are 2nd / 3rd / 4th or whatever generation,
You do realize, that is one of the principal reasons why they are getting radicalized? It's the discrimination in those countries in the first place that is causing all the problems they are seeing. If almost 50% of the youth is unemployed because they have an "immigrant last name", then really, that is fucked up.
We are all just so FARKED!
Most Italians do not descend from the ancient Italic tribes.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Mods, please! That was funny, not insightful... If it was serious, it would be troll/flamebait.
Seeing all the support for the typical right wing reaction illustrates very clearly the bit of fascism in everybody. There are no national boundaries there. This feeling is global, natural, animal. Humanity becomes a little less humane.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
When you're angry, the media is spreading fear, and citizens are demanding action from their government, its all to easy to swing wildly too far in giving up freedom and privacy. We've had more than a decade of that in the US and it isn't pretty.
We get mad when we hear about the Snowden revelations. We get mad when the government doesn't monitor "known" threats. We get mad when our government doesn't treat captured terrorist killers kindly. You cannot have it both ways.
The best answer is for each citizen to keep their eyes open and report suspicious people to authorities who are properly funded and equipped to handle these things in a responsible way. Come on, can't a gun shop owner selling two assault rifles and 800 rounds of ammo figure out that something other than deer hunting is planned? Why can't communities be prepared to help mentally ill people who have not yet committed felonies?
Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
Greed is the root of all evil.
Terrorism will always win so long as the alternative is freedom.
It is the fear-spreading tool by which those who would remove our freedom and strike down all dissent enact draconian, tyrannical measures.
All one needs to do is allow attacks which would not harm their own possessions, friends or family to occur, and use them to garrote Liberty while everyone is still in shock. After all, the measures and needed bills have already been prepared ahead of time.
Praise terrorism, praise. What else could I praise today? Maybe cat videos?
Disclaimer (for benefit of the knee-jerk-reactionaries): I passionately hate Al Qaeda, the so-called 'Islamic State', and all pseudo-religious nutcases who, for some reason, think 'God' (whoever the fuck that is) wants them to cut off people's heads 'for offending the Prophet', throw acid in little girls' faces/kill little girls because they have the audacity to want to go to school/learn to read/learn history/learn to do math/learn in general, and all the rest of the bullshit these fucking assholes are out there doing/condoning/supporting. I think they all desperately need to be brought to justice for their innumerable crimes, no question about it.
..now, that all having been said:
If you don't, for more than a second or two, think that these 'sweeping powers' they want to grab (and make no mistake, it's a power-grab) are going to end up being grossly and indiscriminately mis-used to further political agendas that have nothing to do with anti-terrorism, then you are incredibly, unbelievably naive, because that's exactly, precisely what's going to happen. Euros, you need to clamp down on this shit right now, because once they get this kind of power, they will not let go of it, ever, and they will ironically enough use it to destroy whatever freedom of speech you have in your country. Mark my words.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Which is impossible for any human being to prove. Or do you have records of all or even most - or even a single one - of your ancestral lines going back to the height of the Roman Empire?
Furthermore, nations are not genetic but memetic. Being French means nothing more and nothing less than that you think of yourself as French. People born in France typically do, as do some of the people who've lived there for a while. That is true even if said people don't agree with every aspect of their nation's culture. You're simply trying to use thinly disguised racism to disqualify the opinions of people you don't agree with.
TL;DR Ein volk, ein reich, ein this bullshit again.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
Israelis as well?
Always in perfect sync.
What? No.
Learn some history.
Half of Europe never even existed a thousand years ago as it is now.
If too lazy, just watch a speedrun of European geographic history class.
In other words, they are the indigenous for their ancestors, for thousands of years, have settled in that place
Italy has only existed as a country for about 160 years. Before that it was a collection of feudal states. I'm less clear about France and Germany, but they certainly were part of the Roman empire before they became the modern countries you now see.
The point being, the idea of country is FAR more dynamic than you're implying. Borders change, culture changes, language shifts. We're all immigrants really. The human race came from Africa. "Indigenous" is a social construction, not something inherent in a populace.
Apart from the beards or veils. Although I'm not sure how much overlap there is between those two categories.
