If that was true, judges would have to apply the First Amendment only to messages transferred on horseback or directly, but not through the internet. Judges apply law as it is written, at least as long as it is clear.
I tend to go even further: Even criminals, who in your opinion don't deserve that, should enjoy equal medical treatment. We send them in jail for what they've done, but when everyone else would get the same medical treatment, denying it to them would be a cruel and excessive punishment.
Propably not too hard, given the fact that the executive branch in Germany has virtually no clue about technical things. There have been cases where confiscated computers have been returned because police couldn't read the ext3 file systems...
The funny thing is that "free speech" was never a part of the German constitution.
"Everybody has the right to freely express and spread his opinion and to inform himself from openly accessible sources." - Article 5, German Constitution.
Yes, it's a reply to somebody else who has been modded -1, so you don't see his comment. Hence my comment appears to be a reply to yours although it isn't. Weird but true:-)
So basically the consequence of what you're saying is "Ban encryption, because those bloddy terrorists/chinese spies/pedophiles/software pirates might use it to do something evil"? Yeah, good idea. Tomorrow on CNN: Door locks banned. They prevent police from entering criminals' homes, police say.
As usual, the Babelfish translation of the Spiegel article is horrible, so I just quickly translated it to Englisch myself.
"Federal Constitutional Court stops usage of voting computers
Until further notice, German voters will vote with pen and paper: The Constitutional court has declared the voting machines used e.g. in the last Federal election illegal. The current technology had defects and was hard to control[, the court said].
Karlsruhe. - The approx. 1800 devices with which around 2 mio. voters have voted in the Bundestag election of 2005 contradict the principle of public election [The Principle that votes are counted in public., note of translator], it said in the verdict delivered on Tuesday.
However, as there were no hints of errors, the election itself remains valid, the court in Karlsruhe decided. It can hence be expected that the elections this year will be carried out with paper and a pen.
With the decision on Tuesday, two complains were mostly successful. The appeal complained about several flaws in the machines which, according to the plaintiffs, violate secret voting and democratic control over the couting.
The Vice president of the Federal Constitutional Court, Andreas VoÃYkuhle, stressed that e-voting isn't completely banned now. However, the currently used machines had flaws. "The tenor of the decision could lead to the conclusion that the court was hostile towards technology and misconceived the challenges and possibilities of the digital age.", VoÃYkuhle said. But this was not true. The use of voting machines would indeed be possible. "Nor has the court banned possibilities of internet voting."
Approx. 2 mio. voters haven't voted with a pen and a ballot in the 2005 election, but instead with a voting machine.
The electronic voting devices were used in 39 of the 299 voting districts all over the country, precisely in the states of Brandenburg, Hesse, Nordrhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Pfalz and Saxony-Anhalt.
The Nedap voting machines common in Germany were used for the first time during the 1999 EP election and recently in a municipal election in Brandenburg in September 2008. The decision of the Federal Constitutional Court was aimed at the computers Nedap ESD1 and ESD2.
The plaintiffs were the physician Ulrich Wiesner and his father Joachim Wiesner, a retired policital scientist. In the name of the plaintiffs, Prof. Wolfgang LÃwer from Bonn critizised in the hearing in October that the voters would have to have "blind faith" towards the electronic ballots. "We are concerned about a vacuum of control after the act of voting." This endangered the principle of a public election. In a traditional ballot election, the citizens can be present during the counting of the ballots. Justice Rudolf Mellinghoff, who was the primary responsible judge in the case, then [in October] asked about the possibility to make the computer election more traceable through a printed ballot.
Experts say that modifications of the software could generally be discovered afterwards, but hardware modifications - i.e. on the actual device - were hard to discover, JÃrn Müller-Quade from the European Institute for System Security said. Such manipulations were demonstrated by the Chaos Computer Club.
Voting machines have been used in several countries for years. Especially in the USA, they are very common despite known flaws in elections. Especially punchcards are wide spread over there and played a major role in the problems of the Presidential election of 2000 in Florida."
Contact the Verbraucherzentrale (can't think of any English term for that; it's an institution that protects consumer rights). They'll be able to help you with that.
Seriously, we'll have federal elections (and a bunch of other elections: european parl., state-level) this year, but I doubt that anything will change.
