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Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

telex.hu

131–140 of 542 posts

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#131
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU shouldn't be above that. But when Hungary doesn't like the rules of the EU it should leave. Of course it never will, as it is depending on the 3.000.000.000 Euro yearly support.

Those 3b are such a simplistic narrative. How much money do Western companies make in Hungary due to EU? The reality is that EU is mostly a neo-colonial project where the East Europe is depleted of resources (especially human capital) and treated as nothing more than a marketplace for W European products.

Hungary has a trade surplus with the EU.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#132
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU funds and fuels a Belorussian-style regime Afaik Orban's party has won the last rounds of elections pretty conclusively, with no fraud allegations involved (unlike what currently happens in the US, I'm talking about election fraud allegations). What's with this "Belorussian-style regime" nonsense?

Sure they did. I also think Lukashenko would have also won most of his elections if they were democratic, losing maybe only the last one marginally. Same with the Chinese communist party. To no surprise - if your people sit on all levels of the government, if you control the media and the public discourse, if you persecute anyone having any chance against you, you win. This doesn't mean other countries need to suppor…

This sort of implies people can’t think for themselves. By this logic, the liberal countries are only liberal because the media tells the people to be liberal. Maybe you’re right.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They should be expelled, but that's not possible. So the EU is indeed kinda helpless against member states gone rouge

I don't recommended this scenario but: the other states could join a new union and leave Hungary and possibly other states outside (the usual split into a good company and a bad one.) Lots of legal disputes but in international law the strongest party always makes the law and shrugs problems away. BTW, is it rouge (as in French for red) or rogue?

It's Rogue. Common misspelling :)

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#134
post #74
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU funds and fuels a Belorussian-style regime Afaik Orban's party has won the last rounds of elections pretty conclusively, with no fraud allegations involved (unlike what currently happens in the US, I'm talking about election fraud allegations). What's with this "Belorussian-style regime" nonsense?

It is true that Fidesz, his party, has won 2/3rds of the seats in the Parliament, though they only got 45.2% of the total votes. This victory was in part due to them significantly re-drawing the regions used during the elections to their favour, changing rules for voting from abroad (making it easier to vote from neighbouring regions where most of the people are traditionally their supporters, but more difficult from…

I think the problem is that a lot of these claims could apply to many other countries as well, and don't obviously implicate Orban in doing things that are clearly beyond the pale. For example:

- The UK has got a bunch of boundary changes queued up that have been pending for years, which will benefit the ruling party. It sounds bad when put like that, however the boundary changes themselves were recalculated using census data (I think) in a neutral way, so although it helps the ruling party that isn't what led to the changes.

- It's hard to understand for a non Hungarian exactly what the voting rule changes might be about, but it sounds like it may be related to postal voting (people in neighbouring regions can go there physically). A lot of countries either restrict or want to restrict postal voting because it's drastically more susceptible to fraud, and there are constant allegations that left wing parties in particular like to abuse postal voting. Again the UK has exactly the same problem and some conservative MPs want to tighten the rules over who may vote postally due to a string of scandals related to it.

- Using the state to fund their own political campaigns. Again, any consistent standard that said this is evil would need to have considered the UK a rogue state in 2016, because the government at the time used vast sums of government money to fund the campaign to remain in the EU. For example the government sent a mailshot to everyone in the entire country, which alone cost more than the theoretical spending limit for the entire campaign. Government resources were routinely deployed in other ways to try and win the vote. Yet unsurprisingly, nobody in the EU complained at the time.

- "Gradually taking control of all media outlets" sounds like a reference to supporters of Orban coming into editorial positions rather than the government literally passing a law that gives Fidesz direct control over the press. Is that not so? In which case, under what standard can that be described as illegitimate? European media is totally dominated by supporters of the EU Commission and centre-left parties to the extent that in some parts of Europe, Eurosceptic conservative media hardly exists at all. Clearly the same thing has happened with different political movements in other parts of the world.

- Filling major positions with their own people and other such things, that's exactly what governments are meant to do. It's a necessary step in order to govern, in fact. No government can run a country if all major positions are controlled by people who oppose the government. Again, the UK is an interesting counter-point: it has major constitutional problems due to the lack of the government doing this, with the result that various organizations that are technically parts of the government are run by people who see themselves as some kind of quasi-official opposition, and who constantly try to undermine the actual elected government instead of doing their job.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#135
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU with different provinces? Because outside of your bubble nobody wants this. A random person from Bulgaria is going to have a very different culture from a random person from Netherlands. What do you think happens with power in such conglomerate ? If you want to see what happens when you create a forced conglomerate of different nations (but still more simi…

Or Switzerland or Belgium. I'd argue that, by now, there are more differences (cultural, economic, political...) between parts of the countries, like cities vs countryside, than between countries.

