This is democratic erosion and why United States founding documents are singular in their importance.
Such censorship is passed by elected legislators, interpreted by an independent judiciary, and subject to appeal (which NordVPN has already begun). From a procedural standpoint, that is democracy. But it ignores liberty, proportionality and limits on power.
Democratic erosion is how governments today expand surveillance, blocking and platform obligations while still technically obeying democratic rules
I think this is a misunderstanding:
> This is democratic erosion and why United States founding documents are singular in their importance.
Founding documents don't do shit. What one needs is a culture which is perpetually hostile towards power. All problems of power are social problems. No law, founding document, principle is going to prevent people from doing stuff if they want to do it.
You also need the formal mechanisms by which rule of law is upheld, protected against mob rule, and has a feedback loop in which course correction is possible. A culture hostile to power isn't stable without stable principles and a leviathan by which those principles persist, which is the whole point of the American experiment. The founding documents laid out a system intended to address the problems of the era, persist into the future, and adapt to the needs of each generation while protecting and maximizing the liberty of each individual.
If all you've got is uniform hostility to power, you've lost the plot and won't ever get past small scale tribalism.
I think its reasonable to argue that the founding documents have become subverted by changes in the political structure of society. From this point of view a too rigid adherence to the founding documents is just as problematic as a too weak one. In the end, it is the citizens which make the difference, not the structures. Any structure put into place will face relentless pressure from those who want power and citizens must be ready to present relentless counter-pressure.
Yeah, for France just compare reactions to these measures to the marching in the streets and general striking behavior you get from austerity measures, and the subsequent backpedaling by authorities. I can only conclude the average person there either just isn’t aware of this, doesn’t understand the implications, or doesn’t value these sorts of digital access erosions in the same way.
> From a procedural standpoint, that is democracy.
Actually, that is democracy, full stop!
Elected representatives vote new laws, and people react according to their interest.
with a pinch of smark, I dare to add:
1. civilised people know that a compromise between personal freedom and societal good has to be defined; discussions have been going for ages concerning where the limit should be, not about whether it should exist.
2. you don't need to be that smart to realize that private remote communications did hardly exist before modern technology; as such, bashing any such law as if was infringing on human rights is ridiculous at best.
As an American, I know that right now my words ring hollow - but the European approach to free speech (especially as it's handled in the UK) is incredibly alarming and off-putting.
We should all be tolerant societies, and the problem with tolerance is that you never have to tolerate speech you like.
"Private remote communications" like sending a letter have been around forever. The right of citizens to privacy is enshrined in the constitution of virtually every democracy. Sure there are some allowances that have to be made for common law vs civil law regimes, but if the right to privacy is routinely being violated that is a problem.
> the European approach to free speech (especially as it's handled in the UK) is incredibly alarming and off-putting.
We do have free speech in Blighty thank you very much. Unlike the current situation in the USA, where speaking out to, or disagreeing with, the president will get you removed from positions of authority (and/or confronting armed police).
If you haven't already gathered, such bogus claims of free speech restrictions in other countries are distracting you from the reality of what is happening in your own country.
> Unlike the current situation in the USA, where speaking out to, or disagreeing with, the president will get you removed from positions of authority (and/or confronting armed police).
Not quite sure what you're referring to here, you can speak out all you want on political matters in the US. -Especially- in the context of criticizing the president.
For what it's worth, I have lived in, and currently spend a lot of time in, both places. You're both very obviously wrong.
There is a serious problem in the US. There is also a serious (though different) problem in the UK. The problem in the US is the chilling effect of the vindictiveness and lawlessness of the current regime. I will not elaborate on this because it's too complicated to communicate effectively in a forum post.
The problem in the UK is a set of vaguely and arbitrarily specified-and-enforced laws that enable the criminalization of 'grossly offensive" speech. There is no statutory definition of what constitutes a 'grossly offensive' communication -- all enforcement is arbitrary and thus can be abused. Whether is it actually abused in any widespread fashion is irrelevant.
- Communications Act 2003 (Section 127): Makes it an offense to send messages via public electronic networks (internet, phone, social media) that are "grossly offensive," indecent, obscene, or menacing, or to cause annoyance/anxiety.
- Malicious Communications Act 1988 (Section 1): Applies to sending letters or electronic communications with the purpose of causing distress or anxiety, containing indecent or grossly offensive content.
I'm still not quite sure how UK law impacts the US. I was hoping for explicit examples of someone actually being removed from power because they were critical of the president. I think that would be pretty big news and the closest I have heard was one of the ex-military standing congresspeople being threatened with reduced military benefits, or legal action, but not actually anyone being removed from a position.
Another (higher profile) example are the baseless threats of criminal indictments against Jerome Powell -- it is impossible to argue that these threats have been made for any reason other than that he, as a nonpartisan official, defied the president's demands to execute his duties as fed chair in such a way (that is, poorly) so as to put a temporary thumb on the scale for the current admin.
The more important question, I think, is how many folk in explicitly nonpartisan functions are choosing not to break step with the current admin for fear of some sort of (likely professional) reprisal. I'm not alleging that they're disappearing dissenters or anything that inflammatory, but it would be intellectually dishonest to contend that there isn't a long, well-documented trail of malfeasance here.
