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Germany Plans To Fingerprint Children and Spy On Personal Messages (fortune.com)
From a report: Germany is planning a new law giving authorities the right to look at private messages and fingerprint children as young as 6, the interior minister said on Wednesday after the last government gathering before a national election in September. Ministers from central government and federal states said encrypted messaging services, such as WhatsApp and Signal, allow militants and criminals to evade traditional surveillance. "We can't allow there to be areas that are practically outside the law," interior minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in the eastern town of Dresden.
I thought Germany was one of the countries that valued privacy, the 'right to be forgotten' on the Internet, etc? How come all of the sudden they sound like the UK?
""We can't allow there to be areas that are practically outside the law,"
And this in the country where if it weren't possible for many to be outside the law they would have been killed.
Isn't it better to shield citizens from the political apprentice and let criminals go free then to risk what may happen when the wrong group takes power? But the German's are a different culture. So trusting of government. The way my aunt who lived there for a while put it is ' The German people believe police officers never lie, which works pretty well so long as the police officers continue to believe they never lie too.'
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Worked well for them last time.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
So because it would politically incorrect to you know not let the militants into the country in the first place they will just abolish basic freedoms instead.
Pathetic.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
I never thought I would see Nazi tactics return to Germany! Guess I was wrong...they have failed to learn from their own history.
I've you've ever been a USCIS biometric center you would have seen that the US government fingerprints children all day.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
"We can't allow there to be areas that are practically outside the law," interior minister Thomas de Maiziere told reporters in the eastern town of Dresden.
Or as Mussolini said "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State".
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
From TFA:
Among the options Germany is considering is "source telecom surveillance", where authorities install software on phones to relay messages before they are encrypted. That is now illegal.
Wow, just wow. This is something you'd expect from China, not somewhere in the supposedly enlightened western civilization. It's things like this which make me think maybe those second amendment nuts really aren't so crazy. Give up one right, and pretty soon it's a slippery slope right to big brother being installed on your phone.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Between this and Merkel turning the EU into the fourth reich. It's like the one country is composed of Bond villains.
lose != loose
The current lurch towards authoritarianism in Europe is profoundly disturbing. You really would think Germany of all places would know better than to give in to the politics of fear.
It is also rather depressing that here in the UK, apparently Ariana Grande has a more mature view of the attacks in Manchester and the appropriate response to them than Theresa May.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
thought police in 3..2..1
Right now Hitler is touching himself in his grave....
love is just extroverted narcissism
Well, at least half the country should be used to this environment.
What happens, the govt comes door to door and demands you bring your kid out for fingerprinting?
Geez....why would the populace stand for this?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
hmm... when my son was born here in the united states the put his hand prints and foot prints in his birth records. Probably attached to his birth certificate. I guess I didn't think to ask if it was 'optional'. It certainly wasn't presented as such.
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Wow?? Really?
I wonder when they started doing that in the US? Maybe it is only at some hospitals?
I'd certainly not want that done to my kids.
I know of hearing of such programs available if parents wanted them, but never heard of it being forced upon US parents or being done without their expressed consent....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
There are cultural difference between how children are raised in Germany vs America. In Germany, kids are viewed as more of a collective responsibility rather than just the concern of the nuclear family. Other cultures take it even further. In Japan, it is common to see five year olds traveling alone on the subway everyday on their way to kindergarten. That would be unthinkable in America, and probably get the parents arrested. But in Japan, it is perfectly safe, because everyone is watching out for those kids, and stepping in at the first hint of a problem.
You Europeans complain about the US spying and how our government is out of control....
Not all Europeans are the same.
Like Americans, different Europeans have different opinions and say different things.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Geez....why would the populace stand for this?
Probably because they're afraid. Remember, as an expert on the subject infamously observed, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
(That was Gestapo founder Hermann Goering, for those who missed the reference. The original comment was about the futility of relying on popular elections to avoid a war that the political leaders want, but the principle seems just as relevant in this context.)
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The current lurch towards authoritarianism in Europe is profoundly disturbing. You really would think Germany of all places would know better than to give in to the politics of fear.
Note: The following is intended as clarification - NOT in defense of the measure.
