A Hamburg court Friday barred a TV comedian from reciting in full his so-called “defamatory poem” against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan which sparked a diplomatic row last year. (…)
The Hamburg civil court, upholding a ruling from last May, barred Böhmermann from repeating lengthy passages of the poem, objecting to 18 of its 24 lines.
The Local.de: Hamburg court bans large parts of poem insulting Erdogan »
The broadly defined clause 30 of the Digital Economy Bill contains provisions for a “single gateway to enable public authorities, specified by regulation, to share personal information for tightly constrained reasons agreed by parliament, where its purpose is to improve the welfare of the individual in question. To use the gateway, the proposed sharing of information must be for the purpose of one of the specified objectives, which will be set out in regulations.”
Ars Technica: UK government’s huge citizen data grab is go—where are the legal safeguards? »
By the way, this discussion has been going on for decades…
https://youtu.be/ThzKQdlGbDw
New legislation in Austria:
EDRi: Proposed surveillance package in Austria sparks resistance »
Smile to pay. Customer recognition. Airport screening. These are some of the functionalities that face recognition brings to camera surveillance nowadays.
It will also allow for tracking people, building sociograms, can be integrated with different databases, behavioral analytics, and mass surveillance networks.
EU Observer:
It is too early to regulate the so-called block chain technology that underpins virtual currency Bitcoin, the European Securities and Markets Authority (ESMA) said on Tuesday. “At this stage, it is premature to fully assess the changes that the technology could bring and the regulatory response that may be needed,” ESMA said. It added that the new technology may benefit the financial sector by reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
Techcrunch: Twitter rolls out changes to silence abuse on its service »
BBC: Twitter rolls out new anti-abuse tools »
The Next Web: Twitter is rolling out three new ways to manage abusive tweets and users »
The drama surrounding the US »travel ban« underlines the importance of separation of powers. Wikipedia:
Separation of powers is a political doctrine originating in the writings of Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws where he urged for a constitutional government with three separate branches of government. Each of the three branches would have defined abilities to check the powers of the other branches. This idea was called separation of powers. This philosophy heavily influenced the writing of the United States Constitution, according to which the Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches of the United States government are kept distinct in order to prevent abuse of power. This United States form of separation of powers is associated with a system of checks and balances.
This principle will, no doubt, be stress-tested under president Trump.
Donald Trump might be impulsive and be shooting from the hip. This is problematic, as both Democrats and Republicans have granted the President extensive powers. (E.g. killing and detaining people, including US citizens, without due process.)
Those powers ought to be limited. But still, the larger picture is that there is a separation of powers and that the system is working. For now.
And this is where we should be vigilant. President Trump might do stupid and dangerous things. Mainly, these are issues for the everyday political discourse. But if he will try to limit the separation of powers – he will pass a red line. Then, the issue at hand will concern a cornerstone of democracy itself.
This is what is really important, interesting and worrying about the travel ban drama: A new president challenging the separation of powers from start.
/ HAX
The Intercept » Secret docs reveal: President Trump has inherited an FBI with vast hidden powers »
Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert):
I would argue that the human mind has recently evolved to include the thinking process of social media as a whole. We’re connected to social media like a great hive mind. And thanks to scientific advances in datametrics, the social media companies now have almost perfect mind control technology. (…)
Link: The Social Media Hive Mind »
Related video:
https://youtu.be/dAAUD7jtFas
Spies and civil servants who leak national security secrets face up to 14 years in jail, in a major overhaul of the Official Secrets Act in the face of the growing threat from Russia, the Daily Telegraph has learnt.