Aaaah, I was wondering where you were pulling the claims about free speech in the UK from, but I understand now: it's the speech that aligns with your values is free! Was confused there for a bit.
Well, according to that line of thought, people in the US only face the consequences of going against national security and are free to sue the government for wrongful termination/slander/whatever.
Now we can agree that there's free speech everywhere.
> but I understand now: it's the speech that aligns with your values is free!
What a wilfully ridiculous interpretation of my text!
I'll type this slowly for you: In civilised democracies, inciting violence against ANYBODY is illegal and crosses the line from free speech. Any decision to convict for incitement lies with a jury of 12 random citizens.
Calm your horses there, mate. The interpretation is fully justified.
Assuming you live in the UK, you're basically saying that losing your job because you criticised the government is a very grave matter indeed, but what happened to Palestine Action is all nice and dandy because jurors.
For those who don't know: Palestine Action is a collective of people protesting the genocide in Gaza, they would occupy/blockade factories of Israeli weapons manufacturers and "vandalise" said weapons. They were recently declared a terrorist group and proscribed, with thousands being arrested for showing support (including by wearing t-shirts) since.
You're right, losing your job because you said something against the government and going to prison because you wore a t-shirt protesting an ongoing genocide are not the same thing.
> "Private remote communications" like sending a letter have been around forever.
Yes, but it was never more private than the law decided for. Any judge could lawfully have the police tear the envelope apart and read the contents during an investigations. In this sense, the only private communication that ever existed was from mouth to ear.
Today's technology enables actual privacy any anonimity online, and any good and bad deeds can be hidden behind the screen, and nobody should be offended, nor surprised, that civilised societies may want to have a say in the matter.
>Yes, but it was never more private than the law decided for. Any judge could lawfully have the police tear the envelope apart and read the contents during an investigations. In this sense, the only private communication that ever existed was from mouth to ear.
Good point, if regrettable. Even unlicensed encryption/ciphers have been made illegal by governments as wide ranging as Italy (15th c), France (16th c), Britain (18th c) and the US (WWI)
Yes, but it was never more private than the law decided for. Any judge could lawfully have the police tear the envelope apart and read the contents during an investigations
This is more like a judge ordering phone book providers not to list a phone number for a public organization known to engage in criminal activity. It would be prima facie unconstitutional in America, while the police opening a suspect's envelope can be an authorized legal search.
The U.S. constitution doesn't do much on its own, though. Sure, you might be able to win a case because of it, but there is no saying how much time you'll spend in prison or how much money you'll spend on lawyers before winning.
Like a sibling comment said: you need a culture that rejects this stuff and punishes it quickly.
I mean, no not really. If you quickly go to trail without putting your homework in you're going to get your ass handed to you and sit under a jail for the rest of your life regardless of your actual guilt.
Statistical analysis of how the law actually works is far more valuable than what the law says.
It’s not ancient history that the FCC threatened to take away ABCs broadcast license because Trump didn’t like what was said about Kirk or that public school teachers and college professors were fired over Kirk.
Not sure about Alabama, but accessing porn sites in Virginia (where they are currently banned without adult verification) is easy. Just use the TOR browser, and it works just fine. No need for expensive VPNs.
America's founding documents are effectively toilet paper at this point, and have been eroded to the point of being farce. America has a beholden press, a captured media, is governed by unchecked plutocrats, has a farcically busted justice system, and has the foot on the neck of Americans. Having Americans make proclamations at this point -- while their leader is openly threatening militarily annexing actual democracies that rate higher on every metric -- is simply incredible.
Every American needs to stop the online rhetoric about its once glory and spend some time doing some introspection, because Jesus Christ, this is ridiculous.
You have too much faith in a 250 year old document. In the last ~5 years we've seen this Supreme Court, despite their alleged "textualist" or "originalist" philosophy, just completley invent things out of thin air. Three examples spring to mind:
1. The "major questions doctrine". This is simply the idea that if the impact of legislation that is passed by Congress and signed by the president is "large" then the Supreme Court gets to overrule the other two branches of government because they want to. Where is that in the Constitution?
2. The "history and traditions text". This is simply the idea that if the political actors on the bench can find (or, in some cses, invent) something that happenned or was "normal" 250 years ago then it is legal precedent. That doesn't seem to apply to abortion however. Benjamin Franklin published instructions on at-home abortions [1]. How is that not "history and tradition"?
3. The court completely invented presidential immunity out of thin air in a country that rebelled against a monarch.
"What's good for companies and their owners?" tends to be a pretty good predictor for what our Supreme Court does.
What we're seeing in France and elsewhere is the dying breath of neoliberalism. Companies are successfully using the courts worldwide to erode individual rights in the interests of profits. The Constitution doesn't protect you from this. The EU's defenses against this sort of thing seem to be eroding, if they existed at all.
> 1. The "major questions doctrine". This is simply the idea that if the impact of legislation that is passed by Congress and signed by the president is "large" then the Supreme Court gets to overrule the other two branches of government because they want to. Where is that in the Constitution?