While TFS doesn't mention this... this new measure only affects asylum-seekers. Currently German law allows fingerprinting of all refugees age 14 or older - they're lowering that now, to age 6.
I'm sure there are people here who will have no quarrel with fingerprinting 6-year-old Muslims.
#DeleteChrome
Wow?? Really?
I wonder when they started doing that in the US?
I was born in 1960, and my birth records include my handprints and footprints.
#DeleteChrome
It's too bad that "collective responsibility" doesn't extend to preventing the groping of female subway riders in Japan.
#DeleteChrome
German gouvernment is planning to pass a law that requires messaging services such as WhatsApp to be monitorable like phonecalls should a court order requested by the authorities give them the permission to do so in order to fight crime.
There, FTFY.
Like many politicians German politicians too have little clue about how the internet and computers work, but that's no reason to write headlines that are so sensationalist that they are flat out wrong.
My 2 cents.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Yes, the Japanese in particular seem to have a much more enlightened view of parenting and more generally how to look after young children than certain heavily controlling trends in the West.
I'm not sure that such cultural differences excuse the kind of intrusions we're talking about here, though. I see no evidence that fingerprinting all children is somehow necessary to preserve their safety or security. Indeed, the examples you just gave yourself seem to show clearly that it is not.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It's safe enough because Japan is a homogeneous society without a subclass of predators.
I was also born in 1960.
Those birth certificates with hand and foot prints are issued by the hospital. They are just a souvenir, not the official birth certificated file with the state.
How would you prove your infant child was yours if your child was stolen away from you? Today you could perhaps have DNA testing. Back when the footprint/handprints were initiated, that wasn't an option. I don't think the footprints/fingerprints work as a long-term ID, just a short-term ID.
"I wonder when they started doing that in the US? Maybe it is only at some hospitals?"
Forever. It's a souvenir from the hospital and not an official record. My father and grandfather both had prints on their hospital-issued 'certificate' as well as did I.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Its fingerprinting for asylum seekers as young as 6 (current minimum age is 14), not all residents.
Summary fails to note that point.
Fully licensed blockchain psychiatrist
Thank you for posting that. I'm not sure whether it should make any difference to the ethical or practical position here, but it's certainly a significant detail that was omitted from the original summary.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It seems that german history is going to repeat itself again and again.
Even when the source is Reuters, unnamed parties quoted in an article of any kind is sufficient motive to cast enormous doubt up on the veracity of the information imparted.
Fakes news, propaganda, gov't-sponsored memes, these are all tools of the "unnamed". It can therefore be considered as clickbait fodder and nothing more.....
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
Well, then you should be fine with what Germany plans to do. The summary fails to mention that the fingerprinting only applies to refugees.
Disclaimer: I'm German and I think this descision is wrong. But I gave up hope that our minister of the interior (Innenminister) understands the necessary balance between security and freedom long ago.
It's too bad that "collective responsibility" doesn't extend to preventing the groping of female subway riders in Japan.
They provide "women-only" subway cars during busy periods. Other than that, anyone that has boarded the Yamanote line at at Shinjuku station at rush hour will know that there isn't any obvious solution. Courts have been tightening up penalties, but that only works if the groper gets caught, which is rare. There has recently been a backlash because of people falsely accused. Since Japan has such a low crime rate, any criminal conviction has severe social consequences, often resulting in losing your job, becoming unemployable, and basically destroying your life.
Depends on how much choice economic migrants have. Sounds fine to me to say "if you want to bypass our normal immigration rules, we'll let you in under these different rules, or you can pick a different nation in Europe".
.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The German minister of the interior who is responsible for todays descision is a member of Merkels conservative party.
People have been speaking in code and enciphering messages since beginning of civilization and will continue to do so as they please regardless of impediments erected by their governments.
From "lets get a pizza" = meet me at 5:00 PM at the square to exchange drugs, weapons and unstable ordinance.
To 6 year old children knowing how to encrypt and decrypt messages over ANY communication medium using a pencil, paper and codebook.
You can't stop it no matter what you do. The only thing anti-encryption and government spying legislation can ever achieve is erosion of legitimacy and corruption of law enforcement.
