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Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

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Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#91

Post by iagovar »

zozbot234 wrote: post #89
iagovar wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I was from the police I'd probably want to block the chance to coordinate such attacks, not only do an investigation to track certain individuals. What would be the point to spend many resources to put a guy or a few of them in jail when they can be easily replaced.

Of course it depends how many people are involved in such things, and whether the app specifically is allowing them to coordinate these attacks. Most of the commentary so far has been about demonstrations, sometimes turning into violent riots. Purposely sabotaging/obstructing a piece of critical infrastructure is something rather different, although whether it could be defined as "terrorism" is somewhat ambiguous.

> whether it could be defined as "terrorism" is somewhat ambiguous.

I won't define it as terrorism, but if you are in the Police and you really have no other legal tool, what do you do? If the boundary is fuzzy enough, they're gonna push for it.

In the end they'll probably have a hard time proving that to a judge, but as a temporary measure they probably think it's useful.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#92

Post by Arkhaine_kupo »

komarrian wrote: post #29
pmarin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It not the government but the judicial authorities, we have distribution of power. It's embarrassing that the title is intentionally misleading.

The judiciary is part of the goverment and as you can see in the letters from China and Russia the Goverment is asking GitHub to takedown repos referencing laws too. That does not make said laws moral or just.

Yes the analogy is perfectly sound. Spain one of the countries with the highest score in index of democracy, with a recent constitution, with separation of power is completely the same as the plutocracy born of the post soviet collapse of russia and the authoritarian pooh regime of china.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#93

Post by fluffything »

StavrosK wrote: post #61
joking wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They misused the political institutions for their benefit and pushed their agenda even when they have been warned several times of the penal consequences. There can be disagreement with the conviction time, but they are not innocents.

What is their agenda? Given that a large part of a country wants secession, isn't it only democratic to vote on it?

> Given that a large part of a country wants secession, isn't it only democratic to vote on it?

They did vote for it, and pro-independence political parties failed to win the popular vote in the last democratic election of catalonia in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_regional_election

That is, there is no majority of voters in Catalonia that want independence, according to the last election.

Failing to win the popular vote, all independence parties left any ideological differences aside and united forces to obtain majority in the parliament, using that majority to push for an illegal referendum that most of the population in Catalonia didn't took seriously. They then tried to used the results of the illegal referendum, where mostly only those citizens pro-independence went to vote to try to push for independence, ignoring the will of the 53% of the voters that voted against them in the last democratic election.

All in all, a pretty good shit-show, that has resulted in a couple of politicians accused of treason and in jail or in exile.

IMO the worst parts of this are that (1) ~50% of the population has a different opinion than the other 50%, and they will need to manage to live together independently of how things turn out, and (2) Catalonia's politicians do not care about their constituents, and only appear to care about those constituents that voted for them. I personally think that's pretty shameful, and don't have any respect for any of the politicians on either side.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#94

Post by consp »

physicsguy wrote: post #84
swebs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not in the English speaking world at least. "Government" is an umbrella term which includes the legislature, executive, and judiciary.

No, that's a US English meaning that isn't widely used in other English speaking countries.

Or other non-English speaking parliamentary democracies for that matter.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#95

Post by samuel »

kragen wrote: post #42

Governments† burn libraries. Don't create central points of vulnerability to coercion. That multiplies the effectiveness of coercive force. Create decentralized systems. Git, not GitHub. Bitcoin, not Citibank. Email, not Gmail — although we still need to free email from DNS. Never forget how the Spanish Inquisition — the origin, in the West, of these sorts of degraded "laws" against "criminal content" — treated the J…

> The rulers of el-Andalus were no angels either, but their abuses were nothing compared to the censorship-protected horrors of the Inquisition.

That's not true. The Almohads, unlike the almoravids, forced christian and jews to convert, under threat of death.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#96

Post by big_chungus »

ricardbejarano wrote: post #65
StavrosK wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, and neither side is handling this very well. The government could have let the referendum happen but campaign against it, appeasing the people who wanted a democratic vote but still winning. Instead, they went full suppression and made themselves look much worse.