Europe has mostly become pacifist as a result of a rise of existentialism, which itself arised from a rejection of extremes (such as communism and fascism) that were highly destructive during WWII (only about 70 years ago, Fascism was considered an example of European governance as a LOT of countries practiced it at the time; not just the Axis powers.)
Though before that, France has somewhat of a history of violently killing people who they believe don't even think the same way as themselves. Take the reign of terror for example.
Cool! I must be rich!
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Australia belongs to...
. . . the largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet.
And then there's all the marsupials, snakes, and spiders ..... ba dum tish
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
www.nazigassings.com
www.codoh.com
It's a "hate" crime (LOL) to QUESTION the Jews' stories about the so-called 'Holocaust', and scores of people are in PRISON, right now, in Europe, for merely SAYING THINGS that Jews don't like.
This is yet another attempt by JEWS to control their 'cattle', and prevent us from rising up against these nation-wrecking bastards.
Oh grow up, hippie. Having defined states and countries with citizenship regulation is facist? No national boundaries?? You could've fooled the rest of us that live in the modern civilized world.
If that worked religion would have disappeared a some tiems ago with the itnernet. But it does not, because you cannot use rationality to convince people (rare exception may happen) that belief they came to in irrational way are wrong. Try thisd : go into a creationist forum and try to argue that radiometric dating works and explain why. Good luck with that. So if we are not even able to get ride of creationism in the west , a domain (natural selection) where there is a lot of supportive and solid science, what chance do you think you have with other irrational belief ? I will tell you what, as soon as the GOP accept as a whole global warming I will give you a smmmmaaal bit of chance.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Umm, you could make an argument that those are the same for both nations
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It was in the 70's, today the whole world is a dream for Nazis...
There's nowhere to hide anymore - the world's too crowded and politicians are corrupt everywhere.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
why use different labels for the same thing?
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
Freedom is *far* more at risk from our own governments than it ever was from terrorists.
Really? How many newspapers feel free to publish cartoons featuring Mohammed as a character? Is it the government that causes that fear? There has been a recent terrorist attack over this resulting in a dozen deaths, with more threatened. And that isn't the only problem from this vector.
Oxford University Press bans use of pig, sausage or pork-related words to avoid offending Muslims
Salafist Muslim Group Forms 'Sharia Police' Patrol in Germany
Anti-gay, anti-alcohol: London's "Sharia patrol"
Swedish Police Release Extensive Report Detailing Control Of 55 ‘No-Go Zones’ By Muslim Criminal Gangs
Like most problems I'm sure this one will get better by simply ignoring it, or even better, pretending that measures to solve it are the cause of it.
Because terrorism is a red herring, and this looks like a shiny new power they can grab without much hassle from the rabble. Fear is a great vehicle for stripping away liberties.
Fear is a great vehicle? You mean like fear of government, the same governments that provide universal health care in Europe that everyone claims is the very height of civilization? So you can't trust government when it comes to stopping people with a demonstrated and announced desire to poison, shoot, or blow you up, but you can trust them to pump your body full of chemicals, with the power of life or death over you, to decide if you get food or water when you are too sick or weak to take care of yourself? Given the persistent confusion on these points this will probably not end well.
And your .sig? Pay attention to the bold: "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Those that pay no heed to their security are unlikely to remain free.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
At least with the terrorists the damage is minimal. The politicians actions will negatively impact us all.
Terrorism is just like Santa Claus, the tooth farie, and the easter bunny. It doesn't exist - right?
So you can't trust government when it comes to stopping people with a demonstrated and announced desire to poison, shoot, or blow you up...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
moving forward anyway!
They just don't make 'em like they used to. 9/11 required serious planning!
The state will itself sponsor terrorism.
You can disagree but when they kick your door in at
04:00 you will see you were wrong.
You sound pretty much like the spokemen of Jihadi organizations like Hamas, Hizbullah, aQ, ISIS, CAIR and several others across the world. 'Islamophobia' indeed! A phobia is an irrational fear of something. Like it would be a phobia to be afraid of butterflies, but not scorpions. It would be a phobia to be afraid of racoons, but not snakes. Similarly, it would be a phobia to be afraid of Buddhism, but not Islam. Given that Islam - in its various texts - calls for the subjugation of all non-Muslims by any means necessary - violent or non-violent - it is perfectly rational to not want it anywhere near one's environs.
