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Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

patrick-breyer.de

271–280 of 338 posts

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The very idea of the EU is to move control away from democratically elected governments. It is designed to prevent democratic participation of its people. The one direct democratic structure, the European Parliament, is toothless, and being defanged, and the Commission is an organisation made up by politicians you want to get rid of at home (because of looming political scandals usually). Can't get your dystopian pol…

I'm a brit that voted exit because of the EU democratic deficit, not because of xenophobia. I expected it to damage the economy for a decade, and I stilll wanted out. I knew that would put me in the same group as the xenophobic racists, but I still voted out. I also knew it would cause pain; the last people I wanted at the wheel during Brexit was Boris Johnson and the Tories. But I voted Brexit anyway, because I figu…

> and a bunch of other rules, and not get kicked out, or even sanctioned.

So you're saying you voted for Brexit because the EU didn't have enough power to punish member states? Do you think that these new entrants were the only ones breaking the rules with no consequences?[0]

> I don't want to be in a union of governments with authoritarian racists.

Leaving the EU doesn't help make Hungary (for example) become any less authoritarian or racist, and it certainly hasn't made Boris Johnson and the Tories any less authoritarian or racist, so you're still in such a union.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/04/uk-has-b...

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#272
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, if you're willing to renounce the style of 14 year old who just saw their first Hitchslap video, I will offer you some Biblical and non-Biblical Christian arguments against abortion. Various Psalms (22, 139) in which the narrator speaks of themselves in the womb being created by God. The Gospel of Luke also uses the same word for an infant before and after He is born. It is also a heresy to suggest that Jesus in…

> I think it suggests that life-at-conception was so obvious to the authors that they didn't feel the need to distinguish between abortion and murder Mosaic law does distinguish between violently inducing a miscarriage (punishable by a fine to be paid to the father) and murder (punishable by death) in Exodus 21. It is unclear whether there was any penalty for a self-induced miscarriage, though that would not have bee…

Do you mean Exodus 21:22-24? That's not what it says at all:

"When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

Not only is the fine specifically a punishment for inadvertently hitting the woman (in the case where the child is not harmed), but it says "life for life", proving that children in the womb are considered alive and their death is a capital offence, just like killing an adult.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#273
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stipulation comes at the definition of what life is and what taking life away is. It’s a very difficult thing to define what life is, thus legally it is for lack of a better phrasing “a can of worms.” If you’re programming minded, you may see how such a definition is ambiguous and opens many attack vectors for interpretation. After seeing it this way, I began to understand why it’s so hotly contested.

Best legal definition I've heard involves death. When is a person considered dead? Brain activity ceased irreversibly. In the opposite end you have first brain activity (around three months since fecundation) as the best milestone. Of course there is philosophical discussion that goes beyond that, but since making it a crime is a legal matter, it's probably within reason.

> In the opposite end

Although it might be convenient to treat life as being somehow legally symmetrical, I think that is still a position that needs to be justified.

To give a strange analogy, if someone gathers all the materials needed to make a bomb, but doesn't mix them together, they can still be arrested for bomb-making, even though, in a strictly chemical sense, they haven't made anything that can donate.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#274
post #133

This plan is useless. In this day and age it's trivial to create a system for private communication that works outside the mainstream apps.

When citizens start working around the law (if it passes), the forces who pushed for the law will start going after "unregulated" app stores and even websites that implement unfiltered chat / picture sending services.

Perhaps that was their end goal all along.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#275
post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like online voting. It works as long as the government does not have a malicious intent of staying in power indefinitely. Then the secret word list might include stuff like "free speech" or "Uighur" and the world would go to hell.

That's why I mentioned the multiple parties. But I understand your point. It would just be the next step for them to sneak in all kinds of words.

We're not just talking about words here, though. You have to ask yourself:

* Who do I trust to look at the pictures in the government database?

* Who does the government trust to look at these pictures?

* Who would even be willing to look at these pictures?

These are probably disjoint sets, leading to a very empty intersection. Unfortunately, the logical impossibility of a government implementing a system that citizens should be happy with is not a barrier to it implementing some other system which it claims is good enough.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a brit that voted exit because of the EU democratic deficit, not because of xenophobia. I expected it to damage the economy for a decade, and I stilll wanted out. I knew that would put me in the same group as the xenophobic racists, but I still voted out. I also knew it would cause pain; the last people I wanted at the wheel during Brexit was Boris Johnson and the Tories. But I voted Brexit anyway, because I figu…

> and a bunch of other rules, and not get kicked out, or even sanctioned. So you're saying you voted for Brexit because the EU didn't have enough power to punish member states? Do you think that these new entrants were the only ones breaking the rules with no consequences?[0] > I don't want to be in a union of governments with authoritarian racists. Leaving the EU doesn't help make Hungary (for example) become any le…

> the only ones breaking the rules

Of course not. Rules get broken all the time. But as the years went by, I came to realise that the EU didn't embody the principles it claimed to stand for (and of which I approved).

