Comment by Raed667
2 days ago
Unless there is a law that says that the fundamental right to privacy is protected then we're bound to repeat this ordeal every couple of years.
2 days ago
Unless there is a law that says that the fundamental right to privacy is protected then we're bound to repeat this ordeal every couple of years.
Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948):
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with their privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks
It's also in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). But that has a big loop whole.
Article 8: Right to privacy
1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence. 2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.
They could have just left out Article 8. Its a “no interference by a public authority unless it want’s to.” “Well-being of the country”, “protection of health or morals” are terms that make this statute irrelevant and dependent on the current mood of the EU.
Privacy needs to be an absolute right. Any invasion of privacy of any individual is a violation of their rights and needs to be treated as such with actual repercussions following misconduct.
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Coming from an American perspective, this is quite shocking and indistinguishable from parody.
"Everyone has a right to privacy expect for all cases where government decides for any reason for any that it should not apply."
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> Everybody has a right to privacy (except where inconvenient).
I 100% agree with the right to privacy but the keyword there is arbitrary - if everyone's comms get intercepted that would not be in contravence of the Declaration, as it would be done systematically, i.e. not arbitrarily.
The spirit of the laws is all fine and good but combing through them it's not uncommon to find these little loopholes.
Sounds like the European Court of Human Rights would annul it, but you can't be sure.
Are all UN nations bound to this declaration or at least those joining after 1948?
No, human rights and children's rights declarations are ratified individually.
In Germany there is article 10 of the Grundgesetz. While it does allow exceptions (like through a warrant), I wouldn't be surprised that if this law was passed that our constitutional court would deny it based on article 10 (any maybe article 1, that one's important)
There are laws about that already. However they have exceptions (and most people support exceptions. No one expects for example the privacy of ISIS terrorists be respected when they are investigated for terrorism and there are probable cause).
Probable cause is the exception. The police should have to suspect a particular person and then get a warrant approved by a judge and then they can breach privacy. Just like it's always been. They keep pushing for a wider and wider net, though.
This is correct, but also the problem. Various governments and organizations don't want to respect privacy, because they see it as a means of control and profit.
I don't mean this in an antagonistic way, but has anyone clearly articulated a right to privacy in a clear succinct way? Unlike other human rights, the right to privacy has always been a bit fuzzy with a ton of exceptions and caveats
I just find it hard to imagine the right to privacy encoded in to law in a way that would block this. For instance there is a right to privacy in the US, but it's in a completely idiotic way. The 14th Amendment doesn't talk about privacy in any way, and it's some legal contortions and mental gymnastics that are upholding any right to privacy there.
What would pass "clear and succinct" in your opinion? I don't see how it is less clearly defined than any other human right.
Let's take international law[1]. Right to privacy is defined as protection from arbitrary interference with privacy.
Is this definition problematic? Privacy itself has a short definition too: the ability of one to remove themselves or information about themselves from the public[2].
I don't see what is unclear or verbose here.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_privacy#International [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privacy
> I don't see how it is less clearly defined than any other human right
Human rights are famously almost impossible to clearly define because they're an entirely abstract category relying very much on cultural consensus for their practical definition
> No one shall be subjected to arbitrary or unlawful interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation. > Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.
> Is this definition problematic?
Yes, very much so. By qualifying that the interference must not be unlawful it essentially makes any interference by law (like what was proposed here in the first place) fine
> privacy, family, home or correspondence
This is very restrictive, for instance there's nothing in it about online storage or your laptop / phone since they're neither your home, family or correspondence
> unlawful attacks on his honour and reputation
This manages to be so unclear that if applied strictly it'd ban any criticism of a politician or anyone else as long as you can construe it as "attacking their reputation"
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It's simple game theory. If one player (government) has access to private information of all players (citizens), then it's not possible to keep the government from winning, i.e. becoming tyrannical. Losing privacy equals losing liberty.
I think you missed my point entirely. I'm not trying to argue there shouldn't be any privacy or anything like that
That's not my questions at all. My question is, is there some good clear framework for what should and shouldn't be private. B/c otherwise it's kind of some meaningless platitude, like "everyone should be nice to each other"
It shouldn't be a constant uphill battle just to keep basic rights intact
There is one, which is why we keep repeating the ordeal. If there wasn't, Chat Control would have been implemented a decade ago.