Articles for category: 9/11 und die Privatsphäre

Öffentliche Überwachung vor den europäischen Gerichten

Europa hat eine erhebliche Ausweitung staatlicher Überwachungs- und Terrorismusbekämpfungsbefugnisse erlebt, die den zunehmenden Appetit der Gesetzgeber und der Exekutive auf eine Normalisierung der Überwachung zeigen. Lange Zeit haben die europäischen Gerichte diesem Trend energisch entgegengewirkt und Siege für die Grundrechte im Bereich der Überwachung errungen. Die jüngsten Entscheidungen des EuGH und des EGMR eröffnen jedoch ein anderes Bild, das auf einen breiteren Paradigmenwechsel hindeutet.

Public Surveillance before the European Courts

Europe has experienced a significant expansion of state surveillance and counter-terrorism regimes, which demonstrate the increasing appetite of legislators and the executive for the normalisation of surveillance. For long, European Courts offered a powerful pushback against this trend and produced several celebrated victories for fundamental rights over surveillance. However, recent decisions by the CJEU and the ECtHR reveal a different picture, indicating a broader paradigm shift.

On the Internet, No One Knows You’re a Cop

As long as police can continue to exploit the legal fiction of user “consent” to access our private communications, our privacy rights will remain just as fictional. While we’re hopeful that the courts will one-day strike this practice down as violating the Fourth Amendment, more urgent statutory protections are needed. The legislation needn’t be lengthy or complex, it’s not a nuanced question. To the contrary, what we need is a complete and categorical ban on the use of fake accounts by police, letting those who’ve been surveilled sue, and suppressing the evidence that’s obtained at trial.

Hong Kong Surveillance Law

though 9/11 did not immediately result in a dramatic expansion of the surveillance state in Hong Kong as was often seen in the west, twenty years later a similar process is now well underway. Though Hong Kong’s surveillance and privacy laws have long been relatively deferential to the needs of law enforcement, the dramatic legal changes occasioned by the introduction of a new ‘national security law’ in 2020 suggest that the population will be under increasing forms of surveillance in the coming years.