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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

#141

Post by inglor_cz »

Agingcoder wrote: post #69
inglor_cz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Haha, sure, it’s real invigilation terror over here in Europe. " More like slow addition of smothering layers of bureaucracy upon bureaucracy until your breathing space is severely limited. Combined with our ghastly demographics, I think our growth is a thing of the past. In many individual EU countries including mine, something like Chat Control 2.0 would not fly and the attention of the public would be very negati…

Hungary and Poland don’t strike me as very lax governments, so it’s not obvious to me that people in Eastern Europe would actively fight that kind of legislation.

Locally, such a proposal would immediately become subject of the local cultural war. Journalists would hop on the news and make clickbait of them incessantly.

But few people, including the media, pay real attention to anything that happens in Brussels.

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

#142

Post by ur-whale »

zo1 wrote: post #134
Loughla wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you expand on why, please? From the outside looking in, most European countries seem much better at most things than where I live in the US (unless you're very wealthy, I guess).

Not OP. But some of us have seen how the life can function "just fine" even without the huge amount of control and laws that the EU has. I'm gonna be a bit crass here to convey my point. I currently live in a "shithole" country, and I'd still not want to live in the EU in comparison. I've had this discussion with many people that came back, with family that lives there, with my wife seeing if we want to move there "f…

> Land I probably won't be able to do what I want on exactly, anyways.

I can confirm this. One of the myriad of reasons that made me leave the EU for good.

Land "ownership" is a joke in the EU. Worse, it's actually a scam: if you own property in most of the western EU, you have about the same rights a tenant would have.

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

#143

Post by hef19898 »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #137
hef19898 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked, it is made up of the respective ministers / secretaries of the memebwr states (foreign affairs, interior,...). So, also democratic as, as those ministers are nominated by the national governments after elections. EDIT: There seven institutions of the EU: Parliament (elected directly), European Council (assembly of democratically elected head of state / government of memeber states), Council of the EU (s…

I didn't say it was some kind of dictatorship. I do note, however, that the bulk of the EU executive is selected by an organization that is maximally disconnected from the voting public. And this seems to be by design. Consider the situation described in TFA. Let's say you, as an EU citizen, wanted to change the makeup of the Commission to rectify this. You could vote for a new MEP, but this would have relatively lit…

You absolutely do not understand the role of the European institutions and give the Commission much more power than it actually has. And you fail to understand the EU states are actually souvereign nations and states like Texas or California.

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

#144

Post by myaccountonhn »

callalex wrote: post #110

Everyone here on Hacker News seems to be painting this issue as universally disliked and unwanted and obviously bad. However, that is just blatantly not the case. The “think of the children” and “all opposition are pedophiles” arguments are very powerful and effective. It is important to know your enemy if you wish to defeat them, burying your head in the sand accomplishes nothing.

Well the irony is that children have a right to privacy. This law hurts their integrity

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

#145

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#146

Post by hef19898 »

ur-whale wrote: post #142
zo1 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP. But some of us have seen how the life can function "just fine" even without the huge amount of control and laws that the EU has. I'm gonna be a bit crass here to convey my point. I currently live in a "shithole" country, and I'd still not want to live in the EU in comparison. I've had this discussion with many people that came back, with family that lives there, with my wife seeing if we want to move there "f…

> Land I probably won't be able to do what I want on exactly, anyways. I can confirm this. One of the myriad of reasons that made me leave the EU for good. Land "ownership" is a joke in the EU. Worse, it's actually a scam: if you own property in most of the western EU, you have about the same rights a tenant would have.

That is so objectively wrong, I don't even know where to start... Utter Liberitarian none-sense...

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

#147

Post by scott_w »

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…

Oh man, I’m so glad my country (the U.K.) left the E.U. and no longer have to worry about all that government corrupti- oh…

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

#148

Post by admissionsguy »

Loughla wrote: post #98
admissionsguy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We all just want to escape this tyrannical dictatorship. Well, I actually do.

Can you expand on why, please? From the outside looking in, most European countries seem much better at most things than where I live in the US (unless you're very wealthy, I guess).

There is now a pretty big wealth gap between the US and the "rich" EU countries. I expect it to keep growing. As the EU economy further stagnates, it will become a zero-sum game with, I expect, ever increasing level of government control and eventually repression.

Even now I don't agree with your assessment that European countries are much better at most things. Even the glorified "free" healthcare turns out to be neither free nor universal when you actually get to use it.

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

#149

Post by matthewdgreen »

hef19898 wrote: post #128
matthewdgreen wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> I can confirm, you don't.

I'm sorry if I insulted or embarrassed you. That wasn't my intent.

My view is that the design of governing bodies is another area of engineering, and you can learn a lot about design goals by looking at the resulting systems. But I realize this can also become very personal.

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

#150

Post by scott_w »

ur-whale wrote: post #142
zo1 wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not OP. But some of us have seen how the life can function "just fine" even without the huge amount of control and laws that the EU has. I'm gonna be a bit crass here to convey my point. I currently live in a "shithole" country, and I'd still not want to live in the EU in comparison. I've had this discussion with many people that came back, with family that lives there, with my wife seeing if we want to move there "f…

> Land I probably won't be able to do what I want on exactly, anyways. I can confirm this. One of the myriad of reasons that made me leave the EU for good. Land "ownership" is a joke in the EU. Worse, it's actually a scam: if you own property in most of the western EU, you have about the same rights a tenant would have.

Land ownership has literally fuck all to do with the EU.
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