
German government wants ‘backdoor’ access to every digital device: report - mnmlsm
https://www.thelocal.de/20171201/german-government-wants-backdoor-access-to-every-digital-device-report
======
Sylos
Thomas de Maizière wants that.

The guy says unconstitutional shit like this every other week. It'll be shot
down by our supreme court for sure, if it's even taken into consideration in
the first place.

~~~
ekianjo
Its like this guy never heard of the DDR and the Stazi.

~~~
CamperBob2
I'm sure _he 's_ heard of them. The question is, have the voters who elected
him?

~~~
Sylos
He's not directly elected. Merkel appointed him.

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candiodari
Coming soon: a proposal to hold the government responsible for every breach of
data that occurs because they corruptly assigned some contract to an
irresponsible third party or hired a minimum wage cop who decided surveillance
power's main use is to prove that you really do secretly love him [1]. And of
course for selling your private photos. [2]

Wait. Nope, no way in hell the government is responsible for those things [2]
(even ignoring the fact that the government internally knows about thousands
of abuse of surveillance data cases as the AP points out and I was able to
find 2 references to cases about such abuse, neither held the government
responsible for anything (and neither was filed by the government). However
they do make clear that government cares _deeply_ that cops not be punished
for abusing surveillance systems)

[1]
[https://www.computerworld.com/article/3124641/security/cops-...](https://www.computerworld.com/article/3124641/security/cops-
run-unauthorized-searches-on-confidential-databases-for-revenge-stalking.html)

[2] [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/201...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/2015/08/26/ninth-circuit-overturns-cfaa-verdicts-for-misusing-
databases/)

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weddpros
When I see a story where representative democracy is failing to serve the
people, I can't help but remember that this form of democracy was invented
before we had the Internet.

The Internet should be used to fix its deficiencies. Change.org clearly isn't
enough.

Digital democracy, even with 10% fraudsters, would be better than
representative democracy by a large margin.

~~~
Veratyr
The theoretical advantage of representative democracy is that the average
voter doesn't have the time or knowledge to make decisions on the vast
majority of issues, while an elected representative can spend 100% of their
time ensuring they make the decision that benefits their constituents.

That, plus it's actually _really_ hard to write a law.

I agree that representative democracies as we see them implemented have
serious issues but I don't think it's viable to replace it with direct
democracy, digital or not. Imagine if America was a direct democracy, the
country would be a flaming wreck by now.

~~~
weddpros
"the average voter doesn't have the time or knowledge to make decisions"

That's condescendent, and openly anti-democratic. The time argument is the
worse of the two: "people don't bother with making decisions, so let's make
decisions for them". Really?

"elected representative can spend 100% of their time ensuring they make the
decision that benefits their constituents"... "could" instead of "can" would
be more appropriate. That's an hypothesis.

"it's actually _really_ hard to write a law": to me it seems there are too
many laws anyway, so let's make it easier. No prejudice? no law. Less freedom
for the People? no law. How many laws would become obsolete?

"representative democracies as we see them implemented have serious issues":
if representative democracies were working on those issues, we wouldn't have
this discussion.

"Imagine if America was a direct democracy, the country would be a flaming
wreck by now"...

America once was a flaming wreck... then a great country emerged. Sounds a lot
like FUD.

~~~
Veratyr
> That's condescendent

Really? In the wake of the GFC, which bills would _you_ have voted for and
why?

> and openly anti-democratic

No, it's realistic. Lawmakers needs to make decisions on a _huge_ variety of
issues and people with full time jobs simply _cannot_ become familiar enough
with all these issues to make an educated decision about which option is in
their best interests.

Unless you're suggesting people stop working, I don't think there's anything
we can do.

> to me it seems there are too many laws anyway, so let's make it easier

How? The only way I can see is to make the language required to write them
less precise, which opens them for more interpretation by the judicial branch.
Are you okay with putting more of the country in the hands of the courts?

> No prejudice? no law. Less freedom for the People? no law.

Guarantees like this are the purpose of the constitution. I don't think "Less
freedom for the People" is viable anyhow as laws inherently reduce freedom.