Isnt belgium unable to form a government for years? I don't know that Belgium is a diversity succeess story.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#136
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those 3b are such a simplistic narrative. How much money do Western companies make in Hungary due to EU? The reality is that EU is mostly a neo-colonial project where the East Europe is depleted of resources (especially human capital) and treated as nothing more than a marketplace for W European products.

What a load of bullcrap to be polite. I hear this from various eastern far right wing supporters quite a bit, and it isn't based on any facts, just some wishful thinking. Hungary is a net receiver of direct money subsidies. The fact is most of it is stolen by government-aligned forces within economy, this is a well-oiled machine in place for a long time. Western companies come to Hungary because its cheap force, desp…

[deleted]

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#137
post #105
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU is completely helpless against rouge states There is a point where politics depend on good intent. It does not matter if it is the EU, USA or China. If there is a part of the population that is radicalized and hate rhetoric is used that will destabilize any society. The main defense against this situation is that it does not work to improve citizens lives. It only benefits a small part of society and it will mak…

> If there is a part of the population that is radicalized and hate rhetoric is used that will destabilize any society. I'm going to point at this as an example of a very traditional, very political example unproductive thinking. One of the lessons people refuse to see in politics is that the people who vote for things they don't like might, potentially, be upset about something. There is a lack of reflection on how…

The word radicalized is also way overused.

Orban is seen as hateful or radicalising because he is against illegal immigration. He has made a big marketing point about this.

But that doesn't mean that there aren't legitimate concerns about illegal immigration that Hungarians might have. Just because Western european nations have decided they don't mind if they add 1-2% yearly to their populations of a culturally totally different type of person, doesn't mean that that is normal or "good".

Orban is using these emotions for his own purposes. That's true. But it's not Orban that is creating these issues, or the concerns about them.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#138
post #39

All of Netanyahu's allies in the world seem to have profited from this relationship by obtaining military grade surveillance inorder to suppress human rights of journalists and opposition. This is Netanyahu's legacy, a proto dictator, arming dictators. I'm convince pegasus was used against Israeli journalists, opposition leaders and law enforcement officials. Too bad our political system is still under his thumb and…

Hungary aside, most of Israel's allies in the region are dictatorships, actaully all of them: Egypt, Jordan, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Morocco (arguably, let's agree it's not a liberal democracy) and so on and so on. There are zero democracies in the area. So it's easy to see Israel's interest in supplying technology to those regimes and assuring good relations; it's not like the oppositions to these dictators are any bette…

In the area, I agree. But Netanyahu chose to spurn democratic European allies and allign Israel with Hungary and Poland. Basically he made western Europe an enemy of Israel because he chose settlements over a peace process, to alleviate the foreign pressure he alligned Israel with Hungary and Poland, also helping Russia with its cold European conflict.

> Isn't the U.S selling arms to Saudi Arabia?

How's that relevant? If you're fishing for hypocrisy, be assured I dislike the US take on democracy and it's leaders of late no less than Netanyahu.

But At least the US has a constitution, checks and balances. And a tradition of freedom and democracy. Israel has a growing population, the parts that grow are mostly lacking any sense of democratic values or tradition. Guess which electorate Netanyahu spurned and which he focused his Messiyah propaganda on.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#139
post #11

I always am amazed by how many people value their nation over larger groups of human beings who are just like them... isn't it time to up our game as humans and start thinking bigger? Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU with different provinces? Nationalism is an ancient mentality, get rid of it and start moving into larger groups who can do more. I keep reading about the North American Allia…

>Why not abolish nations within the EU and just become the EU with different provinces? Because outside of your bubble nobody wants this. A random person from Bulgaria is going to have a very different culture from a random person from Netherlands. What do you think happens with power in such conglomerate ? If you want to see what happens when you create a forced conglomerate of different nations (but still more simi…

I would not overemphasize the cultural differences between the Balkan people and call Yugoslavia a super state. The history of the people there is intertwined and national divisions are very much superimposed by ideologists.

Re: Hungarian journalists and critics of Orbán were targeted with Pegasus

#140

Does anyone have any idea how Pegasus actually works? I haven't found any teardowns or even a clear description of what the iMessage says. This is some kind of code injection attack that can go through a text message?

iOS iMessage bugs parsing images, I recall
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