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UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

citizenlab.ca

241–250 of 381 posts

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#241
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's impossible to prove the absence of something True, but in this case it was quite easy to prove the presence of anti-semitism in the Labour party, especially in the far left membership.

It's easy if you make it up. It's also easy to find "presence of anything" in some members of any large group, including satanism, doesn't mean it defines the group or is a big element of it.

And this attitude is why hundreds of thousands of liberal and left-wing Jews no longer support the Labour party.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#242
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel was also behind many of the efforts to smear the former opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn - https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/news/israeli-diplomat-sough... The current government is a huge ally of Israel.

Every British government has been an ally of Israel. You don't turn down a relationship with a country with Israel's military, technical and intelligence capabilities, and worth $5bn in bilateral trade for nothing if you have any sense.

We did with Europe and the trade is worth way more than $5bn

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#243
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's so much that's factually wrong with this comment I don't know where to start. 1. The UK does have a Bill of Rights (It's different in England and Scotland). The English one pre-dates the US Bill of rights by a century[0]. 2. It does have a constitution, but not a written constitution in the American sense[1]. 3. The Queen doesn't nominate Bishops; she rubber stamps nominations by a committee who are approved…

I stopped reading around: "Protestants may have arms for their defence suitable to their conditions and as allowed by law;" and something about (only) Ireland repealed it in [1]. In [2] it says, quite straight faced, that "The Constitution of the United Kingdom or British constitution comprises the written and unwritten arrangements that establish the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as a politica…

> Because it is not "entrenched" it can be easily changed.

Don't downvote him, he's right: we literally went round all this with the various Brexit cases. Especially "R (Miller) v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union": https://www.supremecourt.uk/cases/docs/uksc-2016-0196-judgme...

40. "Unlike most countries, the United Kingdom does not have a constitution in the sense of a single coherent code of fundamental law which prevails over all other sources of law"

43. "This is because Parliamentary sovereignty is a fundamental principle of the UK constitution, as was conclusively established in the statutes referred to in para 41 above. It was famously summarised by Professor Dicey as meaning that Parliament has “the right to make or unmake any law whatsoever; and further, no person or body is recognised by the law as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament” - op cit, p 38"

If you have a majority in Parliament - which the current government does on 43% of the vote - you can do anything. That is the long and the short of it. All the rest you might think is there - bills of attainder, retroactive legislation, any kind of rights whatsoever - can be overwritten and it is merely convention not to do so. Longstanding convention, but convention none the less. Last bill of attainder was 1820, but you could argue that the Shamina Begum case was a similar thing with extra steps.

The UK is currently subject to CJEU and ECHR external courts, but from a constitutional point of view that is "voluntary" and the government could also choose to withdraw from those just as it did from the EU.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to have a paper trail for an electronic system, then why not just use the paper system? It's like there's a pro-electronic movement that's looking for every excuse to move to electronic... Ok, so we go electronic. We put in all these extra checks and balances to account for it's downsides. It runs well. People start questioning the need for the checks and balances, since it's so full-proof. So we remo…

> "For the people that complain about the staffing requirements for a paper-based election: it's a feature, not a bug. The sheer number of people involved make it virtually impossible to rig an election." There are two ways to rig an election. The first is miscounting or changing votes but I think the other is the real risk and likely dates to the very first time we as a species ever started having votes by anonymous…

Here in Australia, ballots are (initially) counted at the place they were cast. Every ballot issued has a corresponding (but unlinkable) person on the roll (electors are crossed off the roll prior to a ballot being issued). The count of names crossed corresponds to the number of ballots issued which will correspond to the number of ballots counted at the end of the day. Virtually impossible to "insert" a ballot as then your final count would exceed ballots issued.

As the count is completed at the polling place, of which there are multiple per electorate, the total number of votes is substantially lower than 43,000 even, and so the % accuracy is much higher. No publicised figure (that I know of) for how many "missing" ballots there can be before questions are raised, but I suspect its in the single digit range. Ballots are generally counted a couple of times but, even more if there's any ballots missing.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel was also behind many of the efforts to smear the former opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn - https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/news/israeli-diplomat-sough... The current government is a huge ally of Israel.

Quoted post unavailable.

I can't believe you've been downvoted to oblivion.

Labour party antisemitism goes way beyond criticism of isreal, including support for hezbollah and hamas.

https://labourhatesjews.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/29-examples...

Also: Jeremy Corbyn faces fury after praising ‘brilliant’ book which claims Jews control world banks

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8975188/jeremy-corbyn-praises-...

Corbyn also backed the artist behind the mural clearly depicting evil jews controlling the world like a board game:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/23/corbyn-crit...