Leaders of Europe are anything but 'Islamophobic'. For the last 50 years, they've had the welcome mat for Muzzies all the way from Morocco to Pakistan, and now you have situations like 'No-go zones' in Paris, Malmo, Bradford and several cities across Europe. The only parties that have opposed Muslim immigration have been fringe parties, like the Danish People's Party in Denmark, PVV in the Netherlands, Mouvement pour la France in France, the BNP in the UK and a handful of others in other countries. The top 2 parties in every European country are indistinguishable as far as their policies on Muslim immigration goes. So you can breathe easy - those leaders don't want to oppress anybody, but rather, give people the perception that they're doing something about Jihad. In reality, they don't want to lose votes of the Muslims, nor do they want to lose votes of those opposed to Muslim intimidation. It's that simple!
Bzzzt. Australia belongs to the people with the biggest balls in the world....and the drunk. Who else would willingly live in the land of the "largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet." :P
Well lets see there's only the platypus, the corroboree frog and the birdwing butterfly for poisonous critters, so I'd be much more worried about the venomious critters down-under.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Kicked out to where exactly? It could be said that your abusive system turned them into criminals so why should other countries be forced to receive them. You created them, your problem, especially 2nd generation on. Once you accept them, they are yours and they become within your society is what you turned them into to, they are you.
Let's just focus upon how you let them in in the first place and learn to accept the consequences of that. Why not just include psychological testing as part of the immigrant or refugee process but once you accept them, they are yours and just as much you as you are. I can understand countries barring those diagnosed as psychopaths and narcissists and that includes tourists, it just makes sense.
Keep in mind you can not just kick them out, unless you mean by that execute them. You must actually send them somewhere and they must be willing to accept them. What do you do when the intended recipient country just says no, you got them, your problem, deal with it.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Why?
Part of collect it all. Bring it out for use in open courts. Everything collected is now more legal. No more parallel construction needed.
All that new data can then be shared with other EU, UK and US beyond the "The Ring of Five" Germany, the Netherlands, France, Belgium and Denmark.
The part most nations dont seem to have fully understood is what the GCHQ understood decades ago. Never mention the collection part and people keep on trusting their phones and computer networks.
Now that nations admit they have full mastery of all their internal phones and computer networks interesting people can just revert to more traditional methods of communications.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Being a French means that if you are white then you are most likely of Roman descendants since 13% franchised middle class and 85% vilains and serfs of France in 1789 where Romans. Now there is the possibility if you are a white French to be of Germanic descendants but those had Odin as god/ancestor and believed he came with his kin from Troy when it fell, and if Odin came from Troy he was worshiping Apollo. Hyperboreans where also worshiping Apollo and Artemis. Also the Dorians came from the North and they were worshiping Apollo. Pelasgians, Trojans, Aborigines from Arcadia and Sabines from Lacedaemonia that funded Rome were also worshiping Apollo (except I believe Sabines, those for sure were worshiping Mars above all). But if you are not a white French then most likely your ancestors where not the Romans or close related tribes like Germanic and probably Slavs.
Europe became pacifists and saved a lot of money at the same time because they knew the US had their back if they ever faced any serious threats. Without US military support Russia would have already reclaimed all the client states they lost when the USSR disintegrated and the Europeans could do nothing to stop Russia even if they wanted to..
Dude, they have Mecca, and the big sandbox around Mecca
Why are you worrying so much on whether or not they accept or not accept to be deported?
They never worry about how the European hosts feel when they threaten the Europeans with violences?
Send them all back to the big sandbox where they belong, stop letting them creating troubles in Europe !
Yeah, that's because you attacked Hitler, he would have destroyed Stalingrad and Moscow, making SU a pacifist, peaceful communist state if you hadn't attacked him in the back. And we wouldn't have to worry now, when Putin decides to mow down Ukraine and rest of Eastern-europe...
