EU high court strikes down metadata collection law

“What the Snowden revelations have shown us over the past year is that the international surveillance apparatus set up by intelligence agencies is in direct conflict with human rights," the nonprofit said. "If the Data Retention Directive fails to meet the requirements of human rights law, then the mass surveillance programs operated by the US and UK governments must equally be in conflict with the right to privacy.”

arstechnica.com...

It's getting bad. Real bad. The US, Israel and UK are almost universally hated by all nations across the planet. The EU was our last real, powerful ally other than our own technology and intimidation tactics. We're #ed.

While the United States continues to debate metadata collection conducted in secret by the National Security Agency, the European Union has been openly collecting the same sort of data for eight years.

In the wake of terrorist attacks in Madrid (2004) and London (2005), the European Union passed a directive in 2006 requiring that all telecommunications providers retain all kinds of telephone and Internet metadata for at least six months and provide it to law enforcement upon request.

According to a ruling handed down Tuesday by the European Court of Justice, that directive is now invalid.

The case was brought by activists at Digital Rights Ireland and the Austrian Working Group on Data Retention. The two organizations had challenged the law as it had been imposed in their respective countries.

“It is disappointing that it had to take such a long time for EU citizens to get legal clarity on this massive breach of constitutional and treaty-based principles,” Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German member of the European Parliament, said in a statement. “Today's ruling is even more embarrassing for the German federal government and the EU Commission, who continue to advocate in favor of data retention and other types of unfounded, unjustified blanket surveillance, for example through the air passenger data system.”

Seems to be all about meta data?
Snowden was telling us it was also CONTENT!

Meta data is bad, but content is far worse.

As they should,


When someone fears what they are saying or reading is monitored, it is a defacto form of censorship.

It may have already silenced people who would otherwise speak out on the matter.

Any free thinking human should be against this mass collection of what people are saying and reading.

VoidHawk
Seems to be all about meta data?
Snowden was telling us it was also CONTENT!

Meta data is bad, but content is far worse.

Meta data, is just data about data.

So as an example, the links you click would be meta data, the address etc.

Does that change it at all? no.

AS the data can still be used to extrapolate content, its semantics, 1984 word play so that the less knowledgeable go "but its just meta data"

benrl

VoidHawk
Seems to be all about meta data?
Snowden was telling us it was also CONTENT!

Meta data is bad, but content is far worse.

Meta data, is just data about data.

So as an example, the links you click would be meta data, the address etc.

Does that change it at all? no.

AS the data can still be used to extrapolate content, its semantics, 1984 word play so that the less knowledgeable go "but its just meta data"

As I said, "meta data is bad". I probably miss-understood, but I thought in the op it was saying that snowden told us about meta data being collected, in fact he was telling us it was the content as well.

I dont usualy drink, but I've had a couple tonight so please excuse me if I'm talking nonsense

This is great news... and it sets a huge precedent for the whole world to see.

Good for the EU. My hat goes off to them.

I don't trust the EU. As far as I know, the European Union is essentially the Fourth Reich, it is what Hitler wanted to do. When he failed to do that using rapid militarily force, the power elite achieved it using stealth. The EU is also sort of like a framework for the NAU. If the EU get a leg up over the US, it'll be the beginning of the end, if it ain't already.