[foldr]

“Surveillance state” is debatable. I would disagree, but I’ve had that debate too many times on HN recently, and don’t propose to start it again here.

However, to call the UK “totalitarian” is just an abuse of language. The country is not run by a single all-powerful party or dictator. It’s especially odd to use this word and then make a comparison to the US, which (though it is not totalitarian either by any stretch of the imagination) is currently in the midst of an executive power grab, with demands for a level of partisan loyalty from civil servants that remains unthinkable in the UK.

I don’t know what your goal is here, but if you want to persuade the average person in the UK to change their minds about the extent to which the government should be able to access surveillance data, it helps not to bundle your arguments together with wild misstatements.

[jonathanstrange]

You're right I shouldn't have used the adjective "totalitarian." It was the kind of mindless parroting of phrases that I dread myself, so thank you for pointing that out! The UK has extremely strict surveillance laws, which are incompatible with EU legislation by now, so it's not a typical example of European countries in that respect. That's all I meant to say.

[foldr]

Are you referring to this? https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/13/gchq-data-co...

If so, that was a judgment about legislation that is no longer current (and wasn’t when the judgment was issued). It may be that current legislation is also incompatible with EU law (IANAL, I’m not arguing that point), but AFAIK there is no court judgment to that effect.

[jonathanstrange]

No, I didn't talk about court judgments. Yes, I had various aspects of the Regulation of the Investigatory Powers Act and recent additions to the Investigatory Powers Act in mind.

> It may be that current legislation is also incompatible with EU law (IANAL, I’m not arguing that point), but AFAIK there is no court judgment to that effect.

Quite possibly but that wasn't my point. The point is that the UK is by far more of a surveillance state than any EU country, at least to my knowledge. UK legislation is not typical for a European country in that respect. People can go to prison in the UK for not handing over an encryption password and the UK has just effectively banned end-to-end encryption (if you put a backdoor in it, it's no longer end-to-end encryption).

[foldr]

I’m just responding to the specific claim regarding the incompatibility of current UK legislation with EU law. AFAIK this is not an established fact. It’s an increasingly hypothetical question, though not entirely so.

There are EU countries with key disclosure laws. See e.g. France and Ireland on this list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Key_disclosure_law

[jonathanstrange]

Of course, it's not an established fact. Who would establish that fact? The UK is not a member of the EU. I was talking about the current UK legislation and I stand by what I stated. You disagree but have not presented any reasons why I should change my mind. You even said you're not a lawyer and have not displayed any knowledge of EU or UK legislation and practice. So you disagree. I understand that. There is no need to further continue this discussion.

What I do know is that I won't be able to sell my software in the UK or to any UK citizens or to any citizens who want to use to to communicate with UK citizens because it uses secure end-to-end encryption. That's the important bit for me personally.