That is a wildly inaccurate take on the "major questions doctrine". You are actually describing SCOTUS power to determine if laws are "constitutional", which was decided (by SCOTUS) in 1803 (Marbury v. Madison).
It might be a fair-enough interpretation. For major issues, what's ambiguously said (or unsaid) by Congress can be specifically said (or unsaid) by the Courts.
Point #2 is related, as it also connected to a requirement to interpret "intent", which is a
tricky thing even at the best of times.
As for point #3, I can't comment. I don't quite understand Roberts' logic about official vs. discretionary, but I feel it has something to do with original framers' intent also.
The Constitutional authority of the Supreme Court was rather vague. There are several areas where the court has what's called "original jurisdiction", the most notable of which is where a state is a party. So when states sue each other, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, meaning it directly hears those cases.
The Constitutioin also established lifetime appointment and that the court interpreted constitutionality but didn't really specify what that means, which is actually pretty common for the Constitution. It's not that long of a document.
It's up to Congress to establish a lot of the court's powers, the earliest part of which was the Judiciary Act of 1789. The court's ability to review state court decisions didn't come until the 20th century.
A big change was Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review. The court granted itself this power.
My point here is that the concentp of statutory interpretation is not a constitutional authority. And "major questions doctrine" is an issue of statutory interpretation. The origins of this came from a 2000 decision where the court used "common sense" (seriously) to determine what Congress intended [1]:
> The doctrine was articulated as a paradigm in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. (2000), which advised "common sense" in assessing whether Congress intended to delegate broad regulatory powers
As the court often does, it grants itself authority then later extends that authority so "common sense" under Rehnquist becamse "major questions doctrine" under Roberts:
> It was applied in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (2014) and King v. Burwell (2015), with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority in the latter.[2] The Court first explicitly called it the "major questions doctrine" in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), where it held that agencies must point to "clear congressional authorization" for the power asserted in "extraordinary cases"
The Roberts court then went on to use this subjective idea of "clear Congressional authorization" as strike down Covid mandates, student loan forgiveness, the power of the EPA and a bunch of other very political ends. Weird.
And once again, none of this invokes any Constitutional protection or language at all.
Why do individual European countries seem so obsessed with blocking Pirate sites? I assume the majority of IPs being pirated are likely from outside their own country, so the harm is negligible to the individual country's internal revenue streams, no?
> Why do individual European countries seem so obsessed with blocking Pirate sites?
Ask the Disney Cooperation.
A facetious, but true, remark that describes the influence the large American media companies can have in combating piracy over here. Sir should recall the pressure the USA put on Sweden to close down the Pirate Bay; a Swedish site running in Sweden.
In Czech Republic you are automatically assumed to be a pirate and thus paying fee from size of empty memory device (USB, SD, HDD, ..) by GB. So lot of people will justify piracy by "I have already paid for it".
Czechia also doesn't have a major entertainment revenue the same way France does. Ligue 1 generates around $3B a year in revenue, while Chance Liga is in the $10M-50M, and most Czech language media remains owned and distributed by state-owned CT, so rights have already been paid. And private sector CME/Nova (formerly owned by Ronald Lauder of "let's invade Greenland" fame and now owned by Petr Kellner's family) and Prima (owned by oligarch Ivan Zach) are used by their owners as political tools.
Media & Entertainment Services are overrepresented in a number of European countries like Italy, Spain, and France. Tier 1 Football/Soccer is a massive revenue generator, and one of the most pirated products globally.
> I assume the majority of IPs being pirated are likely from outside their own country
Ever heard of Ligue 1, home to teams like PSG, Olympique de Marseille, Olympique Lyonnais, and AS Monaco, and superstars like Mbappe, Dembélé, and Hakimi? French viewers also watch Spanish, Italian, Belgian, German, and English football/soccer as well.
"All VPN providers, except ProtonVPN, appeared in court to argue a defense. They raised various arguments, with the “no-log” defense from Surfshark and NordVPN standing out."
Proton is relocating their servers out of Switzerland and into Germany over privacy concerns. They are now facing the possibility of the same privacy concerns in EU countries. Ironically, the safest place to host a private VPN service may actually be USA given the way privacy-related things in the EU are going.
The EU member states are still sovereign, though. This French court ruling doesn't really affect the prospects of certain kinds of privacy in Germany. I think the parent might have been referring to the fact they didn't raise a no-log argument, thus implying they do log. But I don't think that makes much sense either.
To be fair, it is ridiculous to advocate that the solution to a broken system is circumventing the laws. Fix for the problems for copyright and intellectual property systems can't be "heroic" VPN companies.
Kim Dotcom become filthy rich by selling access to copyrighted materials and turned into folk hero of the alt-right. He was selling other peoples work per the kilobyte when kids were persecuted for copyright infringement, videos taken down for using a few second of music or a clip from another video . That is not a fair system.
> Specifically, the VPNs argued that their “no-log” policy means they do not track user IP addresses or geolocate their users. Therefore, a court order to block access only for French users would violate their contractual obligations.
> For now, however, the targeted VPN providers have to find a way to implement the blocking order.
I'm curious about this point. What solution do they have if they want geolocalisation without giving up on privacy ?
Zero knowledge cryptography could work here. You can prove you're over 18 without revealing your age or prove you're in France without revealing anything else. VPN providers might not be skilled enough to implement it though.
