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Govt mass surveillance violated human rights, European Court rules
A mass surveillance programme by the UK government violated human rights, the European Court has ruled.
In a landmark case brought by charities including Amnesty and human rights group Big Brother Watch, the top court ruled that the "bulk interception regime" breached rights to privacy (Article 8).
It comes after US whistleblower Edward Snowden disclosed British surveillance and intelligence-sharing practices.
Also at Ars Technica.
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UK Government Mass Surveillance Violated Human Rights, European Court Rules
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You are a fluke of the universe; you have no right to be here.
(Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday September 15 2018, @07:16PM (6 children)
The battle was potentially disastrous, for both the 'communities' involved (and both did see themselves in that way at the time.) The Franks won and the Ummayads began to decline. This was in 732, unless you refer to an entirely different Battle of Tours, I'm sure more than one have been fought there over the years of course.
"Wahabbism really seems to be "real" Islam to me."
Al-Wahhab was born in 1703. So I am just not following you there, not at all.
Had the Ummayads won at Tours, Islam would have expanded further into Europe? Most likely true, but ultimately unknowable. But whether or not this would be a bad thing is also unknowable. Neither side there were in any way liberals, believe me. In many ways, we'd probably have found the Muslims of that time more to our liking than the Catholics, as modern western liberals - which is not to deny that we'd find both horrifying.
But Wahhabism was still hundreds of years in the future. The only link I can think of would be that looking back on Tours, from around seven centuries in the future, influenced Wahab's attitude toward jihad and so on, well, yes, I suppose there is that link. But wouldn't that mean that if Tours had gone the other way, Wahhab might have grown up to be a good boy?
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 15 2018, @07:31PM (5 children)
Wahhab seemed to be intent on bringing Islam back to Mohammed's precepts. "True" Islam. Convert or die, and death to all apostates!
You mention the Muslims vs Catholics. You seem to know a good bit about the Muslim invasion of Europe. Are you aware that the Catholic Church all but invited that invasion, to counter the various Protestant movements? The Church's view was "Better Muslim than Protestant!" A combination of punishment, and control, from the Catholic point of view.
And, yes, I'm quite certain that had the Battle of Tours gone the other way, Islam would have expanded across Europe. If the Arabs could have prevailed against a more-or-less unified Europe, they could certainly have prevailed against a fragmented Europe. With a successful Tours behind them, the Arabs could have bided their time for a couple generations before attempting to expand further. Then they would have had all the resources of the newly conquered lands at their disposal - including cannon fodder.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Arik on Saturday September 15 2018, @08:40PM (1 child)
Like virtually every religious innovator, he claimed to be a 'reformer' who was not really changing the old ways, but rather restoring them! Sure, he made that claim, virtually everyone makes that claim.
But was it true? Shouldn't you at least ask yourself that question, and take some time to be certain of the answer?
"Convert or die, and death to all apostates!"
See there's a funny thing, there isn't much evidence for conversion in early Islam. The Quran, Hadith, etc. all stack up to a bit of inconsistency on the subject, as I'm sure you're aware. At any rate the early converts were basically the Arab tribes there in the hijaz area, some were converted by force others willingly, but then what happens next? Well there not only is little evidence for forced conversions, but even little evidence for *allowing* conversion at all, for some time. Remember, this was a religion born from that communitarian setting, where it had been normal for millennia for different 'races' to live side by side, preserving their different religions and effectively forming a sort of a caste system in many ways. This goes back, not just to the Persians, but at least to Akkad.
So after Mohammed dies when they expand they basically take over the Persian and Greco-Roman realms around them, there's actually precious little conversion. In fact they actively tried to prevent it, they feared converts and soon ruled that conversion could only be legitimate if it was accompanied by adoption into one of the original Arab clans that followed Mohammed. It was seen for a long time as explicitly racial - conversion was a very rare thing, and being a Muslim meant not just being of Mohammed's religion but of his race - descended from him, or from someone that followed him. Or, in rarest of cases, conversion WITH adoption which permits you to marry into the tribe - so at least your children will be physically of that race. This is also the way many Jews and even Christians in the middle east have seen identity. In that context there was certainly no forced conversion, nor did they have any need to kill those who were content to simply pay taxes to the new master instead of the old one.
So I've got to give the claim a 'half true at best' mark on this. While there is some evidence of forced conversion inside Arabia during M's lifetime, and directly after particularly in Persia, the traditional jurisprudence effectively explains the former as exceptional and the latter as simply mistaken, and certainly has feasible arguments for doing so.
