Bulgaria nixes 'metadata' law, Paraguay delays Another data retention domino has fallen, with Bulgaria striking down its spooks'-charter laws as unconstitutional in a Constitutional Court challenge launched by that country's ombudsman. The Sofia Globe reports that the bulk collection mandated by the country's Electronic Communications Act have been struck down, with the …
Awesome, so let's put the Aussie proposal up against our own constitution and surely we're home free.
What? Oh, right - our constitution has no provision for privacy or for protecting the people from invasive searches, and indeed nothing at all to limit police powers in any way.
Just as well, I suppose; such laws would only hamper the valiant efforts of our enforcement agencies to prevent terrorist attacks and save children from pedophiles.
Or something.
Even if you had those things in your constitution, they would be over-ridden by those who think that that old paper doesn't apply to the current times. I'm not sure who's following who's lead here. Is the US is following the Aussie lead following the Brits and maybe France or vice versa and mix things up a bit?
USA and UK should take a lesson on how a working legal system should work. It is entertaining that a country regularly mentioned as a bastion of lawlessness is teaching this lesson.
You put your signature under an international obligation and ratify it, from there on it takes you by the b*** and your mind and soul to follow. Automatically. End of story.
None of the "Parliament is sovereign and shall not be bound" bullshit and no writing of letters by the opposition to enemies of the state telling them that their country changes tack and revokes treaties more often than nappies are changed on a one month old. No 14th amendment either.
From a UK perspective, I hardly regard "Parliament is sovereign" as bullshit, and abrogating a treaty if Parliament no longer wishes to be bound by it seems to be be the right (and democratic) thing to do. I can certainly understand why you're upset about the current mischief in Congress, but your analysis doesn't map well onto the UK constitutional system.
If a country signs a treaty, it should be bound by it in its entirety - no cherry-picking the good and bad bits. If the idiots in charge didn't negotiate a way out, then they are stuck until one is negotiated later.
I am delighted that the UK concept of parliamentary supremacy is being eroded. The world is a better place for the EU - no European wars for a record length of time, higher standards of living all round, malnutrition virtually eliminated, free movement of goods and services - for the small price of restricting the power of short-termist local politicians having some constraint on their vote-winning activities. Seems like a bargain to me.
I'm not sure if that many people have noticed yet...
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150311/09533530289/dutch-court-sets-aside-national-data-retention-law.shtml
on the whole, I really like the Data Retention experts that I know, but they do seem to think that national sovereignty always wins over vague 'foreign' court judgements...?
We are ALL at the mercy of our governments, over which we have diddly-shite control. That's the fact, and none of us should bash the others about it because our own country is doing it too.
With that said, it still hurts very much to see my own country, ONCE a beacon of freedom, helping lead the charge to an authoritarian police state. Bulgaria just did the right thing, where the US government is racing to destroy the last vestige of privacy and individual rights we have.
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