CDU: Merkel's party, Conservative, currently drifting to the middle. Schaeuble, our Minister for the Interior (which includes police in Germany), is one of the worst surveillance guys, and he's a CDU man. Lots of other 1984 fellows, too. --> No option.
SPD: Social democrats. One of the two big parties (together with the CDU). Currently in a coalition with CDU. Some good guys in there, but many others (including most of their MPs) agreed to laws like this. Used to be my party, but obviously it no longer is.
FDP: Liberal. Have a lot of good guys regarding civil liberties (including three who have repeatedly and successfully went to the courts to struck "Anti terror laws" down). But I don't like their economic model, and above all many of them have no backbone.
Greens: Same as FDP regarding civil liberties and surveillance. Might be an option (although for me they are too naive on the environmental area), but voting greens will mean a SPD-Greens coalition (because FDP and Greens are the smaller parties and usually form coalitions with one of the bigger ones).
Left party: Just a bunch of populists.
The reason why such a lot on internet censorship etc. is being passed now might be our "Grand coalition" (CDU+SPD), which has a strong majority. However when I look at other countries, I see similar problems, so that can't be the only reason.
Unfortunately many people willingly give up their freedoms if the government gives them an excuse (terrorism or child porn), but they just don't see how a filter like that could easily be transformed into an anti-government-criticism filter.
All that surveillance scares me. What the hell is wrong with my country?
PS: For the German-speaking guys around here, have a look at this essay by Burkhard Hirsch (an FDP man). An excellent explanation on why civil liberties are so important.
The point is that anything can be changed by an act of parl. without a two-thirds majority like in other countries with a real, i.e. single written constitution.
Come on, you know what I mean.
Besides, originally I just wanted to make a joke, but slowly I can see a meaning in it...
Slashdot Mirror
Let me be the first one to say this: "Illuminatus!"
If that was true, judges would have to apply the First Amendment only to messages transferred on horseback or directly, but not through the internet. Judges apply law as it is written, at least as long as it is clear.
I tend to go even further: Even criminals, who in your opinion don't deserve that, should enjoy equal medical treatment. We send them in jail for what they've done, but when everyone else would get the same medical treatment, denying it to them would be a cruel and excessive punishment.
Propably not too hard, given the fact that the executive branch in Germany has virtually no clue about technical things. There have been cases where confiscated computers have been returned because police couldn't read the ext3 file systems...
Great idea. In order to protest against totalitarism, vote for those who propagate even stronger totalitarism. 1933, anyone?
The funny thing is that "free speech" was never a part of the German constitution. "Everybody has the right to freely express and spread his opinion and to inform himself from openly accessible sources." - Article 5, German Constitution.
Wtf? Their name means "railway station" in German...
You gotta get up at 4.45am. Kant did it, too. That kant be wrong...
Sounds rather like a spam e-mail...
Am I the only one who read "If We Have Free Will, Then So Do Elections" and thought about voting machines?
Evil never perishes from our planet, y'know...
Yes, it's a reply to somebody else who has been modded -1, so you don't see his comment. Hence my comment appears to be a reply to yours although it isn't. Weird but true :-)
So basically the consequence of what you're saying is "Ban encryption, because those bloddy terrorists/chinese spies/pedophiles/software pirates might use it to do something evil"? Yeah, good idea. Tomorrow on CNN: Door locks banned. They prevent police from entering criminals' homes, police say.
That's simply riddickulous!
Oops, all umlauts and Sharp-s are messed up. Goddamned character encoding...
"Federal Constitutional Court stops usage of voting computers
Until further notice, German voters will vote with pen and paper: The Constitutional court has declared the voting machines used e.g. in the last Federal election illegal. The current technology had defects and was hard to control[, the court said].
Karlsruhe. - The approx. 1800 devices with which around 2 mio. voters have voted in the Bundestag election of 2005 contradict the principle of public election [The Principle that votes are counted in public., note of translator], it said in the verdict delivered on Tuesday.
However, as there were no hints of errors, the election itself remains valid, the court in Karlsruhe decided. It can hence be expected that the elections this year will be carried out with paper and a pen.
With the decision on Tuesday, two complains were mostly successful. The appeal complained about several flaws in the machines which, according to the plaintiffs, violate secret voting and democratic control over the couting.
