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Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

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Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#121

Post by matthewdgreen »

malermeister wrote: post #107
matthewdgreen wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And what about the Council of the EU?

The Council of the EU is a meeting of ministers of various national governments, all of them elected by their respective electorate.

So the organization that selects the majority of the Commission Members (26 out of 27) is also the one that is the most distantly tied to the voting public. None of the CotEU are directly elected. The council also appears to have a complex rotating Presidency and multiple "configurations" in which different ministers hold varying amounts of power -- all of which adds abstraction and makes it more difficult to hold members accountable at the level of the voting public.

If I were being cynical, I would assume that this was a deliberate attempt to insulate the EU executive selection process from any sort of direct electoral accountability. But maybe that's good? I don't know.

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#122

Post by peoplefromibiza »

the best part of this thread is people that do not know how a democracy works and how the EU works giving advice to improve democracy in EU, that sound like bullet points to pitch some startup idea before having checked if their idea can work in practice, what the flaws in the reasoning are and if something similar has been already tried and rejected .

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#123

Post by peoplefromibiza »

greatgib wrote: post #61

The European parlement is probably the best thing that we have in Europe, most good things and new rights come from there. At the opposite, the European Commission is probably the worse that we can have. It is totally corrupted (see the vice president with bags of cash given by the Qatar and co) or at least morally corrupted by lobbies. And no one elected this persons with so much power by the way. Good things to won…

> And no one elected this persons with so much power by the way.

this is a very tired meme, they have been nominated and scrutinized by the people elected in what you called probably the best thing that we have in Europe i.e. the EU Parliament

edit: elections solve none of the problems people think they solve. proof is governments are corrupt even though they are elected by the people. if the objections is "we can't let them chose because they will meet in a room and exchange money for the position" well, how is it different from "they will meet in the same room exchanging the same money to decide who you can vote or not"?

elections are a consensus strategy, they do not solve social and political issues.

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#124

Post by betaby »

blipvert wrote: post #48
betaby wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[link I was referring to has been deleted by the original author]

Sounds like a Germany thing, not an EU thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#125

Post by MrBuddyCasino »

TacticalCoder wrote: post #7

The title should be shortened from "Undermining Democracy: The European Commission's Controversial Push for Digital Surveillance" simply to: "Undermining Democracy: The European Commission" . The EC is sheer horror. The thousands of years old saying: "The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state" has never been truer. I've done a short consulting gig at the European Parliament, which at least tries to be th…

Anyone who needs a less abstract impression, check the feed of EC Thierry Breton [0]. A painfully clear impression of how those people think about freedom of speech.

[0] https://x.com/thierrybreton

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#126

Post by moffkalast »

layer8 wrote: post #118
dsign wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder what would happen if there were not politicians, if the parliament of Europe were the sum of all its citizens voting for laws in some sort of mega-stack-overflow consensus system. A part of me wants to believe this madness would end. Another part fears that we would try, at least for a few months, total surveillance and bisections as a form of capital punishment. But on the bright side, we would be able to c…

It would be much worse, witch-hunt style. Propaganda would run rampant. Also, many wouldn’t trust the voting system, because they won’t believe many actual outcomes to possibly be representative. Instead of blaming politicians, they would increasingly blame the voting system to be rigged by whoever is running it.

> Open New Issue

> New Law: "Propaganda is illegal"

> Turnout: 93% for 5% against, 2% abstained

> Law approved.

Well boys we did it, propaganda is no more.

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#127

Post by peoplefromibiza »

hackandthink wrote: post #9

These bureaucrats overwhelm citizens with enormous amounts of text. Expression of opinion is regulated here. A few principles should be enough. The most important one should be: Every citizen is free to express his opinion. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CEL...

> Every citizen is free to express his opinion.

you are, but if you commit a crime in doing it you go to trial.

which is fair.

edit: libel is a crime punishable by the law, everywhere in the west. Doesn't mean you are forbidden to say what you want.

democracy without a justice system as a counter power is not democracy as we intend them in modern era.

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#128

Post by hef19898 »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #121
malermeister wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Council of the EU is a meeting of ministers of various national governments, all of them elected by their respective electorate.

So the organization that selects the majority of the Commission Members (26 out of 27) is also the one that is the most distantly tied to the voting public. None of the CotEU are directly elected. The council also appears to have a complex rotating Presidency and multiple "configurations" in which different ministers hold varying amounts of power -- all of which adds abstraction and makes it more difficult to hold me…

All the commission members are elected in the respective member states elections... Ehy isn't that democratic? Rotating presendency, nice thing for an organisation made up of 26 member nations. And all those ministers are nominated following democratic elections in each member state. And as such, they are very much accountable to their electorate every 4-5 years.

>> I don't know.

I can confirm, you don't.

Re: Undermining Democracy: The EU Commission's Controversial Push for Surveillance

#129

Post by blipvert »

betaby wrote: post #124
blipvert wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a Germany thing, not an EU thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

Would be more convincing if you could cite the EU directive which makes this law in Germany …
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