> if representative democracies were working on those issues

There are representative democracies that don't have the issues we see in
others. Representative democracy isn't the problem. Things like electoral
systems and corruption are the bigger problems.

> America once was a flaming wreck... then a great country emerged.

Not coincidentally, the "great country" (as a non-American living in America,
I find this hilarious) was a representative democracy.

~~~
weddpros
"Really? In the wake of the GFC, which bills would _you_ have voted for and
why?": I'd have chosen a plan, maybe not "save the banks who caused all of
this", but that's only me. In democracy, you learn to accept the choice of
your fellow citizens (rather than the choice of an out-of-this-world elite).

I don't suggest we should remove all law-makers, but most decision-makers.
That's a huge difference.

"more interpretation by the judicial branch": how is it a bad thing? A judge
who doesn't judge but applies an algorithm instead isn't a judge to me. Funny
enough, a jury is still chosen among the people, but they have to judge
respect of the law, not facts, and the law is so tight (over-constrained)
there's no room for judgement.

"No prejudice? no law"... "Guarantees like this are the purpose of the
constitution"

The original purpose of the constitution? probably. Is it working? No, in a
great extent. A "no prejudice no law" would forbid surveillance of the whole
people.

"Less freedom for the People? no law": read it in the context of prejudice.
Prejudice is what makes law necessary because it must be repaired, punished,
and the people protected... from an individual who has caused prejudice. We
could abolish most laws and there wouldn't be more prejudice, because many
laws don't protect from prejudice. Lots of laws try to avoid potential
prejudice (eg. drug laws to protect order) and cause more pain than gain (war
on drugs! a war doesn't protect order, it causes chaos).

As long as you pay people to write new laws, guess what: they write new laws,
more is better for them. Then law become complex, people dodge it, then you
write new laws and people dodge them... Then a guy gets out of prison because
a fax-machine ran out of paper which compromised the procedure. This is caused
by too many laws, and judges who don't judge but are tasked to merely apply
the law.

"There are representative democracies that don't have the issues we see in
others": the Swiss are a striking example of more direct democracy... but yet,
the internet would allow us to go much further. See how people are passionate
about change.org, even if there's no guarantee of any effect? Imagine if their
opinion did count!!!

"the "great country" (as a non-American living in America, I find this
hilarious) was a representative democracy". I'm a non-american living abroad,
but I keep in mind what America once was (my phrasing wasn't clear about the
"once was" point). It's still a great country, but it's less and less free and
less an less great. Hence a bit of nostalgia. If the USA falls to more
government control, more enslavement of the people, less freedom, then a star
goes dark... and the USA is no more.

------
NiklasMort
I bet in a few years most countries will simply follow China and make it
illegal not to own/use "closed" devices that are not accessible for the
government. 1984 was harmless compared to what is already here and what is
coming.

~~~
mindcrime
_FYI man, alright. You could sit at home, and do like absolutely nothing, and
your name goes through like 17 computers a day. 1984? Yeah right, man. That 's
a typo. Orwell is here now. He's livin' large. We have no names, man. No
names. We are nameless!_

~~~
hprotagonist
Can I score a fry?

------
gaius
The Germans will be safe for a good few years yet. Their government will only
be able to do this when everyone who lived under the Stasi dies and can no
longer vote.

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haraldooo
Proposing such a drastic law should somehow be not so easy to do. Sure, this
proposal won‘t go through as is but what ever „weaker version“ of it will come
in a few months will therefore sound much more sensible and might go through..
these „tactics“ make me really angry..

------
jhiska
Folks, don't despair; always look at the bright side. They're still years away
from backdoor access to every German person!

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GTP
Never expected this from Germany.But we should wait to see if this is really
considered by the governament as viable or not.

~~~
iagooar
The good thing about Germany is that there is a healthy separation of powers
and the Constitutional Court will never allow this, not even coming from the
executive. If that step fails, there is still the German people who would
never allow this to get approved.

Or at least this is my intuition of what will possibly happen.

~~~
LoSboccacc
Bet ob the court because german people has been quite toothless in the last
decade

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bsqtmp
There is another big Risk to this point. If you have Back Doors everybody can
use it not just government

------
sunstone
The Germans always were anally fixated.