Blocking VPNs is extremely difficult. Even if mainstream VPNs are blocked, you can set up your own on a VPS and keep giving middle finger to the Spanish government.
Time traveler here. Eventually there would be DPI blackboxes. You do not have to be 100% successful there, blocking 99% and playing cat and mouse with the remaining 1% might be enough.
"boete" means "fine". With that, I think there's enough loan/brand words that the article lede is readable to any English speaker. Basically, cloudflare has in Italy gotten a 14 million euro fine because it refused to implement blocks for its public dns service 1.1.1.1
Anyway, dns blocks are silly. So long as it's in the dns system proper, you can trivially run a local resolver. Focusing on this now is just a distraction until IP blocks come along and you actually can't reach blocked parts of the internet if the target service doesn't support an overlay network
That article says that Cloudflare is fighting Spain about the censorship.
ISP-level censorship is extremely rare in the US. Copyright and piracy is almost always handled by domain seizure ordered by a court, not ISP-level blocking (as is common in the EU).
It's a simple narrative, one which increasingly looks like very convenient scapegoating as the cover is being blown with the ongoing divorce. It may be time to take a closer look at the other, more insidious, culprits. Europe has had its very own history of draconian business practices. Those empires haven't disappeared. Greed is greed everywhere.
Reminder to Americans with a strong sense of American exceptionalism (which is rather incredible given...{gestures broadly at everything happening in the US}): Sovereign states can apply whatever laws they want. They are not beholden to JD Vance, Elon Musk, or Donald "Conman" Trump. They do not care what Americans think about this.
vpn, piracy sites, government-level blocking, etc. is all pretty damn on-topic for hacker news.
the "wrong" types of political content, for this site, are the ones that have nothing to do with technology of any kind, and spark no curiosity otherwise.
This is democratic erosion and why United States founding documents are singular in their importance.
Such censorship is passed by elected legislators, interpreted by an independent judiciary, and subject to appeal (which NordVPN has already begun). From a procedural standpoint, that is democracy. But it ignores liberty, proportionality and limits on power.
Democratic erosion is how governments today expand surveillance, blocking and platform obligations while still technically obeying democratic rules
I think this is a misunderstanding: > This is democratic erosion and why United States founding documents are singular in their importance.
Founding documents don't do shit. What one needs is a culture which is perpetually hostile towards power. All problems of power are social problems. No law, founding document, principle is going to prevent people from doing stuff if they want to do it.
You also need the formal mechanisms by which rule of law is upheld, protected against mob rule, and has a feedback loop in which course correction is possible. A culture hostile to power isn't stable without stable principles and a leviathan by which those principles persist, which is the whole point of the American experiment. The founding documents laid out a system intended to address the problems of the era, persist into the future, and adapt to the needs of each generation while protecting and maximizing the liberty of each individual.
If all you've got is uniform hostility to power, you've lost the plot and won't ever get past small scale tribalism.
I think its reasonable to argue that the founding documents have become subverted by changes in the political structure of society. From this point of view a too rigid adherence to the founding documents is just as problematic as a too weak one. In the end, it is the citizens which make the difference, not the structures. Any structure put into place will face relentless pressure from those who want power and citizens must be ready to present relentless counter-pressure.
>all you've got is uniform hostility to power
What is the evidence of that? I see a lot of people wanting a) more centralized power and b) who controls it
Yeah, for France just compare reactions to these measures to the marching in the streets and general striking behavior you get from austerity measures, and the subsequent backpedaling by authorities. I can only conclude the average person there either just isn’t aware of this, doesn’t understand the implications, or doesn’t value these sorts of digital access erosions in the same way.
> From a procedural standpoint, that is democracy.
Actually, that is democracy, full stop!
Elected representatives vote new laws, and people react according to their interest.
with a pinch of smark, I dare to add:
1. civilised people know that a compromise between personal freedom and societal good has to be defined; discussions have been going for ages concerning where the limit should be, not about whether it should exist.
2. you don't need to be that smart to realize that private remote communications did hardly exist before modern technology; as such, bashing any such law as if was infringing on human rights is ridiculous at best.
As an American, I know that right now my words ring hollow - but the European approach to free speech (especially as it's handled in the UK) is incredibly alarming and off-putting.
We should all be tolerant societies, and the problem with tolerance is that you never have to tolerate speech you like.
"Private remote communications" like sending a letter have been around forever. The right of citizens to privacy is enshrined in the constitution of virtually every democracy. Sure there are some allowances that have to be made for common law vs civil law regimes, but if the right to privacy is routinely being violated that is a problem.
> the European approach to free speech (especially as it's handled in the UK) is incredibly alarming and off-putting.
We do have free speech in Blighty thank you very much. Unlike the current situation in the USA, where speaking out to, or disagreeing with, the president will get you removed from positions of authority (and/or confronting armed police).
If you haven't already gathered, such bogus claims of free speech restrictions in other countries are distracting you from the reality of what is happening in your own country.
> Unlike the current situation in the USA, where speaking out to, or disagreeing with, the president will get you removed from positions of authority (and/or confronting armed police).
