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"Yesterday, you were defending thieves; today, you're defending terrorists." With these words, uttered early this morning, the leader of Poland's ruling conservative party silenced the parliamentary opposition. Not five minutes later, Poland had a new counterterrorism law — the terms of which go beyond what most of the democratic world has thus far seen.
The bill establishes a battery of eyebrow-raising security regulations that limit freedom of assembly in vaguely defined crisis situations and allow for the arbitrary detention and surveillance of foreign citizens. In the digital realm, it gives the country's powerful intelligence service, the Internal Security Agency (ABW), the mandate to block websites deemed a threat to national security. When a (vaguely defined) state of emergency is declared, the new regulations also enable the police to disable all telecommunications (an equally vague term that could refer to anything from phone lines to internet access) in a given area. The law also grants intelligence operatives unencumbered access to key data on Polish citizens — all this in a country that hasn't seen a major act of terrorism since 1939.
[...] A common thread runs through both the Polish bill and some recent legislation in other countries: ambiguity. In a newly published report on freedom of expression in the digital age, David Kaye, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on freedom of opinion and expression, decries vague laws on digital issues as gateways to abuse. Poland's new bill is a case in point. It extends the definition of "terrorist acts" to any real or planned criminal activity, punishable by more than three years in prison, that is devised with the intention of spreading fear, disrupting the activity of the Polish government, or compelling it to act on a given issue.
Source: Foreign Policy
(Score: 1) by anubi on Wednesday June 15 2016, @04:32AM
Expect a quantum leap in mesh networking and covert encryption technologies to come from Poland/Russia - in the hands of a pissed off populace.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 3, Informative) by mtrycz on Wednesday June 15 2016, @09:22AM
Poles are actually quite math and it savvy, and somewhat hackey so I'd love to see some of it.
Talking with my dad through skype tho, a pole living in poland (N=1), it does look like the general sentiment is actually with the government, which is riding on the general anti-immigration/anti-refugees/anti-islam atmosphere. A great opportunity for them to pass surveillance laws.
The big background here is "we've been always left alone to our fate by everybody else, so now everybody else can fuck off" kind of thing.
I didn't get the details yet, but TFS looks scary as hell. "... devised with the intention compelling the government to act on a given issue" - they're basically putting a ban on civil activism.
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(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Wednesday June 15 2016, @02:04PM
The big background here is "we've been always left alone to our fate by everybody else, so now everybody else can fuck off" kind of thing.
Hmm. Sounds kind of accurate, unfortunately.
Interesting historical footnote: the Poles were the ones who first cracked Enigma.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Wednesday June 15 2016, @02:06PM
Not surprised given Poland's history of foreign influence and rule. After a hundred years of foreign rule they regained their independence after WW1 only to lose it after WW2 to the Russians. Now that they again have their independence after decades of oppressive foreign rule, they arent going to let it go. And they certainly arent going to let Germany tell them what to do either. Especially when it comes to taking in thousands of foreigners who don't share anything culturally. And when it comes to culture and Religion, it is still very strong among the Poles.
(Score: 2) by mtrycz on Wednesday June 15 2016, @02:27PM
It's just lies and statistics, tho.
The polish government(s) will happily comply with US/NATO directives, and given its strategic position between "Europe" and Russia, US/NATO will happily pump cash to keep it that way.
Let's just hope people can keep memory of the past. Revenge is exactly the sentiment upon which the third reich built upon. These laws are scarier than the KGB (even tho the effects aren't seen, yet), and it being "homemade" doesn't make it any better.
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(Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday June 15 2016, @06:33PM
it does look like the general sentiment is actually with the government
This is the elephant in the room. There might be some pissed off people, but they are far outnumbered.
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by BsAtHome on Wednesday June 15 2016, @05:18AM
First they come for the... and ... (etc.)
The worst part and most frustrating part is that, apparently, nobody has learned a damn thing from history. This will end badly, unfortunately.
