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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

#301

Post by momirlan »

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…

you are assuming people are rational . anyway, there would be intense media campaigns to convince the regular joes of the merits if any absurdity.

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

#302

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

dalbasal wrote: post #291
fsflover wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There needs to be an organized, pro-freedom movement. https://edri.org

They seem to have the right idea. Do you know much about them? Are they good/effective?

Let us have a look. That page features Corporate Memphis-like artwork picturing a black crippled man, a blonde woman, and a woman wearing a headscarf. It talks about decolonization. The about us page lists a few organizations I wouldn't trust anywhere near policy in general.

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

#303

Post by montagg »

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…

You’ve described all of late stage capitalism + democracy, for things you agree with and things you don’t.

This is as good as it gets when money has any influence on policy.

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

#304

Post by AlbertCory »

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…

Exactly, and this is why the people in the thread saying, "don't worry, it won't pass" are not serious.

In a year or two, they'll raise it again, except then they'll know what the opposition thinks and what arguments resonated with the public, so they'll be smarter.

"They can't bring it up again for five years!" -- also not serious. They can resurrect the least controversial parts and call it something else.

The only answer is to fire every single person associated with this, such that they can never work for the EU in any guise, ever again. I'm not optimistic about that happening.

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

#305

Post by mrtksn »

throwaway50662 wrote: post #293
mrtksn wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The UK and EU felt like an exception but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Both are trending toward undemocratic bureaucracies in service to either the bureaucracy itself or the powerful. The whole public opinion shifted towards security over everything, unfortunately. As a result, the institutions follow.

No, not the whole. There are entire states in the EU that are against that. Unfortunately these are the smaller ones so they can't do anything about it and it's being forced upon their populations, regardless of what anyone says about how sovereign they are.

All states have a right of veto.

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

#306

Post by skissane »

rayiner wrote: post #38
jjgreen wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK, the Home Secretary is pressuring the Police to interpret the phrase "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" (a slogan often used in pro-Palestinian demonstrations) as an "expression of a violent desire to see Israel erased from the world", possibly making it a "racially aggravated" public order offence. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67110119

But it does mean that, if you have even the most passing familiarity with the geography of the region.

Taken literally, the phrase could be understood as simply a call for a free State of Palestine composed of the West Bank and Gaza, with internationally recognised Israel remaining intact – "from the river" meaning the West Bank's boundary with the Jordan River, "to the sea" meaning the coast of the Gaza Strip. Maybe even with some sort of corridor with right of free passage connecting the two (see this NGO proposal – https://geneva-accord.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/corrido... )

Now, I agree in practice many (most?) people using this phrase don't mean it in just that sense, and actually mean it as a call for the abolition of the State of Israel. But it doesn't seem impossible that some people who use it actually do mean it in just the literal sense I suggest. The phrase is inherently ambiguous–which is one of the reasons why I think the potential criminalisation of an ambiguous political slogan (one which I myself would never use or endorse) is rather problematic.

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

#307

Post by roenxi »

jltsiren wrote: post #300
roenxi wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There'd need to be some filtering before people take office. I like the idea of randomly selecting a small pool of candidates then voting within that pool. Maybe people elect and elector who's job it is to sit for 12 months just assessing people to hold actual power. Career politicians are better than monarchs or aristocrats, but the fact is that making governance decisions is technically easy. Anyone can do it in pr…

The two-party system in the US probably works in a different way than the multi-party system in the EU. In the EU, and especially in national parliaments, political parties are the primary actors. While individual politicians are often ignorant of the topics they vote on, the parties usually have the relevant expertise, though they are not always willing to take advantage of it. After all, one of the primary function…

These two positions are sitting in contradiction to each other. People chosen by lot are said to lead to administrators making the decisions and that would be bad ... but career politicians govern by giving decision making power to an administrator making the decision and that that is good. I don't think your original comment got to the heart of what you don't like about demarchy.

Furthermore, I personally just flat out don't believe "parties usually have the relevant expertise". What exactly, in detail, is that supposed to mean? Because as I've never seen that technical expertise coming out of a political party.

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

#308

Post by AlbertCory »

lock-the-spock wrote: post #42
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…

Honestly a quite funny post. You offer strong emotion wrapped in a story lending supposed crédence but give no single fact of what this abhorrent thing is that the European commission is doing. You read one (extremely technical and niche) regulation and it's horrible , in what way? And the European commission does not adopt regulations, it's parliament and council that do (the commission only proposes them). Honestly…

Since you flagged the other comment, let's try again.

You are critiquing his tone and pooh-pooh'ing his concerns. As I said above, this is only the opening shot in the war. In a year or two, they'll be back with a somewhat smaller, less ambitious plan, removing the parts that were most objectionable while keeping the spirit. Repeat, until the opposition is too worn down to be effective.

As for "this abhorrent thing is that the European commission is doing" - there are plenty of other comments here explaining what's abhorrent.

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

#309

Post by Agingcoder »

throwaway50662 wrote: post #152
Agingcoder wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not sure I understand : European Commissioners are nominated by elected National governments, and approved by parliament. How is this not democratic ? Whether you agree with these policies or not is a different matter altogether.

National government is a very different thing from national parliament. In my state the national government came out of a political compromise. The leading party has 15% support. They are limited by the national parliament in whatever they try to do here - but not in EC. Giving them control over the whole population through the EC is a spit in the face of 85% of the population. And it's very visible right on this iss…

No, the EC can’t do anything unless it’s approved by European Parliament.

It’s another unexpected aspects of European institutions : most people don’t understand how they work.

Local, national political parties abuse this by essentially blaming the EC for just about anything. If things go well it’s thanks to them, if not it’s because of the EC.

Local politicians have no interest in making sure regular people understand how Europe works.

Note that this is all independent of whether the EC is good or bad - just about basic facts.

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

#310

Post by godelski »

montagg wrote: post #303
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…

You’ve described all of late stage capitalism + democracy, for things you agree with and things you don’t. This is as good as it gets when money has any influence on policy.

> This is as good as it gets when money has any influence on policy.

I agree with this but I think the problem is bigger than "capitalism" and "democracy" (quotes because it seems none of us can agree on these -- to be fair -- vague definitions). Capital is more than money, and capital is what is abused. Capital can be your house, where you live, the food you eat, the clothes you wear, and so on.

Regardless of ruling systems there are no (other than short lived) cases where this imbalance does not exist and creep larger. The reason I hate these "yep that's capitalism for yah" comments is not that there aren't things to criticize about capitalism (if you can't criticize a system you're in trouble) but because it hinders the ability to have this conversation. I'm sure the conditions will relax as we approach post scarcity but there is no possible means to have true equality on all levels. Capitalism, socialism, whatever, all need to have a real discussion about how to place people into power while minimizing the ability to influence those people while maximizing the ability to do good for people. Which some of these seem to be in direct opposition from one another.

A part I see clearly missing is the temporal factor in all of this. It does not matter if you elect someone who is a saint if the environment will corrupt them. Nor is there a way to have an environment that is not rapidly changing. So how do you create a system that can adapt (be iterative) but not be influenced by those with more power/capital? If we can't have this discussion it doesn't matter much which system we choose because the truth is that you can't maximize both because they're not orthogonal.

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