> Leaving the EU doesn't help make Hungary (for example) become any less authoritarian

Moderating the atavistic instincts of other countries isn't a good reason for being in a political union.

> Boris Johnson and the Tories

I have half a chance of voting them out. It's not possible to vote Hungary and Poland off the EU Commission.

The fact is, we're out; I voted to leave; I'm not regretful. I knew there would be consequences. They've not been as severe as I expected (yet).

I generally avoid debating Brexit with people; it's done and dusted. When it was still a live debate it was VERY divisive, because EU membership embraces so many aspects of life and politics. It's almost impossible to win (or lose) a Brexit debate.

But I'm not ashamed of my decision, so I'm prepared to stand up and defend it. I think a renewed Brexit debate would be off-topic here, though.

FTR, I have nothing against Poles or Hungarians. Their governments have never been aligned with what I thought were the EU principles, though. Greece acceded despite not meeting the financial requirements for membership; it was then financially crushed by Germany (more specifically, German bankers). That did cause me shame.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#277
post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think it suggests that life-at-conception was so obvious to the authors that they didn't feel the need to distinguish between abortion and murder Mosaic law does distinguish between violently inducing a miscarriage (punishable by a fine to be paid to the father) and murder (punishable by death) in Exodus 21. It is unclear whether there was any penalty for a self-induced miscarriage, though that would not have bee…

Do you mean Exodus 21:22-24? That's not what it says at all: "When men strive together and hit a pregnant woman, so that her children come out, but there is no harm, the one who hit her shall surely be fined, as the woman’s husband shall impose on him, and he shall pay as the judges determine. But if there is harm, then you shall pay life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for…

As with any ancient text, translations will vary. The one you've quoted seems to play up the ambiguity, which is non-standard for English renditions. The Common English Bible renders this passage as,

"When people who are fighting injure a pregnant woman so that she has a miscarriage but no other injury occurs, then the guilty party will be fined what the woman’s husband demands, as negotiated with the judges. 23 If there is further injury, then you will give a life for a life"

The traditional Talmudic interpretation is that any harm to the fetus is to be punished with a fine, and any harm to the mother is punishable wound for wound: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Judaism/abortio....

> Not only is the fine specifically a punishment for inadvertently hitting the woman (in the case where the child is not harmed), but it says "life for life", proving that children in the womb are considered alive and their death is a capital offence, just like killing an adult.

I'm not sure what you're taking "so that her children come out" to mean, but it is usually understood as a reference to an induced miscarriage.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#278
post #169

The interesting thing about EU is that, because it’s a bureaucratic dictatorship, it can force it (worse, citizens are mostly obedient). So it’s particularly dangerous. Imagine France orders this! It’s not like Apple responding to consumers’ opinion.

Dictatorship means total authority over a domain. EU is so very far from that. If anything it’s the opposite of dictatorship. The federal EU institutions are mostly toothless with respect to the nation states.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#279

Have to jump through a few links to get to the 'protest' part. > Protest now by contacting the responsible EU Commissioners! Experience shows that a phone call is more effective than e-mails or letters. Officially, the planned obligation for messaging and chat control is called “legislation to effectively tackle child sexual abuse online”. > If an office tries to redirect you to the EU Commissioner for Home Affairs (…

> Ms von der Leyen I'm deeply sceptical of Ms von der Leyen. Not least because of how she got her job. She manages to get the press to talk about the EU giving Ukraine "a speedy response" re: joining the EU[0][1][2] Then Macron says it will take "take decades"[3] [4] I'm sorry, but once you reach that threshold of political posturing, if von der Leyen promised that tomorrow is definitely Wednesday then I'd immediatel…

[deleted]

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#280

Complete and total invasion of privacy. They always choose the most egregious crime to push through a cecession of rights. If you oppose this, you are supporting pedophiles. But fuck them. Don't let them gaslight you. There are countless broken laws that could be caught if only they could see our data. How long until they force Google or Apple to report someone to the authorities if their GPS says they are travelling…

It is also generally an unsolvable crime. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to use the argument again and again.
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