<story><title>US surveillance revelations deepen European fears</title><url>http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/europe-surveillance-prism-idUSL5N0EJ31S20130607</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>philwelch</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting. There are few European countries where I can unconditionally refuse to speak to police or refuse them to search my home or person without a warrant. We don&amp;#x27;t have CCTV cameras like they do in the UK. And when it comes to being able to overthrow your government yourselves, much of Europe has the same sham democracy we do. (Berlusconi? Seriously? Twice?) We have guns, but the parts of Western Europe who really wanted to overthrow their governments within recent history were able to get all the guns and explosives they wanted too. So it&amp;#x27;s hard to really say one is any better than the other.</text></item><item><author>flexie</author><text>Whereas we in the EU have our own dubious surveillance programmes, at least they are made by governments we can overthrow ourselves.&lt;p&gt;Also, European governments mostly grant us basic human rights, have no secret overseas prisons, no death penalty for &amp;quot;treason&amp;quot;, no decade long imprisonments for whistle blowing or hacking, no secret military tribunals, no recent record of torture, almost no drones, small military, tiny intelligence budgets etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>davidw</author><text>&amp;gt; So it&amp;#x27;s hard to really say one is any better than the other.&lt;p&gt;Smart people look at both and try and learn, rather than getting on a high horse about &amp;quot;better&amp;quot;, when &amp;quot;better&amp;quot; is awfully difficult to define anyway.&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Berlusconi? Seriously? Twice?&lt;p&gt;Sadly, no: three times, the first being in 1994.</text></comment>
<story><title>US surveillance revelations deepen European fears</title><url>http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/06/07/europe-surveillance-prism-idUSL5N0EJ31S20130607</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>philwelch</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s interesting. There are few European countries where I can unconditionally refuse to speak to police or refuse them to search my home or person without a warrant. We don&amp;#x27;t have CCTV cameras like they do in the UK. And when it comes to being able to overthrow your government yourselves, much of Europe has the same sham democracy we do. (Berlusconi? Seriously? Twice?) We have guns, but the parts of Western Europe who really wanted to overthrow their governments within recent history were able to get all the guns and explosives they wanted too. So it&amp;#x27;s hard to really say one is any better than the other.</text></item><item><author>flexie</author><text>Whereas we in the EU have our own dubious surveillance programmes, at least they are made by governments we can overthrow ourselves.&lt;p&gt;Also, European governments mostly grant us basic human rights, have no secret overseas prisons, no death penalty for &amp;quot;treason&amp;quot;, no decade long imprisonments for whistle blowing or hacking, no secret military tribunals, no recent record of torture, almost no drones, small military, tiny intelligence budgets etc.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>flexie</author><text>The European Court of Human Rights has established that the right to remain silent under police questioning and the privilege against self-incrimination applies.&lt;p&gt;All over Europe elections are held at least every 4th or 5th year and governments are regularly overthrown, in Italy more often than anywhere else, I think.</text></comment>