Not quite sure what you're referring to here, you can speak out all you want on political matters in the US. -Especially- in the context of criticizing the president.
For what it's worth, I have lived in, and currently spend a lot of time in, both places. You're both very obviously wrong.
There is a serious problem in the US. There is also a serious (though different) problem in the UK. The problem in the US is the chilling effect of the vindictiveness and lawlessness of the current regime. I will not elaborate on this because it's too complicated to communicate effectively in a forum post.
The problem in the UK is a set of vaguely and arbitrarily specified-and-enforced laws that enable the criminalization of 'grossly offensive" speech. There is no statutory definition of what constitutes a 'grossly offensive' communication -- all enforcement is arbitrary and thus can be abused. Whether is it actually abused in any widespread fashion is irrelevant.
- Communications Act 2003 (Section 127): Makes it an offense to send messages via public electronic networks (internet, phone, social media) that are "grossly offensive," indecent, obscene, or menacing, or to cause annoyance/anxiety.
- Malicious Communications Act 1988 (Section 1): Applies to sending letters or electronic communications with the purpose of causing distress or anxiety, containing indecent or grossly offensive content.
I'm still not quite sure how UK law impacts the US. I was hoping for explicit examples of someone actually being removed from power because they were critical of the president. I think that would be pretty big news and the closest I have heard was one of the ex-military standing congresspeople being threatened with reduced military benefits, or legal action, but not actually anyone being removed from a position.
There have been a host of civil servants purged from a litany of federal services for this reason. You don't have to look very hard to find them. Example: https://www.npr.org/2025/09/10/g-s1-87947/fbi-lawsuit-firing....
Another (higher profile) example are the baseless threats of criminal indictments against Jerome Powell -- it is impossible to argue that these threats have been made for any reason other than that he, as a nonpartisan official, defied the president's demands to execute his duties as fed chair in such a way (that is, poorly) so as to put a temporary thumb on the scale for the current admin.
The more important question, I think, is how many folk in explicitly nonpartisan functions are choosing not to break step with the current admin for fear of some sort of (likely professional) reprisal. I'm not alleging that they're disappearing dissenters or anything that inflammatory, but it would be intellectually dishonest to contend that there isn't a long, well-documented trail of malfeasance here.
https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/us-epa-fires-some-e...
Jimmy Kimmel Terry Moran
It happened in his last term too - https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Senior-Trump-appointee-fir...
And even worse: people fired for overseeing accurate data about his administration https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/firing-of-labor-statistics...
> you can speak out all you want on political matters in the US
Forgive, me for being blunt. You must be wilfully ignorant not to observe how many people your president has fired for speaking against him.
> We do have free speech in Blighty thank you very much.
Thousands of people were prosecuted for holding I support Palestinian Action signs.[1]
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c051g2q5651o
Palestine Action was (rightly or wrongly) held up to be a terrorist organisation.
Calling for violence & terrorism crosses the line from free speech in most democracies, including the UK.
Those people who were prosecuted will face a jury of their peers who are perfectly entitled to find them not guilty.
Aaaah, I was wondering where you were pulling the claims about free speech in the UK from, but I understand now: it's the speech that aligns with your values is free! Was confused there for a bit.
Well, according to that line of thought, people in the US only face the consequences of going against national security and are free to sue the government for wrongful termination/slander/whatever.
Now we can agree that there's free speech everywhere.
> but I understand now: it's the speech that aligns with your values is free!
What a wilfully ridiculous interpretation of my text!
I'll type this slowly for you: In civilised democracies, inciting violence against ANYBODY is illegal and crosses the line from free speech. Any decision to convict for incitement lies with a jury of 12 random citizens.
Calm your horses there, mate. The interpretation is fully justified.
Assuming you live in the UK, you're basically saying that losing your job because you criticised the government is a very grave matter indeed, but what happened to Palestine Action is all nice and dandy because jurors.
For those who don't know: Palestine Action is a collective of people protesting the genocide in Gaza, they would occupy/blockade factories of Israeli weapons manufacturers and "vandalise" said weapons. They were recently declared a terrorist group and proscribed, with thousands being arrested for showing support (including by wearing t-shirts) since.
You're right, losing your job because you said something against the government and going to prison because you wore a t-shirt protesting an ongoing genocide are not the same thing.
Speech in the UK's never been better.
> "Private remote communications" like sending a letter have been around forever.
Yes, but it was never more private than the law decided for. Any judge could lawfully have the police tear the envelope apart and read the contents during an investigations. In this sense, the only private communication that ever existed was from mouth to ear.
Today's technology enables actual privacy any anonimity online, and any good and bad deeds can be hidden behind the screen, and nobody should be offended, nor surprised, that civilised societies may want to have a say in the matter.
>Yes, but it was never more private than the law decided for. Any judge could lawfully have the police tear the envelope apart and read the contents during an investigations. In this sense, the only private communication that ever existed was from mouth to ear.
Good point, if regrettable. Even unlicensed encryption/ciphers have been made illegal by governments as wide ranging as Italy (15th c), France (16th c), Britain (18th c) and the US (WWI)
Yes, but it was never more private than the law decided for. Any judge could lawfully have the police tear the envelope apart and read the contents during an investigations
This is more like a judge ordering phone book providers not to list a phone number for a public organization known to engage in criminal activity. It would be prima facie unconstitutional in America, while the police opening a suspect's envelope can be an authorized legal search.
