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

dannymekic.com

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

#211

Post by hef19898 »

rasur wrote: post #197
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…

They could adopt the Swiss Direct-Democracy model. But, they wouldn't.

The Swiss are the only ones using it, they are a small country as well. Hardly comparable with a multi-national body like the EU.

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

#212

Post by breuleux »

logicchains wrote: post #105
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…

>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 There's another way to achieve something similar less chaotically: demarchy, which was used for some things in ancient Greece. This involves electing people at random for a limited time period; if the selection is truly random, the…

Another advantage is that if you pay random citizens full time to oversee the government, they will be able to talk and negotiate with each other directly, they will have the time to actually study and think about the issues, and they will be able to subpoena the information they need to take good decisions.

If you want people to vote meaningfully on issues, you have to empower them to cast the very best vote they could cast, and demarchy is basically the only way this could be done practically in a large society. The concept of a general election or general referendum is aberrant.

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

#213

Post by omoikane »

wkat4242 wrote: post #202
irusensei wrote: post #23

Its just me that thinks there is something really wrong with the way politicians try to pass such controversial laws? Politicians bring up something controversial. Most of the time influenced by some lobby with very little interest in public benefit. To combat this lots of people need to do activism. Those people need to devote your time and energy to prevent such thing. So far it sounds good but after the dust settl…

It's nothing new for the EU. They tried to pass software patents through a meeting of agricultural ministers. The polish delegation saved us that time but later the industrials got their wish anyway.

> software patents through a meeting of agricultural ministers

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

https://www.theregister.com/2004/12/20/patents_vote/

I had to look it up because it sounded bizarre, but it's true.

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

#214

Post by alerighi »

What they are even trying to achieve? A criminal can always use an e2e messaging system. Even if they ban the systems (such as Signal) that don’t employ these measures, it’s just a matter of using a VPN.

The excuse of reducing crime is just… an excuse

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

#215

Post by firtoz »

masswerk wrote: post #50

> To sway European public opinion, however, the European Commission went even further. X’s Transparency Report shows that the European Commission also used ‘microtargeting’ to ensure that the ads did not appear to people who care about privacy (…) and eurosceptics Independently of the broader privacy and surveillance topic, this is highly concerning: if institutions, like the EC, start to run agendas through and by c…

Holy crap that's pretty much evil scheming right there. Digital gerrymandering?

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

#216

Post by hef19898 »

hannofcart wrote: post #195
misnome wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither are government cabinets, ambassadors or generals.

Assuming that you're taking about liberal democracies, ambassadors and generals don't pass laws that the rest of us have to abide by. The government cabinet has some more democratic legitimacy in so far as that they generally comprise of elected representatives. So your statement is a non-sequitur.

The Commission doesn't pass laws neither...

No idea why don't bother to read the wikipedia articles for all of 5 minutes before repeating objectively false things.

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

#217

Post by growse »

hannofcart wrote: post #195
misnome wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither are government cabinets, ambassadors or generals.

Assuming that you're taking about liberal democracies, ambassadors and generals don't pass laws that the rest of us have to abide by. The government cabinet has some more democratic legitimacy in so far as that they generally comprise of elected representatives. So your statement is a non-sequitur.

In the UK, there's no requirement that the cabinet is formed of elected representatives. Government ministers are often Lords.

Besides, even if the defense secretary is an MP, he wasn't elected on a platform of national security by the population. So if there's a non sequitur anywhere, it's in application of any democratic legitimacy to the job of holding a significant cabinet post by winning the votes of a few ten thousand people for commons seat.

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

#218

Post by firtoz »

alerighi wrote: post #214

What they are even trying to achieve? A criminal can always use an e2e messaging system. Even if they ban the systems (such as Signal) that don’t employ these measures, it’s just a matter of using a VPN. The excuse of reducing crime is just… an excuse

Surveillance is a key to controlling the general public. It's as simple as that. It's a distraction to look at what they put on the cover or how they sell it.

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

#219

Post by hef19898 »

masswerk wrote: post #50

> To sway European public opinion, however, the European Commission went even further. X’s Transparency Report shows that the European Commission also used ‘microtargeting’ to ensure that the ads did not appear to people who care about privacy (…) and eurosceptics Independently of the broader privacy and surveillance topic, this is highly concerning: if institutions, like the EC, start to run agendas through and by c…

And who provided those tools? Twitter? So nothing new to see here, only that is not just right wing populists doing it (which is for some reason completely fine on Twitter nowadays).

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

#220

Post by Timon3 »

dsign wrote: post #78
irusensei wrote: post #23

Its just me that thinks there is something really wrong with the way politicians try to pass such controversial laws? Politicians bring up something controversial. Most of the time influenced by some lobby with very little interest in public benefit. To combat this lots of people need to do activism. Those people need to devote your time and energy to prevent such thing. So far it sounds good but after the dust settl…

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…

I've been thinking that maybe we need the opposite - a citizens veto. The threshold would have to be high enough to ensure it's not abused by individual groups (maybe 2/3rds?), but the ability for the population to decide against measures (maybe even individual parts of omnibus bills) would create new controls against overreach without completely throwing away the current system.
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