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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

#281

Post by dalbasal »

lock-the-spock wrote: post #160
dalbasal wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk... The EC pushes through controversial decisions, that are not controversial between states... the bar is generally something high in this regard. National Governments get a buffer between them and discontented citizens, because "it's the EU." There is also a lot of pressure to conform to EC "consensus," parties/individuals that want to be seen as government material. EC totally discounts digital privacy especial…

There is certainly corruption in the use of EU funds within the programmes but do you have evidence of actual corruption in the institutions in recent years? The only cases I'm aware of were all in the parliament, which is unsurprising if national parties send good "party soldiers" chosen for loyalty rather than quality. Corruption at national level seems however much more common, see recent stories on Bavarian backr…

Yes, corruption at national (and subnational) levels is much greater.

EC institutions don't control enough programs, funds or building permits to rival states on this front.

I do think there is "soft" corruption (as OP alludes) in the "EU as a regulatory powerhouse" complex. Lobby-adjacent corruption, like in the US. A lot of that is very dirty money, with foreigns states or industries literally buying a seat at the table. The cleaner end is Google & Apple getting a seat at the table via ireland (and others) who simply have a national interest in giving it to them. The dirtier is Qatar, China or whatnot getting proxied in for political donations, payola, funding of specific nonprofits/etc.

Anyway... that exists. It is (IMO) almost entirely contained at the top level, and it mostly bleeds in from national politics.OTOH, competence and professionalism also exists in the EC. That means the can actually deliver on the job, if they're tasked with a good job.

The EU has very little advocacy or awareness of digital freedom. Foreign ministry staff don't understand it at all. We're just a stream of weirdo complaints that appears whenever they try to do anything digital related. I know it's hard to grok, but they do not have any idea what we are talking about... and that's kind of our fault. Democracy has some essential bottom up components.

On the positive side... a sound, rational and tactical movement can (IMO) really succeed and get stuff. The good thing about eurocrats, is that once they're mission is the right mission... they get it done better than most. EU consumer protection, for example, is quite excellent relative to any examples I know. EU infrastructure and transport projects were executed way better than national equivalents (see Ireland again for examples).

There is no serious political/factional/ideological barrier to EC adopting digital freedom goals. Just ignorance. There's hope.

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

#282

Post by jltsiren »

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…

It would be chaos, and the real power would shift to the administrators.

If you select people at random, they will have even less understanding of the issues they vote on than career politicians. They don't have established networks of experts they believe they can trust. They lack the skills to have effective meetings between more than a handful of people, to negotiate, and to make collective decisions. Administrators would have to provide all that.

That would be bureaucracy in the literal sense of the word.

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

#283

Post by m3at »

alexpotato wrote: post #265

I recently discovered that US Congressional votes used to be "anonymous" in the sense that the vote COUNTS would be public but who voted for what was kept secret. The voting was then changed so that actual votes where made public in favor of more transparency. While it did indeed make the vote more open and visible to the public, it had the effect of showing lobbyists exactly which members of Congress were voting for…

I learned about this effect too recently in an ACX post, let me add a link for the curious: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-book-review-secret-gov...

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

#284

Post by pas »

omoikane wrote: post #213
wkat4242 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

yes, it's bizarre, but it wouldn't had rammed it through though. and just because it's agricultural ministers it doesn't mean they don't have contact with their respective government, etc.

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

#285

Post by dalbasal »

jowea wrote: post #187
unmole wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> recreational politics This. Fringe parties tend to do much better in EP elections than in national elections.

Isn't that mostly due to different electoral systems?

yes..

Also, MEPs are often elected differently allowing otherwise unlikely or fringe candidates to succeed.

And, parties/people just don't treap. EP seriously. Everyone knows it's a clownshow. Treat it that way. EP can't have more power because clownshow. Cycle.

It's a perfect 19th century steryotype of upper house (Council) and lower house (EP). One is a club. The other is a square. Public square, atm, are a hard place to do anything but show off and fight.

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

#286

Post by seydor »

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…

> the vice president with bags of cash given by the Qatar and

It was the vice president of the Parliament. Btw she was the vice president in charge of AI and Blockchain because ... reasons (she didnt have any qualifications)

The problem with both EC and EP is the lack of accountability , it's a very indirect system

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

#287

Post by masswerk »

throwaway50662 wrote: post #271
masswerk wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 alig…

Targeted advertising isn't the problem. Governmental organisations buying advertisement is the real culprit. They would find a way to do it even without targeted advertising, so let's cut it out completely.

I think, targeted advertising is the major (and single) incentive for what we have become to call echo chambers. Governmental institutions eventually chiming in into what is looking more and more like the predominant mode of discourse is just a consequence.

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

#288

Post by 4bpp »

bboygravity wrote: post #201
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…

This is the main reason that direct democracy is a better system: you can lobby all you want, but it ain't going to happen unless the people want it too.

People tend to approve of direct democracies up until the point that they vote for something they don't like (in European settings, this will nowadays most likely be some anti-immigration measure like the Swiss minaret ban). Then all the talking points about dangerous populism and how politics is better left to professionals who can dedicate time to understanding what is actually good policy and are not swayed by base emotions re-emerge.

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

#289

Post by throwaway50662 »

masswerk wrote: post #287
throwaway50662 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Targeted advertising isn't the problem. Governmental organisations buying advertisement is the real culprit. They would find a way to do it even without targeted advertising, so let's cut it out completely.

I think, targeted advertising is the major (and single) incentive for what we have become to call echo chambers. Governmental institutions eventually chiming in into what is looking more and more like the predominant mode of discourse is just a consequence.

There are many more ways of targeting advertisement than just paying for it directly. That's why we just need to ban all governmental advertising.

For example:

- buying space only in some paper/digital magazines and customizing the message for each of them

- placing posters only in some locations, e.g. capital city areas with significant universities, or business parks predominantly used by organizations funded by the EU

- sending letters to selected people

...

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

#290

Post by dalbasal »

malermeister wrote: post #88
dalbasal wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Idk... The EC pushes through controversial decisions, that are not controversial between states... the bar is generally something high in this regard. National Governments get a buffer between them and discontented citizens, because "it's the EU." There is also a lot of pressure to conform to EC "consensus," parties/individuals that want to be seen as government material. EC totally discounts digital privacy especial…

You probably call the CCC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Computer_Club

Or the European Pirate Party or similar. They have a handful of elected MEPs at any given time.

That is the problem though. That's not very serious politics. If it's a coalition of tech companies, law enforcement and whatnot vs pirates and anarchists... guess who wins?

A normative, liberal movement/coalition that is for digital freedom is not far fetched. It just doesn't exist. That's why we're losing.

This post demonstrates the problem quite well.

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