Some of the racist, fascist, ignorant rants herein reflect poorly on the otherwise outstanding citizens who read slashdot but who don't bother to comment for example the people who,are pushed out of,Australia are desperate and poor who risked their lives in the naive belief they might find a new place but clearly this is not acceptable but to lump them with terrorists.like the scum that is setting fire to the world like ISIS and Al Qaeda is just stupid, and ignorant and definitely racist nazified language. Think poor, illiterate scared of their own native lands and wanting a better life...not so different from where many of your ancestors were like when they came by steerage from Eastern Europe..just a different colour. For shame! Educate yourselves about the catastrophe of displaced and desperate people world wide that are just trying to survive and save their children. Look at the terror that aiSIS, that cancer of Cancers that sell women and children like sex toys to their filthy warriors and then understand why thousands run to tent cities to eke out lives. You people sit on your custom computer desks writing this shit have no clue. Get a life and learn that the world is not Silicon Valley. Millions need help in solving both the separate problem of innocent refugees and the consequential rise of terrorism throughout the world. We are at war with Islamic terrorists all right but the millions we see begging on the shores of democracies are also their victims. We need to learn how to distinguish one from the other, I,suggest.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik...
Casteism
the same governments that provide universal health care
No. It may strike you as odd, but governments change over time. I have serious suspicions that universal health care was founded based on the kind of fear we're seeing dictate our laws these days. It seems that every law that comes out these days in every country amounts to "give police and/or governments as much power as we can squeeze in on the vague chance that it will be useful, and to hell with any sense of privacy."
And honestly, a lot of those laws would make great sense -- under one condition: That they're not going to be abused. Unfortunately that condition is 100% impossible to fulfill. And in fact its worse than that -- any law with the potential to be abused has a near-100% chance of being abused, and often sooner rather than later. And to really seal the deal, there's usually little to no oversight applied (not that oversight would completely stop abuse -- its still near-100% chance.. just hopefully a lot fewer individual incidents over the same time period.)
essential liberty
I consider presumption of innocence to be a fairly essential liberty in our world, and most of these privacy-invading measures tend to require presumption of guilt (particularly the dragnet-style warrantless data collection measures.)
Of course you can argue when exactly the presumption of guilt takes effect -- most of us consider the moment our data is gathered without our knowledge to be the moment that guilt is presumed.. but you could claim that presumption of guilt is only applied at the moment the data is reviewed, otherwise its just unknown bits that could be anything. That gets back to the potential for abuse though -- if its available, it WILL be abused.
America belongs to...
It did belong to us Native Amreicans but you came along with the barrel of a gun killed our children and took our land.
and now.... Their coming after you! Remember if you are white and live in the US YOU!!! are a fucking immigrant!
Huh? Your response is a shocking example of idiocy in action.
The European countries are ethnic states, have been for thousands of years
You might want to brush up on your history. Up until 200 years ago or so, there wasn't even such a nationality as "French" or "Spanish". There were Bretons, Catalans etc. And most European states up until then were united not by shared ethnicity, and in many cases not even by shared culture or religion, but by allegiance to the same monarch. It wasn't until the advent of what we now call Romantic nationalism at the end of the 18th century, that ethnicity really began to matter in national politics in a big way.
In fact, the current relatively uniform ethnic composition of European states didn't crystallize until a lot of borders were redrawn after WW1 (e.g. treaty of Trianon), and massive population transfers in the aftermath of WW2. So the current state of affairs is literally 70 years old.
Of course, the notion that just because your ancestor ten generations removed has lived in a political entity with roughly similar borders and/or name two centuries ago, you get some special entitlement in the current political entity in its place, is absurd on its face anyway.
Australia belongs to...
. . . the largest concentration of deadly, poisonous critters and creepy-crawlies on the planet.
Hey, I know Bruce and Barry may not be the most well adjusted individuals, but fair suck of the sav mate, they aren't that bad.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Cool! I must be rich!
America does not belong to you, slave!
None of this would be necessary if all you stubborn Kafir would just submit to Alla's sublime message.
Then we would all be Muslims and would be no need for a war or terror.
I admit... thats when the purging starts. We would need to purge the less true believers . Once done Im happy peace and harmony would be restored. Oh.. and purge those that didnt look convincing in the celebrations of the first purge. Then all thats left is to purge those that did the 1st purge as they are clearly secret agents of the devil.And then purge those that celebrated as thats unIslamic too. No singing and dancing on our watch thankyou.
Sitting on a prayer mat and banging your head into the floor 5 times a day is all we can hope for ;)
I am Italic, yet not Italian!
This isn't automatically a bad idea.
The key is that any new powers hew to the principles of oversight, due process, and probable cause. Europe has generally done a pretty good job on these matters so let's hope they don't get stampeded into a surveillance society.