> discussions have been going for ages concerning where the limit should be
I don't remember any discussions about that. It's always a statement 'to protect the children' or 'fight piracy'.
> It's always a statement 'to protect the children' or 'fight piracy'
Both of which make a lot of sense.
And the contrarian view is always expressed as a matter of "privacy", as if remote privacy had ever existed before a couple decades ago.
Laws must be discussed based on their intentions and their expected result. Inventing dogmas doesn't help societal advancement.
> hardly exist before modern technology
Do rights only exist to protect the human condition as we suppose it was "before modern technology"?
The U.S. constitution doesn't do much on its own, though. Sure, you might be able to win a case because of it, but there is no saying how much time you'll spend in prison or how much money you'll spend on lawyers before winning.
Like a sibling comment said: you need a culture that rejects this stuff and punishes it quickly.
Without disagreeing with your general sentiment, I would point out (and you can argue over the magnitude/sufficiency of them)-
>there is no saying how much time you'll spend in prison or how much money you'll spend on lawyers before winning.
Sixth and eighth amendments.
I mean, no not really. If you quickly go to trail without putting your homework in you're going to get your ass handed to you and sit under a jail for the rest of your life regardless of your actual guilt.
Statistical analysis of how the law actually works is far more valuable than what the law says.
It’s not ancient history that the FCC threatened to take away ABCs broadcast license because Trump didn’t like what was said about Kirk or that public school teachers and college professors were fired over Kirk.
A lot of good the founding documents are doing in the US these days.
Do you need pirate live streams that badly?
Notably the USA is experiencing a severe case of "democratic erosion" right now.
Hi. You cannot log on to porn sites in Alabama which is subject to those documents. I think it’s crazy that you’re this naive.
Not sure about Alabama, but accessing porn sites in Virginia (where they are currently banned without adult verification) is easy. Just use the TOR browser, and it works just fine. No need for expensive VPNs.
I honestly can't tell whether this is satire.
America's founding documents are effectively toilet paper at this point, and have been eroded to the point of being farce. America has a beholden press, a captured media, is governed by unchecked plutocrats, has a farcically busted justice system, and has the foot on the neck of Americans. Having Americans make proclamations at this point -- while their leader is openly threatening militarily annexing actual democracies that rate higher on every metric -- is simply incredible.
Every American needs to stop the online rhetoric about its once glory and spend some time doing some introspection, because Jesus Christ, this is ridiculous.
You have too much faith in a 250 year old document. In the last ~5 years we've seen this Supreme Court, despite their alleged "textualist" or "originalist" philosophy, just completley invent things out of thin air. Three examples spring to mind:
1. The "major questions doctrine". This is simply the idea that if the impact of legislation that is passed by Congress and signed by the president is "large" then the Supreme Court gets to overrule the other two branches of government because they want to. Where is that in the Constitution?
2. The "history and traditions text". This is simply the idea that if the political actors on the bench can find (or, in some cses, invent) something that happenned or was "normal" 250 years ago then it is legal precedent. That doesn't seem to apply to abortion however. Benjamin Franklin published instructions on at-home abortions [1]. How is that not "history and tradition"?
3. The court completely invented presidential immunity out of thin air in a country that rebelled against a monarch.
"What's good for companies and their owners?" tends to be a pretty good predictor for what our Supreme Court does.
What we're seeing in France and elsewhere is the dying breath of neoliberalism. Companies are successfully using the courts worldwide to erode individual rights in the interests of profits. The Constitution doesn't protect you from this. The EU's defenses against this sort of thing seem to be eroding, if they existed at all.
[1]: https://www.npr.org/2022/05/18/1099542962/abortion-ben-frank...
10/10 best comment.
> 1. The "major questions doctrine". This is simply the idea that if the impact of legislation that is passed by Congress and signed by the president is "large" then the Supreme Court gets to overrule the other two branches of government because they want to. Where is that in the Constitution?
That is a wildly inaccurate take on the "major questions doctrine". You are actually describing SCOTUS power to determine if laws are "constitutional", which was decided (by SCOTUS) in 1803 (Marbury v. Madison).
2 and 3 are well-made points.
It might be a fair-enough interpretation. For major issues, what's ambiguously said (or unsaid) by Congress can be specifically said (or unsaid) by the Courts.
Point #2 is related, as it also connected to a requirement to interpret "intent", which is a tricky thing even at the best of times.
As for point #3, I can't comment. I don't quite understand Roberts' logic about official vs. discretionary, but I feel it has something to do with original framers' intent also.
The Constitutional authority of the Supreme Court was rather vague. There are several areas where the court has what's called "original jurisdiction", the most notable of which is where a state is a party. So when states sue each other, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction, meaning it directly hears those cases.
The Constitutioin also established lifetime appointment and that the court interpreted constitutionality but didn't really specify what that means, which is actually pretty common for the Constitution. It's not that long of a document.
