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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

#241

Post by masswerk »

firtoz wrote: post #215
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?

Let's put it this ways: if policymakers are allowed to think that certain elements should not be represented in the political process and/or should be just overwhelmed by a broad wave welcoming the agenda, we're deep into the root causes of what haunted Europe in the 1930s.

If only for this reason, we must stop targeted advertising and messaging, before it is too late. Because, for a minimal social and political alignment, everybody must be allowed to be informed of what is on the market, that of goods and that of ideas. Modern democracy is built on mass media and communications and not on in-group messaging and arbitrage deals. (At least, in the more idealistic and not-entirely-cynical version of the narrative.)

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

#242

Post by [deleted] »

mcpackieh wrote: post #224
stevarino wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California Prop 22 comes to mind, unfortunately: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_California_Proposition_... There was so much uncertainty around it and who wanted what that a lot of people voted against their best interests. I'm still meeting people who thought they were voting against Uber and Lyft with that proposition. The ads were constant and incredibly misleading. And that was one issue. Every time these p…

Prop 22 was contrary to the interests of professional drivers, but probably in line with the interests of riders who benefit from drivers being exploited. When push comes to shove, a whole lot of people choose cheap service over their publicly espoused principles. For evidence of this, consider how many suburban boomers are eager to hire illegal immigrants to do lawn work around their McMansion for less than minimum…

[deleted]

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

#243

Post by [deleted] »

scott_w wrote: post #223
bondarchuk wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proposal in question does regulate freedom of expression, as the gp said, because it proposes monitoring all communications of citizens. So their argument is not nonsense at all.

It’s nonsense because that’s not what the proposal is. It’s focused on CSAM. It’s a bad law but what you and GP are saying is pure tinfoil-hat-level nonsense.

[deleted]

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

#244

Post by eigenket »

_hcuq wrote: post #182
eigenket wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the EU doesn't really have much actual power to do anything that impacts normal citizens. Like the EU doesn't start criminal prosecutions or anything against people. If there is some crime you're being prosecuted for it's going to be your country's government that prosecutes you. No one is really worried about the EU becoming some sort of Orwellian state because it isn't a state, it doesn't operate like that.…

Yep. In conspiracy circles they like to demonise the EU. They don't know what it is or how it operates and can't be bothered to find out.

I don't think its a thing exclusive to conspiracy circles. Its natural for Americans to mentally model the EU as something like the US, with the EU representing the federal government and the individual countries acting like US states.

The reality is that that model is pretty innacurate, the EU has a lot less power than the US Federal governenment has. The EU still acts more like a club of individual nations than it does one overall government.

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

#245

Post by pas »

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.

it wouldn't have become law. it sounds fishy (because it was at the meeting of agriculture and fisheries, eheh), but the EU Parliament would had to vote on it anyway.

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

#246

Post by scott_w »

blibble wrote: post #237
scott_w wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s total gibberish. It’s not easy but it’s absolutely possible to amend EU legislation. It works in exactly the same way as the UK: by enacting new legislation.

> That’s total gibberish. okay, so how can the parliament do it?

By passing new laws with the EC.

You act like the British Parliament can pass law without government approval. Spoiler alert: it can’t.

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

#247

Post by spencerflem »

layer8 wrote: post #85
spencerflem wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take the money out of politics as much as possible and there will be less incentive for politicians to sell out their people

What do you mean by that? There’s already anti-corruption laws, and corruption is actually being prosecuted. To have less incentives, you’d actually have to pay politicians more, which would constitute putting more money into politics.

Oh, yea I'm for paying politicians directly. Meant more like, the money you need to run a campaign

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

#248

Post by notrlyskeptik »

Timon3 wrote: post #220
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'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.

No-confidence votes by citizens to remove misbehaving politicians from the their position and the states payroll, including pensions 'n stuff.

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

#249

Post by eigenket »

clarada wrote: post #153
eigenket wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the EU doesn't really have much actual power to do anything that impacts normal citizens. Like the EU doesn't start criminal prosecutions or anything against people. If there is some crime you're being prosecuted for it's going to be your country's government that prosecutes you. No one is really worried about the EU becoming some sort of Orwellian state because it isn't a state, it doesn't operate like that.…

The European Commission has veto power over the European Parliament, so I'm afraid it can just force it through. Doesn't normally come to that - there's enough corruption and alternative ways to pressurise the MEPs.

As far as I am aware this is pretty far from accurate. Pretty much everything goes through the "Ordinary legislative procedure" where the comission proposes legislation and the parliament and council have to agree it (Codecision).

The council and commission can change stuff together without concent of parliament in very specialised areas (special legislative procedures), I think this only gets used for internal competion law and market regulation stuff.

In even more specialised areas the commission can change stuff on its own, as far as I know this is mostly restricted to agreeing trade deals and fixing specific tarrifs.

I can't comment on the corruption and alternative ways of pressuring MEPs. Those probably exist.

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

#250

Post by Timon3 »

notrlyskeptik wrote: post #248
Timon3 wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No-confidence votes by citizens to remove misbehaving politicians from the their position and the states payroll, including pensions 'n stuff.

I could see this leading to abuse through populism. A better way might be to track the number of vetoed laws brought in by each politician, and to have removal be an automatic consequence of too many. This would broaden the blast radius to everyone involved, making everyone accountable, while only going after repeat offenders.
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