Comment by BSDobelix
2 days ago
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.
You need some kind of carve out, otherwise how could you ever make search warrants and court ordered discovery demands legal?
Ultimately it’s the articles depend on the court judges to weigh the rights of the state against the rights of the individuals, when there isn’t a clear and obvious answer provided by the text.
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."
Good to know that search warrants aren't a thing in the United States and anyone within 100 miles of a port can't be arbitrarily searched either.
> 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.