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European Human Rights Court Rules Mass Surveillance Illegal (theregister.co.uk)
Kekke sends this report from El Reg:
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ruled that mass surveillance is illegal, in a little-noticed case in Hungary. In a judgment last week, the court ruled that the Hungarian government had violated article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the right to privacy) due to its failure to include "sufficiently precise, effective and comprehensive" measures that would limit surveillance to only people it suspected of crimes. Under a section of the 2011 National Security Act, a minister of the government is able to approve a police request to search people's houses, mail, phones and laptops if they are seeking to protect national security. ... The court said the Hungarian government should be required to interpret the law in a narrow fashion and "verify whether sufficient reasons for intercepting a specific individual's communications exist in each case." Or in other words, every individual case must be looked at carefully and a decision made on each. Which is clearly impossible if the law is taken to carry out mass surveillance, i.e., hoovering up information over the internet and then searching in it."
Just reading that sentence makes it obvious that other political considerations will decide how the power structure in the EU will behave. UK quasi-fascist government activities will not get the same response as Hungarian quasi-fascist activity. The Brits are going after Muslims, which are now fair game in the EU. The Hungarians are going after Jews and Gypsies, which is too much like real fascism in the 30's. The cynical position is that the EU want's to pretend that the "bad old days" are truly over, but are OK with less obvious current repression.
Why is Snark Required?
Looks like the EU just found out about the wisdom of the US 4th amendment to be secure in their persons, houses, papers vs big government or a politico-economic union tyranny.
"Like many other areas of American law, the Fourth Amendment finds its roots in English legal doctrine. Sir Edward Coke, in Semayne's case (1604), famously stated: "The house of every one is to him as his castle and fortress, as well for his defence against injury and violence as for his repose."[3] Semayne's Case acknowledged that the King did not have unbridled authority to intrude on his subjects' dwellings but recognized that government agents were permitted to conduct searches and seizures under certain conditions when their purpose was lawful and a warrant had been obtained."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
More like the US hasn't quite learned the lesson, or has begun to forget it.
blindly antisocialist = antisocial