You would think, in the interests of thoroughness that they would also require the recording of all conversations at all times. I am sure that there are a lot of conversations happening that are 'outside of the law'.
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
One cannot post images of public places in Germany for privacy reasons. Yet it's perfectly fine to collect fingerprints. Weird.
Those are just souvenirs that go on the fake birth record they send home with the parents. The real ones do not have the handprints or footprints.
It's been done for many decades for newborns so as to serve as an unambiguous identification in case of potential mix-ups or disputes re. the baby. As a parent I would probably appreciate it.
Ariana Grande isn't going to be the one standing in front of thousands of constituents trying to figure out how to protect innocent citizens from being murdered
It's remarkably clear what needed to happen to prevent that particular attack, and the authoritarian dross Theresa May has been advocating since then certainly isn't it. The bomber was brought to the attention of the authorities on at least five occasions over a considerable period before the attacks, but the resources weren't there to follow up on a credible threat and we all know the tragic result.
At least the locals stood up that night and showed solidarity and support over anger and hatred, and the celebrities turned up a few days later to show that life goes on and we shouldn't give in to fear. That's two groups of people who are both doing better than our national government.
I also don't recall New Yorkers holding hands and singing kumbaya around the fucking campfire after the 9/11 attacks either.
And truly, the way the US responded to 9/11 was an example we should all follow, what with the vast numbers of innocents killed or injured in the resulting wars, destabilisation of an already precarious region of the world, and consequent creation of the largest terrorist threat to the West today.
The US leadership of the time would have done better to show some actual leadership, instead of just ramping up the anger and revenge and fear. The world would be a much, much better place today if they had.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Goering founded the Gestapo. Himmler took over about a year later.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Yes, maths is still maths (and this is why the argument for banning encryption is futile).
But you shouldn't have to risk jail time just for wanting to communicate with someone privately. That is not at all how civilized, free societies work.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I thought The Apple provides strong encryption.
At least they're spying on Personal Messages and not on Personal Massages.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
Wow?? Really? I wonder when they started doing that in the US?
I was born in 1960, and my birth records include my handprints and footprints.
I was born in 1953, and mine include them as well.
Just another evidence pointing out we're right at the turning point for totalitarian regimes sprouting once again in response to a politics of fear and complacency from citizens. Time is a flat circle.
You missed something. They are only cracking down on the privacy and free speech of muslims.
Yes that's right the entire fingerprinting thing is for asylum seekers, and the idea of intercepting encryption in some way is still governed by the same laws that cover every other form of communication which are far more strict than anything the rest of the world has on the books. Good luck using Stingrays to spy on everyone in Germany.
You fail to acknowledge that fact that the majority of the terrorist attacks post-911 have been by home-grown Muslims. There's no "importing" required.
And worse, it becomes a bit of a death spiral since the more we persecute the Muslims in our community, the higher chance that at least a few of them are going to be thinking about getting involved with more accepting communities. Occasionally that new community will be a terrorist organization, and only a small number of those otherwise-displaced people need to be indoctrinated in order to start the cycle over. Just one person can be sufficient to instigate a terror attack that gets reported around the world -- driving a truck down a busy pedestrian area doesn't really need a lot of co-conspirators or detailed organizational skills. It just needs a single person with access to a truck and a willingness to die for their cause.
If you just stuck with #2 and #3, you'd have pretty much hit the nail on the head though.
Better yet, forgo the encryption entirely and make it a crime to NOT lay out your entire life before anyone who asks. Or even better, change the law so that it's read: "Guilty Until Proven Innocent".
Once we get the hard AIs developed, we'll train them to be ruthless government agents that monitor you 24/7 and report EVERYTHING crime or no. Complete with pre-authorization to terminate you at anytime for any reason. Death is the only punishment.
Because nothing less will defeat terrorism / protect the children / get rid of communism / kill all the gays / defeat Hitler / etc.... but it won't do the one thing that needs to be done: Getting rid of tyrannical governments that terrorize their citizens in the name of power and greed.
And to think they told us the Nazis lost World War II.
Why can't we go back to using jumpers to configure slot adapter cards? Why? I say!
