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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.
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.
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.
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DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Its fingerprinting for asylum seekers as young as 6 (current minimum age is 14), not all residents.
Summary fails to note that point.
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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.
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.
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.