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Comment by declan_roberts | Hacker News Reader

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declan_roberts

I don't get what's happening to civil liberty in Europe.

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We can drink alcohol in outdoor public places, can Americans?

The problem is the decline. We had more liberties 10 years ago than we do today.

Whether Americans are free or unfree shouldn’t distract us from this.

This is specific to each municipality/state. The United States federally has no laws regarding the outdoor consumption of alcohol.

Yes.

The empire is collapsing, so the chairs are being moved aside, the curtain behind the stage is being drawn and the ugly brick wall is being exposed...

This was Brexits doing. As we are no longer EU, we have our own cool rules such as the upcoming PM allowed to watch me take a piss law.

The EU is currently planning exactly the same thing with Chat Control.

Eu isnt 'planning' anything like that. Some Euparl MPs backed by people like Ashton Kutcher tried to push a law to spy on all chat apps. Then when the dirty web of American-style regulatory manipulation was exposed, they backed off. It was a proposal for a law by some MPs. Not something 'Eu' did.

They backed off "for now". They are trying this for ages, did you forget about ACTA and Von der Leyen's past censorship attempts in Germany? Have you read the DSA? Of course the EU is planning to go full authoritian in the name of "protecting democracy".

What EU is planning with chat control is much worse. The UK still requires a warrant to access your iCloud data. EU wants to force companies to install spyware on your devices that will monitor whatever you send or receive in real time without any probable cause or suspicion.

> This was Brexits doing.

Not really? We've had horrors like the 2000 RIP[0] well before Brexit. The Blair government made a huge dent in civil liberties and the Tories carried it on.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_of_Investigatory_Po...

This is one of the reasons why I will never vote Labour.

The UK has always hated not allowing people to self-incriminate, though...

> This is one of the reasons why I will never vote Labour.

The Tories are generally worse. But I agree it's currently a case of "lesser of two evils".

I wouldn't vote for Tory either.

I usually vote for Lib Dem. Though they do things from time to time I don't like...

This is why Scotland needs independence. It was once and with it chained by the UK, they're squeezing everything they can. Look at Wales, just pets for the UK. Scotland is an actually pretty awesome country but like Canada is kept pet by a leader. The only thing that could save this shitshow is Scotland getting independence. Lets be honest here. You thought Boris Johnson was bad ripping holes left right and center. Trump makes Boris look like a pet rat. And that's an insult to real rats.

I may be wrong here, but my impression of Scottish politics is that it's just as paternalistic and nanny-state if not more so.

Yes and no. But Scottish politics have more progressive.

Ultimately Scotland is governed by the UK so any first party rounds are annulled before they get a chance by the UK.

Pot, meet kettle!

Frankly, our democracies are currently in a rather precarious state.

At least we don't get to pee in the cup at work

Nothing is happening to it. Governmental overreach, and then if people really want encryption they will vote in privacy-friendly officials. Here in Oregon, USA, we have Ron Wyden, who knows more about netsec than most IT graduates.

As long as you can vote there is still civil liberty, just vote for the right people who care about this stuff.

None of what you just said translates to any European country.

None.

Executive power is very representative, not direct, with the sole exception imo being Switzerland?

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