I've you've ever been a USCIS biometric center you would have seen that the US government fingerprints children all day.
That, and the ubiquitous fraud of suggesting that children be fingerprinted because if someone snatches your kids, the fingerprints might help the cops find them. Thanks for believing that bullshit, mom, you fucking idiot.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
They should not let them in in the first place, but with Merkel in charge that's not going to happen. And she needs to break encryption to prevent anyone being able to organize against her.
Merkel is a product of the DDR (former East Germany, notorious for its secret police STASI) and it shows.
Once we get the hard AIs developed, we'll train them to be ruthless government agents
Version 2.0 will be named "Smith"
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
Just for giggles, try comparing those prints to your current hand/foot prints. The entire reason they used footprints was that handprints were relatively useless for ID, but parents liked having the representation. Both are useless for ID purposes later on.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
http://aceproject.org/electora...
âoeTolerance applies only to persons, but never to truth. Intolerance applies only to truth, but never to persons.
Not really, he should not let any new muslims in the country anyway. If they come anyway, there are some nice places in Poland where to send them.
Importing more muslims will get you a new home-grown generation in 25 years. And you can look for a solution to the same muslims: the Turks showed it to us when they wanted to get rid of the Armenians.
LOL
If you enjoy living in Brazil, you must be one of the luckier ones who isn't a slum. I've visited your country. It has some nice features, but it's a corrupt shithole, pretty much everywhere - except for the wealthy and tourists.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
And on which legal and moral basis should he do that?
Kill them at the border? Or hunt them down after they sneaked through the border?
You are an idiot.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
You are an idiot. ... They are in such denial about the Nazi time that they don't teach it in school....
Germans learn in history classes in school: 25% greek roman stuff, 25% Napoleon, and 50% world war II/third reich/Hitler.
And there are "weiÃY Gott" plenty of things that are equaly or more important history things to learn in school.
You are bloody damn stupid idiot.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Clever word crafting. They want to soften the blow of invasive privacy violations with the word "traditional". Traditional surveillance is a stake-out, or phone tapping with a warrant. Traditional surveillance is not monitoring all communication and movement of the entire citizenry.
They are only cracking down on the privacy and free speech of muslims.
Actually they/we are not.
What has fingerprinting to do with privacy and free speach?
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Re "You really would think Germany of all places would know better"
They really do know better but not in any good way.
In the 1920-30's Germany faced communist issues so the German gov had to use the telco networks to see how the communists got funding, support.
From the 1930's-1945 Germany had to worry about many different spies moving around.
So a really good understanding of the telco network was needed.
After 1945 the mission was to keep communism and fascism out of West Germany.
In East Germany the CIA, MI6, NGO's and their groups tried to create issues deep in East Germany. So the telco networks East and West had to be able to track all calls.
Enigma was also a something Germany learned from later. Understanding all encryption is how to win.
Thats generations and decades and decades of telco workers legally helping very different governments in Germany.
Germany has had a collect it all mind set for generations of workers.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
AC the use of any encryption will be detected on any network.
Big brand encryption junk will not work and be open to the gov.
Any attempts to download and use free, open source or create encryption will be discovered.
The connected telco device or networked computer will be accessed and a created private app will be giving plain text, files and voice due to device changes.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Not really, it's just not talked about.
In some ways, Japan is more open about it. For instance Japan has sex dolls for pedophiles. Although data is preliminary, these dolls appear to reduce predatory behavior by giving pedos a harmless outlet. It is unthinkable that America could do something this sensible.
Not just a souvenir, used to identify a baby should they be switched or what not.
There are cultural difference between how children are raised in Germany vs America. In Germany, kids are viewed as more of a collective responsibility rather than just the concern of the nuclear family.
This is not about fingerprinting German kids, nor is it really about children at all.
On its face it's about surveilling people thought to be at risk of committing acts of terror. Primarily this would involve listening in on electronic communications and attempting to regulate encryption. As a (minor) part of this initiative, the age at which fingerprinting could be carried out would be lowered from 14 to 6, according to TFA "for asylum seekers" (and I imagine for non-citizen children generally). Now if anyone were going to be fingerprinted under this initiative, it would overwhelmingly be young (ca.16-35) islamic male asylum seekers.