The thing is, the government can't let a "comunidad autonoma" organize a binding referendum about a region's secession of Spain, because that would put the region's sovereignty on the region's people, and that's against the Spanish constitution (art. 1.2, the sovereignty of the entire Spanish territory is of all Spanish citizens). That also infringes Spanish constitution's 2nd art., "the Constitution is fundamented a…

And yet, doesn't this violate the principle of self-determination? If the people of a region want to create a separate region, who is to tell them not to? Catalonia now needs the permission of the others to leave?

It seems as though the Spanish constitution was written for the primacy of a centralized state, rather than federated government down to the individual. I suppose the idea that sovereignty is effectively granted by the central state is a result thereof. Maybe reforming that would be a good first step.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#97

Post by zozbot234 »

iagovar wrote: post #91
zozbot234 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course it depends how many people are involved in such things, and whether the app specifically is allowing them to coordinate these attacks. Most of the commentary so far has been about demonstrations, sometimes turning into violent riots. Purposely sabotaging/obstructing a piece of critical infrastructure is something rather different, although whether it could be defined as "terrorism" is somewhat ambiguous.

> whether it could be defined as "terrorism" is somewhat ambiguous. I won't define it as terrorism, but if you are in the Police and you really have no other legal tool, what do you do? If the boundary is fuzzy enough, they're gonna push for it. In the end they'll probably have a hard time proving that to a judge, but as a temporary measure they probably think it's useful.

Actually, my main point was that it could qualify. Attacks on critical infrastructure have been deemed as such, and the implied risk to human life makes this an even stronger possibility. If these things are actually happening, it's quite appropriate to bring them to light.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#98

Post by StavrosK »

fluffything wrote: post #93
StavrosK wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is their agenda? Given that a large part of a country wants secession, isn't it only democratic to vote on it?

> Given that a large part of a country wants secession, isn't it only democratic to vote on it? They did vote for it, and pro-independence political parties failed to win the popular vote in the last democratic election of catalonia in 2017: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Catalan_regional_election That is, there is no majority of voters in Catalonia that want independence, according to the last election. Failing…

> That is, there is no majority of voters in Catalonia that want independence, according to the last election.

Indeed, but I didn't say "a majority". This is exactly why I said "remain" would have won, Spain could have ruled it void anyway, and everyone would have been happy.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#100

Post by kragen »

samuel wrote: post #95
kragen wrote: post #42

Governments† burn libraries. Don't create central points of vulnerability to coercion. That multiplies the effectiveness of coercive force. Create decentralized systems. Git, not GitHub. Bitcoin, not Citibank. Email, not Gmail — although we still need to free email from DNS. Never forget how the Spanish Inquisition — the origin, in the West, of these sorts of degraded "laws" against "criminal content" — treated the J…

> The rulers of el-Andalus were no angels either, but their abuses were nothing compared to the censorship-protected horrors of the Inquisition. That's not true. The Almohads, unlike the almoravids, forced christian and jews to convert, under threat of death.

The Spanish Inquisition did all that and much worse. How much Moorish blood remains in the people of Spain today? How many conversos did the Inquisitors burn at the stake, generations after their ancestors converted, on the strength of rumormongering by jealous neighbors? The Christian and Jewish traditions — clerics, holy books, writing systems, and all — survived centuries of Muslim rule. What today survives of the records of the Inka? Where are the Maya codices today? And the Inka and the Maya fared much better than the Caribs and the Quilmes.

Bartolomé de las Casas relates stories of cruelty beyond belief, inhuman monstrosities beyond imagining, atrocities whose publication he delayed for more than thirty years, finally publishing pseudonymously. How many such true accounts have been forgotten because they were denied the Inquisitor's imprimatur? But the Aztecs' human sacrifices to the sun god, used to justify the bringing of "civilization" to the "savages", remain notorious today.

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