It's up to Congress to establish a lot of the court's powers, the earliest part of which was the Judiciary Act of 1789. The court's ability to review state court decisions didn't come until the 20th century.
A big change was Marbury v. Madison, which established the principle of judicial review. The court granted itself this power.
My point here is that the concentp of statutory interpretation is not a constitutional authority. And "major questions doctrine" is an issue of statutory interpretation. The origins of this came from a 2000 decision where the court used "common sense" (seriously) to determine what Congress intended [1]:
> The doctrine was articulated as a paradigm in FDA v. Brown & Williamson Tobacco Corp. (2000), which advised "common sense" in assessing whether Congress intended to delegate broad regulatory powers
As the court often does, it grants itself authority then later extends that authority so "common sense" under Rehnquist becamse "major questions doctrine" under Roberts:
> It was applied in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA (2014) and King v. Burwell (2015), with Chief Justice John Roberts writing for the majority in the latter.[2] The Court first explicitly called it the "major questions doctrine" in West Virginia v. EPA (2022), where it held that agencies must point to "clear congressional authorization" for the power asserted in "extraordinary cases"
The Roberts court then went on to use this subjective idea of "clear Congressional authorization" as strike down Covid mandates, student loan forgiveness, the power of the EPA and a bunch of other very political ends. Weird.
And once again, none of this invokes any Constitutional protection or language at all.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_questions_doctrine
Why do individual European countries seem so obsessed with blocking Pirate sites? I assume the majority of IPs being pirated are likely from outside their own country, so the harm is negligible to the individual country's internal revenue streams, no?
> Why do individual European countries seem so obsessed with blocking Pirate sites?
Ask the Disney Cooperation.
A facetious, but true, remark that describes the influence the large American media companies can have in combating piracy over here. Sir should recall the pressure the USA put on Sweden to close down the Pirate Bay; a Swedish site running in Sweden.
Not all European countries have media markets dominated by American conglomerates. European conglomerates gladly lobby as much as American ones.
In France's case, it's French conglomerates like Bolloré, Lagardère, Illiad, Dassault, and LVMH that dominate media IP ownership.
In Spain, it's Grupo Planeta and Burlesconi owned Fininvest that dominate IP ownership.
In Italy, it's Burlesconi owned Fininvest that dominates IP ownership.
In Czech Republic you are automatically assumed to be a pirate and thus paying fee from size of empty memory device (USB, SD, HDD, ..) by GB. So lot of people will justify piracy by "I have already paid for it".
Don't worry we also have it in France.
But it's not enough apparently.
We have this crap in Sweden also.
Seems like most EU countries have this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy
Czechia also doesn't have a major entertainment revenue the same way France does. Ligue 1 generates around $3B a year in revenue, while Chance Liga is in the $10M-50M, and most Czech language media remains owned and distributed by state-owned CT, so rights have already been paid. And private sector CME/Nova (formerly owned by Ronald Lauder of "let's invade Greenland" fame and now owned by Petr Kellner's family) and Prima (owned by oligarch Ivan Zach) are used by their owners as political tools.
Media & Entertainment Services are overrepresented in a number of European countries like Italy, Spain, and France. Tier 1 Football/Soccer is a massive revenue generator, and one of the most pirated products globally.
> I assume the majority of IPs being pirated are likely from outside their own country
Ever heard of Ligue 1, home to teams like PSG, Olympique de Marseille, Olympique Lyonnais, and AS Monaco, and superstars like Mbappe, Dembélé, and Hakimi? French viewers also watch Spanish, Italian, Belgian, German, and English football/soccer as well.
France has a strong creative industry, which is why the government has always been very active in this domain.
Some other European are much less concerned about the issue.
It's also because telecom, media, and entertainment's represents a much larger component of France's economy compared to other EU states.
Spain and Italy are in a similar boat as France in that regard.
It's just used as a stepping stone toward more censorship and surveillance
Piracy does not pay taxes ;)
Or make "campaign contributions".
Pretty ominous line here for ProtonVPN users:
"All VPN providers, except ProtonVPN, appeared in court to argue a defense. They raised various arguments, with the “no-log” defense from Surfshark and NordVPN standing out."
What's ominous about it?
Proton is relocating their servers out of Switzerland and into Germany over privacy concerns. They are now facing the possibility of the same privacy concerns in EU countries. Ironically, the safest place to host a private VPN service may actually be USA given the way privacy-related things in the EU are going.
The EU member states are still sovereign, though. This French court ruling doesn't really affect the prospects of certain kinds of privacy in Germany. I think the parent might have been referring to the fact they didn't raise a no-log argument, thus implying they do log. But I don't think that makes much sense either.
The main reason for Protonmail's existence is that they are not hosted in the USA.
> Ironically, the safest place to host a private VPN service may actually be USA given the way privacy-related things in the EU are going.
Why, because American companies are never forced to do things because of copyright and/or law enforcement?
Switzerland has lax laws on piracy for personal use so I'm quite surprised by this.
Lazy af, to start with ... considering it's their wheelhouse ...
To be fair, it is ridiculous to advocate that the solution to a broken system is circumventing the laws. Fix for the problems for copyright and intellectual property systems can't be "heroic" VPN companies.