This may look like a simple over-reaction to the recent >weekly Ramadan terror attacks in Europe ... think again. What is soon to take place in Germany?
Note especially where this announcement was made: Dresden. That is to say the birthplace of PEGIDA . Is that not pointed enough?
What this is, is the ruling conservative party, the CDU , gearing up to election mode and trying to stem the flow of a portion of their electoral base to the neo-nationalist AfD farther to their right. The centre, as always, is being defined by the extremes.
Electoral politics is what you get when the people are allowed to vote for a government of their choosing. What we are witnessing, though the naive might see it simply as a "lurch towards authoritarianism," is in fact democracy in action ... warts and all.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
That happened to me as a kid as part of a Boy Scout event and I remember being a little weirded out about it later. I recently did a forensics demonstration at an middle school and I made a point of letting the kids keep their fingerprint cards to do with as they pleased. They were the standard FBI cards that say "Applicant", so I did tell them that they were the first step to join FBI if they wanted to hold onto them!
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
Depends on how much choice economic migrants have.
It doesn't apply to migrants, who by definition would be abiding by "normal immigration rules," but to asylum seekers, who are instead relying on their Asylrecht.
Hmmmm .....
Unhinged Rhetoric About 'Nazis' and Trump Derangement Syndrome Lead to Bloodshed
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
It doesn't apply to migrants, who by definition would be abiding by "normal immigration rules," but to asylum seekers, who are instead relying on their Asylrecht.
Ah, the imaginary asylum seekers. Dude, they're looking for a country with a real economy. More power to them for that, but they're economic migrants.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
That was a typo on my part. They aren't cracking down on the privacy of normal people any more than it already is. There's no new allowances for data collection here only for the facility to collect data unencrypted.
What has fingerprinting to do with privacy
Do you really have to ask this?
It's for their school cafeteria and I told my wife that I didn't want it done but apparently I was being "paranoid".
You already can't listen in on physically private conversations, like two people in a room you couldn't bug ahead of time, or any of the zillion ways spies and terrorists have passed messages in the past. It's hardly new that there are ways to communicate that can't be intercepted or monitored, it's just more convenient now. At least now security agencies can often tell if communication has occurred.
If you want people to stop associating you with the Nazis of your past, maybe you shouldn't repeat their actions...
Its fingerprinting for asylum seekers as young as 6 (current minimum age is 14), not all residents.
Summary fails to note that point.
And even more, the actual reason as to why the finger printing is to be done is to prevent that the same person (child) gets registered and receives services under more than one name. Children change their appearance very quickly, so a photo on an ID doesn't serve much of a purpose for them...
The fine thing with a final solution is that it is final.
Also: where do you put kebabs?
the world would had been a much much safer
Sounds like fake news and alternative facts to me.
Or they become a community that supports your existing Muslim population and a few less start looking toward ISIS and friends for a place to belong.
Fear and hatred have never done much to stop violence. Occasionally though, an olive branch can.
Yes, I have to ask this. As I don't see any connection to real life.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yes, I have to ask this. As I don't see any connection to real life.
So you would also be happy to adopt a national ID scheme, facial recognition scheme, maybe barcodes on the back of people's necks? Part of privacy is anonymity.
Face recognition and fingerprints are already (thanx to the USA) on all passports in the EU and most other nations.
What bar codes on the neck have to do with that is escaping me ...
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Yes, be a good citizen. You will be rewarded.
You are an idiot.
I'm talking about FACTS.
Not about my OPINION, idiot.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'm talking about FACTS.
There's not a fact in any of your posts. Just ignorance when you can't see how things related to each other.
There are two facts, actualy three:
a) you are an idiot
b) you can not read
c) I explained several times that evey European, and also most other world nations, who have a relatively new passport already have biometric info and that includes fingerprints on those passports
I never talked about anything totalitarian, nazi like or if I like it or don't like it.
But thanx for insulting me just because you are to dumb to read and answer a honest question.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
But thanx for insulting me
Yeah it sucks when someone insults back doesn't it.
You started it. :)
And pointing out that you are an idiot is not an insult but just stating a fact
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.