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The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

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Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#211

> UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from a database reserved for members of the passport-free Schengen travel zone. The UK is not in the Schengen travel zone and had no right to be accessing the data or sharing it with other foreign powers. The problem is that too much power is collected in one place that encourages bad actors to weaken security so that they can later do a grab and dash with "…

I've been fighting against governments violating human rights for a while and I have to say: I didn't know what to do then, and I don't know what to do now.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#212
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dismissive cynical attitude helps no one. Sure, some perhaps many, people are corrupt and exercise power given to them for wrong ends. Nevertheless, at large, people want law enforcement, they want stolen goods returned to them, they want criminals to be stopped. You have better suggestion to maintain law and order?

> Sure, some perhaps many, people are corrupt and exercise power given to them for wrong ends. That's in the nature of power dynamics. Not abusing power is the exception to the rule. > You have better suggestion to maintain law and order? I think having the rules decided upon and enforced by the people (not some centralized institution that's disconnected from the social fabric) would help a lot. What would help even…

Sure, our institutions can and should be improved. And I believe that by and large, we are moving forward. But it is not the case that we are currently doing it wrong and we can do it somehow right. We can only aim to do it better. The state of society changes and get reevaluated.

Still, the way I see it, in any point in history or in the future, crime will exist and, if we want law and order maintained, we will have to maintain a database of stolen goods and of criminals. Do you see any alternative?

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#213
post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Countries don't have direct representation, political blocs do. Each country picks its own members (at minimum, six of them in the European Parliament), those members congregate into political blocs, those blocs make proposals, build a majority within EUs regulatory bodies, and adopt changes. The difference between Germany and the UK is that German parties recognize this process and follow it. UK's (right-wing) parti…

Since I don't live in California or Texas anymore, and didn't really identify with their priorities when I did, I don't "think that the electoral college in the US is terrible". Echoing your sentiments, the large states are not in a "privileged position" even if they sometimes think they should be. The electoral college, and federalism in general, makes the system more resilient and robust. (Not that this is an unall…

The UK isn't as important to the European economy as Germany (as you seem to imply), and it's roughly the same size as France.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#214
post #211

> UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from a database reserved for members of the passport-free Schengen travel zone. The UK is not in the Schengen travel zone and had no right to be accessing the data or sharing it with other foreign powers. The problem is that too much power is collected in one place that encourages bad actors to weaken security so that they can later do a grab and dash with "…

I've been fighting against governments violating human rights for a while and I have to say: I didn't know what to do then, and I don't know what to do now.

Me too. I tried voting and while it was fun it didn't seem to matter. I tried bitching about it on the internet and while it was fun it didn't seem to matter. I guess if we are all fucked I might as well have some fun.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#215
post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You claim the data does exist - but where did it come from? There has been no program to forcibly collect fingerprints of all EU citizens. There is some biometric data collected for Schengen passports, but not even close to all people even have a passport. And if you claim my biometric passport fingerprints are in that DB, you are claiming that the police in my country has performed a massive illegal data handover. I…

For most countries, biometric passport data is only stored inside the passport's chip and not in a (national or otherwise) database. It's to be used by border control (of other countries) to compare the person presenting the passport with the (signed) data.

For Romania, it is in a national database. Source: family member that is a high ranking policeman, he checked my records and there is more than I thought, having a perfectly clean criminal record.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#216
post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A dismissive cynical attitude helps no one. Sure, some perhaps many, people are corrupt and exercise power given to them for wrong ends. Nevertheless, at large, people want law enforcement, they want stolen goods returned to them, they want criminals to be stopped. You have better suggestion to maintain law and order?

> Sure, some perhaps many, people are corrupt and exercise power given to them for wrong ends. That's in the nature of power dynamics. Not abusing power is the exception to the rule. > You have better suggestion to maintain law and order? I think having the rules decided upon and enforced by the people (not some centralized institution that's disconnected from the social fabric) would help a lot. What would help even…

> I think having the rules decided upon and enforced by the people (not some centralized institution that's disconnected from the social fabric) would help a lot.

And how exactly are "the people" going to decide upon and enforce the rules? Just gathering all the people together to talk until they come to consensus is hardly scalable to the size of a small town, let alone a country or continent. Hence representative democracy, institutions, governments, police forces, court systems.... all that stuff. It may be far from perfect, but it's not clear anyone has come up with a better mechanism.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#217
post #40
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will agree the UK has never really embraced the whole EU project as it has become. I also agree that in many votes, the UK has been the stumbling block and with that did anybody in the UK and those wanting to keep the UK in the EU ever asked themselves - what is best for the EU? I did and that is why I voted leave myself - better for the EU and the UK. That was my reason for voting as I did. Equally, many area's in…

This is a bit uncharitable. The UK helped the EU be more dynamic than it otherwise might have been, avoiding a certain French big-state mindset that could have seen eurobureaucracy really run riot on national laws. It definitely attracted capital investments from across the globe into the EU market, and it relieved some of the unemployment pressure in poorer countries thanks to a very dynamic labor market. Obviously…

> avoiding a certain French big-state mindset that could have seen eurobureaucracy really run riot on national laws

Germany is not really onboard with that either, but I agree a more extreme counter-weight would have been helpful.

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the common, people didn't vote my way, so they must be crazy/racist/stupid. People had their reasons for voting the way they did, and you show your ignorance and lack of perspective when you dismiss their views like that. Calling people racist doesn't make opposing views go away, especially when over half the people in the country have those views. edit: Keep up the downvotes, it doesn't change anything.

Not all people who voted leave are racist, but all racists voted leave.

Source?

Re: The UK authorities made illegal copies of the Schengen Information System

#220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, the common, people didn't vote my way, so they must be crazy/racist/stupid. People had their reasons for voting the way they did, and you show your ignorance and lack of perspective when you dismiss their views like that. Calling people racist doesn't make opposing views go away, especially when over half the people in the country have those views. edit: Keep up the downvotes, it doesn't change anything.

Someone who voted for brexit to ‘send the Indians home’ is clearly both racist (self-evident) and stupid (how would brexit do that?)

One person's anecdote (that we don't know happened) doesn't represent half of a country's population.

What't the GPs are doing are dismissing valid views from the other side by shouting racism. There's no proof or any real evidence provided that the other side is racist, just anecdotes.

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