The Vice president of the Federal Constitutional Court, Andreas VoÃYkuhle, stressed that e-voting isn't completely banned now. However, the currently used machines had flaws. "The tenor of the decision could lead to the conclusion that the court was hostile towards technology and misconceived the challenges and possibilities of the digital age.", VoÃYkuhle said. But this was not true. The use of voting machines would indeed be possible. "Nor has the court banned possibilities of internet voting."
Approx. 2 mio. voters haven't voted with a pen and a ballot in the 2005 election, but instead with a voting machine.
The electronic voting devices were used in 39 of the 299 voting districts all over the country, precisely in the states of Brandenburg, Hesse, Nordrhine-Westphalia, Rhineland-Pfalz and Saxony-Anhalt.
The Nedap voting machines common in Germany were used for the first time during the 1999 EP election and recently in a municipal election in Brandenburg in September 2008. The decision of the Federal Constitutional Court was aimed at the computers Nedap ESD1 and ESD2.
The plaintiffs were the physician Ulrich Wiesner and his father Joachim Wiesner, a retired policital scientist. In the name of the plaintiffs, Prof. Wolfgang LÃwer from Bonn critizised in the hearing in October that the voters would have to have "blind faith" towards the electronic ballots. "We are concerned about a vacuum of control after the act of voting." This endangered the principle of a public election. In a traditional ballot election, the citizens can be present during the counting of the ballots. Justice Rudolf Mellinghoff, who was the primary responsible judge in the case, then [in October] asked about the possibility to make the computer election more traceable through a printed ballot.
Experts say that modifications of the software could generally be discovered afterwards, but hardware modifications - i.e. on the actual device - were hard to discover, JÃrn Müller-Quade from the European Institute for System Security said. Such manipulations were demonstrated by the Chaos Computer Club.
Voting machines have been used in several countries for years. Especially in the USA, they are very common despite known flaws in elections. Especially punchcards are wide spread over there and played a major role in the problems of the Presidential election of 2000 in Florida."
No, we'd call him a patent troll.
SCNR
Isn't that what Diebold has been doing for years?
No, just kidding...
Contact the Verbraucherzentrale (can't think of any English term for that; it's an institution that protects consumer rights). They'll be able to help you with that.
Well, sometimes I think that it hasn't been Western Germany taking over the east, but vice versa...
Seriously, we'll have federal elections (and a bunch of other elections: european parl., state-level) this year, but I doubt that anything will change.
CDU: Merkel's party, Conservative, currently drifting to the middle. Schaeuble, our Minister for the Interior (which includes police in Germany), is one of the worst surveillance guys, and he's a CDU man. Lots of other 1984 fellows, too. --> No option.
SPD: Social democrats. One of the two big parties (together with the CDU). Currently in a coalition with CDU. Some good guys in there, but many others (including most of their MPs) agreed to laws like this. Used to be my party, but obviously it no longer is.
FDP: Liberal. Have a lot of good guys regarding civil liberties (including three who have repeatedly and successfully went to the courts to struck "Anti terror laws" down). But I don't like their economic model, and above all many of them have no backbone.
Greens: Same as FDP regarding civil liberties and surveillance. Might be an option (although for me they are too naive on the environmental area), but voting greens will mean a SPD-Greens coalition (because FDP and Greens are the smaller parties and usually form coalitions with one of the bigger ones).
Left party: Just a bunch of populists.
The reason why such a lot on internet censorship etc. is being passed now might be our "Grand coalition" (CDU+SPD), which has a strong majority. However when I look at other countries, I see similar problems, so that can't be the only reason.
Unfortunately many people willingly give up their freedoms if the government gives them an excuse (terrorism or child porn), but they just don't see how a filter like that could easily be transformed into an anti-government-criticism filter.
All that surveillance scares me. What the hell is wrong with my country?
PS: For the German-speaking guys around here, have a look at this essay by Burkhard Hirsch (an FDP man). An excellent explanation on why civil liberties are so important.
6) NOAA Corps
7) PHSCC
Uniformed services of the United States
"You have the right to remain silent - well, except for passwords..."
The point is that anything can be changed by an act of parl. without a two-thirds majority like in other countries with a real, i.e. single written constitution. Come on, you know what I mean. Besides, originally I just wanted to make a joke, but slowly I can see a meaning in it...
Unconstitutional? We're talking about the United Kingdom here...