"The US government has rules about what it can collect and put in it's own databases and use. Forward thinking people put careful rules in place preventing the government from legally playing big brother...
"Of course it has no such rules about what data in private databases it can in retrieve and use. The brownshirts can pretty much go in there and get anything they want anytime. Forward thinking people kind of had the blinders on about that one.
"Wow that Google toolbar sure is nice... ;)"
| serial port open => "division by zero in kernel" | 2 minutes ago | Linux kernel |
| problem downloading linux-staging tree | 2 hours ago | Linux general |
| ptrace and big kernel lock | 3 hours ago | Linux kernel |
| SMDK2410 LCD Framebuffer driver | 8 hours ago | Linux kernel |
| Resetting the bios password for Toshiba Laptop | 9 hours ago | Hardware |
| Problem booting a barebone kernel in VMWare | 12 hours ago | Linux kernel |
| IP layer send packet | 16 hours ago | Linux kernel |
| PID to ELF image full path | 19 hours ago | Linux kernel |
| types of kernel | 1 day ago | Linux kernel |
| magical mounts | 3 days ago | Linux kernel |
"Of course it has no such
"Of course it has no such rules about what data in private databases it can in retrieve and use."
Then american law is very different from law in most European countries, which put VERY strict rules on what infortation can be stored about persons, and how it can be used......
Many European countries,
Many European countries, like Germany, also have very strict affirmative rules requiring ISPs to store information that American ISPs would be free to discard or not keep at all. Which is better? Either way, the government can get access to any information it wants. Either as a matter of course, or by passing a law ex post giving it access to existing stored information.
The only way to prevent this is to not store it at all. But, again, that isn't even an option in many EU countries.
(Grandparent here) Both are
(Grandparent here)
Both are bad, and I especially hate that the European think that the information can help AT ALL.
But the American "right" to store information they see fit is still much, much worse.
You know exactly what is stored (and it is, more or less, useless) in the European scenario, and "can log" is not much better than "must log".
In the American scenario, you have absolutely no idea of what is being logged, or who gets to see it (Which is very restricted in Europa, at least in Denmark).
In Sweden
There seem to be a similar situation in Sweden. There's a twist though. The infra structure minister recently purposed to store ALL Internet traffic within the country. A lot of people shook their heads. The scary thing is not that the minister did not seem to understand the implications of such action but rather that such person was given the assignment. Gee...