And that's not their most radical idea by any means. You've seen me refer to them as Takfiri. This refers to the practice of unilaterally declaring someone who is under traditional sharia presumed to be a Muslim (or a person of the book) to be a kafir, an infidel. That's simply forbidden, it's a monumentally serious sin in Islam, because it amounts to placing yourself above all authority; that's what Shaitan did right? Because who has the authority to call kafir? G_d himself. Where did he delegate that authority to you, who claim to submit (muslim) to his authority? That's the sort of argument you have there, and simply stating that al Wahhab was right and a thousand years of scholars are wrong, particularly from our perch on the outside looking in, seems a stunning oversimplification at best!
"Are you aware that the Catholic Church all but invited that invasion, to counter the various Protestant movements? The Church's view was "Better Muslim than Protestant!" A combination of punishment, and control, from the Catholic point of view."
That doesn't immediately ring a bell, you might link me what you are referring to?
At any rate it shouldn't be a surprise. Western Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, have consistently supported Islam as a thorn in the side of Eastern Christianity in many ways as well.
"If the Arabs could have prevailed against a more-or-less unified Europe, they could certainly have prevailed against a fragmented Europe"
Not necessarily. It's also plausible that, with the threat they perceived extinguished, they would have simply turned their attention inward again. It's certainly not like that's never happened.
But without a time machine we'll never know for sure.
Your scenario does remind me of a sci-fi novel I read years ago whose title I wish I could remember though. Alternate time-line, didn't split from Tours though, cruised right on past that to about 1350. Black death hit early and hit harder. European population dips significantly further than in our timeline, ultimate result, Osmanli Caliphate rolls over eastern Europe and doesn't stop till it gets to Scotland. As a consequence, no Columbus, islamo-Columbus sails a decade late. Islamo-Cortez does not find the oddly pacifistic Moctezuma on the Aztec throne, but his nephew(?) a more traditional ruler who simply has him tortured to death and then takes all his stuff. The Aztecs set to reverse-engineering the ships and other equipment immediately. By the time the next expedition comes, they find a fledgling Aztec navy which is not about to let them setup shop. Within another century, the Aztecs have declared their own version of the Monroe doctrine.
But yeah, we'll never know for sure.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 15 2018, @11:32PM
The reason Protestant and Catholic conflict leading to the battle of Tours didn't ring a bell is because it didn't happen. Most of a millenium too early for Martin Luther.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 15 2018, @09:35PM (2 children)
My take: today's "bad" Muslims are a consequence not of the religion but of the rampant colonialism and imperialism in the last couple of centuries, but especially since WW2. The Ottoman Empire got wrecked, Jews flooded over into British-controlled Palestine before and during WW2, eventually leading to the creation of Israel by the U.N., U.S. overthrew the Iranian government in 1953, U.S. and Soviets fought a proxy war in Afghanistan, the U.S. adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan, etc. The end result has been a bunch of poor, weak, or undemocratic countries containing most of the world's Muslims, providing easy targets for extremism.
If Islam had become the religion of Europe, it could have eventually taken over the Americas by killing and conquering the natives, just as Catholicism and Christianity did. In this alternate history, Islam would be running the world, much as the U.S. does now, and Hindu and Christian extremists would be the ones strapping on the suicide bomb vests.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday September 15 2018, @10:57PM
I've thought along those lines. And, in fact, we have a more current history to look to, that lends credence to your thoughts. We invaded Iraq, for reasons that seemed good enough to our politicos. Time proved that those reasons were mostly bogus, but time hasn't erased the consequences of that invasion. The entire region is more unstable than it was before the invasion, providing sustenance for DAESH, or ISIS.
The Ottoman provided stability, whatever else it may or may not have provided.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Saturday September 15 2018, @11:26PM
Just finished reading Wilfred Thesiger's Arabian Sands (highly recommended), a book in which he traveled among the Arabs of the "Empty Quarter" of Saudi Arabia. His travels took place when oil exploration in the area was just beginning and had not penetrated much, certainly not beyond the coastal areas. He had a very high opinion of the Bedu, finding them very hospitable and honorable. He found that the most "devout" Muslims, that is the ones who had the greatest enmity towards non-Muslims, were those who had the greatest contact with the outside world. Thesiger realized that he was likely the last westerner who was going to see this culture in its more or less pure state, it was already being inexorably destroyed by contact with westerners and their values. Those parts of the culture who had already dealt with westerners had at least on some level realized their culture was under attack, and were responding accordingly.
You destroy a culture, you rarely get something better in its place.