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India's Top Court Rules Privacy a Fundamental Right in Blow To Government
India's top court unanimously ruled on Thursday that individual privacy is a fundamental right, a verdict that will impact everything from the way companies handle personal data to the roll-out of the world's largest biometric ID card program. From a report: A nine-member bench of India's Supreme Court announced the ruling in a big setback for the Narendra Modi-led government, which argued that privacy was not a fundamental right protected by the constitution. The ruling comes against the backdrop of a large multi-party case against the mandatory use of national identity cards, known as Aadhaar, as an infringement of privacy. There have also been concerns over breaches of data. Critics say the ID cards link enough data to create a comprehensive profile of a person's spending habits, their friends and acquaintances, the property they own and a trove of other information. "This is a blow to the government, because the government had argued that people do not have a right to privacy," said Prashant Bhushan, a senior lawyer involved in the case.
Would you trust any government with a complete profile of your every move or transaction?
Here, FTFY.
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
India ratified this. So what's the big deal, Modi?
Ezekiel 23:20
It's a right given to you by the government. What's so difficult to understand about that?
There are two ways to look at how a government should work for any group that is being governed:
Both have problems (amusingly, it's the same problem: There winds up too much that the governed has to keep track of to ensure they don't break law), but when it comes to individual freedoms, I'm exceedingly aware of what I appreciate more.
Nice of the Indian Supreme Court to rule in such a correct manner, and good luck to the people in India in taking their privacy back. Now if the US Supreme Court would just do so we can be rid of a whole lot of problems here.
A court in a 3rd world country, full of people that worship cows, is able to make better decisions than the US. Really sad...
Is this the first time a large, democratic government has expressly considered meta-data in a ruling?
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Try a two-dimensional political compass if you want to see something that resembles reality more closely. "Right" and "Left" fail when you look at the fact that Stalin and Hitler were on the opposite ends of the economy spectrum (State-planned economy vs. Fascist corporatism) but resided on the same end on the liberal vs. authoritarian spectrum.
In other words, try something like this if you really want to place people accurately. You might discover that a one dimensional "left" vs "right" scheme isn't able to actually display political reality accurately.
Unless of course this isn't your goal.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
The two axis system is useful for a more precise classification of the fringe, but for current politics of most of the first world countries one axis usually is enough because that fringe is usually a tiny (albeit vocal) minority. On the two axis system that one axis would run diagonal from the not quite bottom left (where on that picture democratic socialism and anarcho-communism share their border) to the not quite top right (shared border of capitalism and fundamentalism). For USA this axis wouldn't work, though, because the whole left side is missing, but on the right side there is a much larger variety of options. Hence you can take the two dimensional political compass, remove the whole left half and you are good.
"It's such a fine line between stupid and clever" -- David St. Hubbins, Spinal Tap
A country of more than 1 BILLION people just had their highest court rule that people's privacy is a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT; SCOTUS, I AM LOOKING AT YOU RIGHT NOW.