The excusing away of this behaviour on HN is crazy, it's not just about isreal. Not by a long shot.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#246
post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I envision a system where after I vote I rip off the top of the card and am able to use that hash like token to later verify that my vote was counted correctly

That's only viable in countries/situations where secret ballots are not a strict requirement and vote buying is not perceived to be a problem With paper ballots if you want to be sure that your vote was counted correctly you generally can go and see the counting process, as a bonus like that you help ensure that every vote is counted correctly

The only time vote buying was historically a problem was when it was decriminalized or legal and done out in the open. The instant it was criminalized it evaporated completely.

Doing it on a scale that is large enough enough that it becomes meaningful quickly becomes impossible even if the police only do a few half hearted sting operations.

Im not particularly in favor of electronic voting but i wish this particular meme would die coz it's mainly gonna be used to excuse voting systems corrupted at the source that the voter cant check.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These products, just like any offensive weapon, aren't quite as useful for defensive purposes, or when used by someone who doesn't do this stuff 24/7. The justification that "somebody else would have done it" is morally bankrupt, of course, as shown in Nuremberg or the Eichmann trial. It's also just not true: by definition, the alternative would be worse in some way, or it would have been the first choice from the be…

Ah yes, because export controls have stopped bad actors in the past. If we can't stop Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, thinking that we can stop sale of software is, mildly speaking, delusional. I also fail to see the relevance to Nuremberg trials, because this is a simple matter of supply and demand. There definitely is demand.

> If we can't stop Iran and North Korea from developing nuclear weapons, thinking that we can stop sale of software is, mildly speaking, delusional.

I don't see any nukes in Iran.

Maybe because "we" kept that from happening, idk.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#248
post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel was also behind many of the efforts to smear the former opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn - https://www.middleeasteye.net/fr/news/israeli-diplomat-sough... The current government is a huge ally of Israel.

Every British government has been an ally of Israel. You don't turn down a relationship with a country with Israel's military, technical and intelligence capabilities, and worth $5bn in bilateral trade for nothing if you have any sense.

UK bilateral trade with Russia was ~$17 billion in 2021 (i assume that's imports plus exports right?).

Russia was a very close friend twenty years ago, Iraq was a very close ally in the 1980s. I'm sure Israel realises how quickly the west can turn on friends and allies when it suits us and that this is why they spend tens of millions a year wooing US and UK politicians.

Russia became a pariah over night and the moment it becomes politically convenient to diplomatically recognise Israel as an apartheid state the trade won't count for anything (not least because most of it is the direct consequence of billions in annual US subsidies)

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

I can't believe you've been downvoted to oblivion. Labour party antisemitism goes way beyond criticism of isreal, including support for hezbollah and hamas. https://labourhatesjews.wordpress.com/2017/06/05/29-examples... Also: Jeremy Corbyn faces fury after praising ‘brilliant’ book which claims Jews control world banks https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/8975188/jeremy-corbyn-praises-... Corbyn also backed the artist behi…

These are again examples without context.

e.g. on Hobson's book.

This was a book that was widely referenced. Certainly referencing it didn't mean endorsement of Hobson's antisemitism ( a few lines in that book).. like praising the works of many other authors of the time that contain antisemetic references.

Here's the then leader of the Liberal Democrats Nick Clegg citing Hobson.

http://www.demos.co.uk/files/Liberal_moment_-_EMBARGOED_18.0...

Or Blair:

"J.A Hobson was probably the most famour Liberal convert to what was the literally 'new Labour'"

or Gordon Brown

"In Britain, this idea of liberty as empowerment is not a new idea, J A Hobson asked, “is a man free who has not equal opportunity with his fellows of such access to all material and moral means of personal development and work as shall contribute to his own welfare and that of his society?”"

Is the same for all other cases.

This is how smearing works. People take something that happened (that cannot be denied) and then insist this is proof. If the person says nothing they seem guilty, if the person tries to explain and put things into context they seem guilty.

Re: UK Government Officials Infected with Pegasus

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

Israel plays the anti-semitism card much too loosely to be taken seriously. The issues I have with Israel are because of the actions of its government and absolutely nothing to do with the majority religion there. If you criticise Israel, you're an anti-semite. We're all scared of being called such, so we let them do whatever the fuck they want. Fuck Israel; but not because of their religion.

It's interesting that you find the need to type this out though, as if the UK (and US, and the West) doesn't cultivate many similar ties that absolutely get nowhere near the same level of attention. It's rare to see people with the same level of dislike towards a country like Saudi Arabia or the UAE. With Israel, people viscerally hate it.
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