Kim Dotcom become filthy rich by selling access to copyrighted materials and turned into folk hero of the alt-right. He was selling other peoples work per the kilobyte when kids were persecuted for copyright infringement, videos taken down for using a few second of music or a clip from another video . That is not a fair system.
>To be fair, it is ridiculous to advocate that the solution to a broken system is circumventing the laws.
The American Revolution would like a word.
The US independence wasn't a bunch of people circumventing laws.
Britain would disagree.
Standing up and saying you will not follow a law isn't circumventing it.
Throwing a revolution and creating a new country with its own legal framework, however, is.
In fact, it is probably the ne plus ultra of law circumvention.
>it is ridiculous to advocate that the solution to a broken system is circumventing the laws
can you explain precisely why this is a ridiculous concept?
it seems like an extremely reasonable course of action in some situations.
> Specifically, the VPNs argued that their “no-log” policy means they do not track user IP addresses or geolocate their users. Therefore, a court order to block access only for French users would violate their contractual obligations. > For now, however, the targeted VPN providers have to find a way to implement the blocking order.
I'm curious about this point. What solution do they have if they want geolocalisation without giving up on privacy ?
Zero knowledge cryptography could work here. You can prove you're over 18 without revealing your age or prove you're in France without revealing anything else. VPN providers might not be skilled enough to implement it though.
They should ask Spain, how the court order blocked Cloudflare CDN at the ISP level.. badly
Do the people who asked for that block really think it went badly?
French Court Orders Popular Winemakers to Remove Alcohol, Despite Opposition
Will they ban Tor as well? You can visit those sites with Tor easily anyway.
Arrrrrrrrrr, me hearties ... we be needin VPNs fer our VPNs!
It is all about football matches on IPTV; it has nothing to do with torrent or free speech.
Isn't ISP-level blocking of the kind seen in Europe trivially bypassable by using a non-ISP DNS server such as 9.9.9.9 or 1.1.1.1?
They're not just doing DNS blocking. Spain is doing IP blocking and other countries will follow.
Then you use a VPN and give them the middle finger?
VPN blocking is coming next.
Blocking VPNs is extremely difficult. Even if mainstream VPNs are blocked, you can set up your own on a VPS and keep giving middle finger to the Spanish government.
Time traveler here. Eventually there would be DPI blackboxes. You do not have to be 100% successful there, blocking 99% and playing cat and mouse with the remaining 1% might be enough.
https://tweakers.net/nieuws/243456/italie-geeft-cloudflare-b...
"boete" means "fine". With that, I think there's enough loan/brand words that the article lede is readable to any English speaker. Basically, cloudflare has in Italy gotten a 14 million euro fine because it refused to implement blocks for its public dns service 1.1.1.1
Anyway, dns blocks are silly. So long as it's in the dns system proper, you can trivially run a local resolver. Focusing on this now is just a distraction until IP blocks come along and you actually can't reach blocked parts of the internet if the target service doesn't support an overlay network
Pirate sites? It would do more good if they blocked X instead.
How long until we see orders to block torrents, decentralised tech like IPFS?
VPNs have legitimate uses, if the precedence is set it opens the door to DHT blocking i.e. bootstrap nodes/adresses.
One of the benefits of the USA no longer being an ally is we should be able to ignore all this sort of bullshit in the EU now.
Cory Doctorow was talking about it recently. https://youtu.be/3C1Gnxhfok0?si=OzjYwL16yLzQUwuY
Yes now that the EU is divorcing the US you can now stream soccer illegally! Oh wait… you guys are doing ISP-level censorship on your own
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Business/wireStory/spanish-soccer...
That article says that Cloudflare is fighting Spain about the censorship.
ISP-level censorship is extremely rare in the US. Copyright and piracy is almost always handled by domain seizure ordered by a court, not ISP-level blocking (as is common in the EU).
Eh? What has this got to do with the US? European based sports broadcast rights are an EU & UK issue entirely.
The truth is that the EU loves copyright and censorship just as much as the US does. The only difference is the branding and who pushes for it.
It is mostly US companies (Like Universal and Disney) pushing for copyright regulation in EU.
It's a simple narrative, one which increasingly looks like very convenient scapegoating as the cover is being blown with the ongoing divorce. It may be time to take a closer look at the other, more insidious, culprits. Europe has had its very own history of draconian business practices. Those empires haven't disappeared. Greed is greed everywhere.
France has its own self important cultural industry to pressure the government. And then sometimes the President himself is married to a pop star.
In this specific case, it's not culture though, it's the sports diffusion rights mafia (LFP, beIN, Canal+).
The EU is perfectly capable of doing its bullshit all by itself. See 'chat control'.
Reminder to Americans with a strong sense of American exceptionalism (which is rather incredible given...{gestures broadly at everything happening in the US}): Sovereign states can apply whatever laws they want. They are not beholden to JD Vance, Elon Musk, or Donald "Conman" Trump. They do not care what Americans think about this.
Yeah! It is not like America is going to come to arrest their leaders!
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vpn, piracy sites, government-level blocking, etc. is all pretty damn on-topic for hacker news.
the "wrong" types of political content, for this site, are the ones that have nothing to do with technology of any kind, and spark no curiosity otherwise.