(Score: 2) by davester666 on Wednesday June 15 2016, @05:32AM
The US will quickly "harmonize" their laws to be at least as strong against terrorism as Polands...we can't be weak against terrorism.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @03:16PM
First they came for the Poles, and then the tent fell down.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @05:30AM
Meh. Seems like they finally realized that everyone else already has these countermeasures. Obama has an internet kill switch and access to as much info on anyone he wants through the NSA, as well as proposing new "hate speech" laws to add "anti-Islam" along side the existing "anti-Semitic" qualifiers for extremists. You know, because if you're getting shot up by radical Muslims you shouldn't be able to say mean things about it.
UK? One word: Superinjunction.
Germany? You go to jail if you question the 6 million (which became 4 million and the Red Cross just unsealed a report after 70 years claiming 125 thousand total [truedemocracyparty.net] Jews "gassed" in the holocaust). Merkel made a deal with Fakebook's Nark Suckerberg to silence anti-immigration views.
Snowden revealed that everyone from Spain to France, the UK, Australia and more are all essentially on the same page WRT spying on civilians and sharing the info with each other ala 5 Eyes / ECHELON program. That's just the shit we know about. I wouldn't be surprised if the Spanish Inquisition unexpectedly popped into the frame to secretly interrogate someone at any moment of any day.
But Poland is horrible because the right wing is in power and the left is scared shitless that the crap they've been doing to the right will get done to them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @06:17AM
Why do gripes have to so often involve partisan name calling? It isn't left vs. right, its the people fighting against abuses of power.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @07:40AM
While fundamentally, you are correct; in practice, you are wrong... In practice (and in Europe), it *is* left vs. right with the right being a sack of autocratic and dictarorial lunatics. Actually, scrap that 'and in Europe' bit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @07:03PM
s/with the right/with both sides/
Why are you ignoring 50% of the problem?
(Score: 5, Touché) by MadTinfoilHatter on Wednesday June 15 2016, @06:28AM
Yesterday, you were defending thieves; today, you're defending terrorists.
And the proper respone courtesy of H.L. Mencken:
The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @07:38AM
"Yesterday, you were defending thieves; today, you're defending terrorists." With these words, uttered early this morning, the leader of Poland's ruling conservative party silenced the parliamentary opposition.
Which party again? Ah... PiS ("Prawo i Sprawiedliwość/Law and Justice") Say no more...
Something something ... not remembering history ... something something ... repeating it...
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 15 2016, @12:45PM
Ahh, I see their problem--the language has too many consonants. Drop some of those or get some more vowels and everything should clear up nicely.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @01:03PM
Can you say ECOMCON?
(Score: 3, Funny) by VLM on Wednesday June 15 2016, @02:10PM
that is devised with the intention of spreading fear, disrupting the activity of the Polish government, or compelling it to act on a given issue
It sounds like they're going after Fox News. Or for that matter, Hollywood film plots. In that way its not all bad. (which is not saying its all good)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 15 2016, @06:42PM
"all this in a country that hasn't seen a major act of terrorism since 1939".
If by 1939 you refer to beginning of WW2, then "act of terrorism" is not an apt description.
I'm not that good at history of this country, but I think that the last real acts of terrorism in that geographical area were done somewhere between 1900 and 1914, by a socialist called Pilsudski. The guy who - when Poland re-gained independence in 1918 - became the political leader of the country. He was a real terrorist with bombs and pistols, and his actions (and actions of his "crew") were against occupying forces (i.e. Russians I think).
Maybe we could count in actions of Ukrainian forces in the eastern part of the country during/after 1945 as acts of terrorism, but we handled them with grace, by relocating large numbers of supporting civilians to the other side of the country.
Fun fact: Polish underground forces during WW2 were conducting "acts of terrorism" in Berlin itself as part of retaliation against German invader. Look up "Zagra-Lin" on the net.