EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing • Hacker News Board

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#191

Post by gillesjacobs » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:57 PM UTC

generic92034 wrote: post #185

gillesjacobs wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But calling the EU not being democratic is going too far Unelected commissioners draft laws, while elected MEPs rubber-stamp with barely any changes. The Council's backroom deals make smoke-filled rooms look transparent. Try explaining the Ordinary Legislative Procedure to the average voter - you can't. And let's not forget the ritual of ignoring referendums that don't align with the "ever closer union" mantra. Whe…

The commissioners are not elected directly by the populace, just like ministers in any government I know of are not directly elected by the populace (and other powerful officials, too). The level of indirection is greater in a confederation of countries compared to a single country. The MEP usually do not "rubber-stamp with barely any changes". There often is considerable change applied to the original proposals, by…

You hit upon the "locality principle of representative democracy": the more non-local elected representatives are in their excertion of power, the less oversight by the electorate. EU Law is seperated from the electorate by multiple layers: electorate > national parties > national parliament > national government > Council of the EU > European Parliament > European Commission > EU law

Each layer dilutes democratic input and accountability. By the time you reach EU law, the average voter's influence is homeopathic at best.

Localists would argue since a federation is highly non-local it shouldn't even be attempted because it leads inherently to non-representative centralisation of power.

This multi-layered separation explains why EU citizens feel disconnected from Brussels decision-making. It's a game of democratic telephone where the message gets garbled with each step and the centralist power machine inserts its own interests.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#192

Post by llm_trw » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 12:58 PM UTC

xoa wrote: post #181

llm_trw wrote: post #40

To quote some of the people I know who would be impacted the most by this: > Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. If they'd not spend the last 10 years purging the old guard who they called free speech fanatics they'd have someone in their corner. Now I just have the world tiniest violin for them. Or to use much better words than mine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUqytjlHNIM

It's unfortunate you've chosen to engage in your own anti-speech obfuscation here though. > Freedom of speech is not freedom from consequences. The reason this line is bad is because it's wrong and misused from multiple directions due to overloading/being vague with "consequences". Freedom of speech is freedom from VIOLENT , or directly violent adjacent [0], consequences, public or private. But SOCIAL consequences ar…

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-60383385

I've worked with people who are outraged over what is happening with Hezbollah protestors that were 100% behind the above.

One of the big reasons why I rather enjoy working remotely is that I don't have to interact with those people more than looking at their mastodon feeds to see just how unhinged they are once a month for entertainment purposes.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#193

Post by rbanffy » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 1:00 PM UTC

throwaway48476 wrote: post #188

rbanffy wrote: post #154

How is the notion of conspiracy to commit a crime framed in the US legal system (including entrapment) and what would be the provisions against overreach in those cases? I remember not so long ago a couple people were arrested for conspiring to kidnap a governor in the US. They never actually committed the crime though.

The law only matters insofar as you have enough money to drag it through court long enough to get a ruling. The government has unlimited money to spend in prosecution and will freeze yours to hobble your defense.

Then, I'd say, the US has far more pressing problems than this EU policy.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#194

Post by ensignavenger » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 1:00 PM UTC

jonathanstrange wrote: post #14

That's pretty crazy, it looks a lot like in Minority Report. Notice the reference to a "future criminal offence" and the phrase "leading to the belief" in the criteria: A “minimum materiality threshold”. This requires “objective and verifiable… information suggesting that a criminal offence, or future criminal offence, has a certain degree of seriousness.” A “basic indicative criterion”. This requires “objective, ver…

Do you think EU governments should be able to track potential terrorists at any threshold, or do you think that authorities should wait until an actual terrorist attack occurs before doing any investigating? If there should be a threshold for when they can start a coordinated investigation, what should that threshold be?

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#195

Post by throwaway48476 » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 1:01 PM UTC

tomrod wrote: post #182

gillesjacobs wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Three years ago, you liked some tweets of someone who you didn't know was a political seperatist. Now, his group had been classified a terror organisation. 2. You went to buy some acetone as a solvent for a project. There is now material evidence and intent for a terrorist attack using TATP bombs. You and your family are on a no-fly list and are being watched. All digital platforms have to automatically turn over…

The law is malleable. All laws will be abused, and by corollary, all laws are societal negotiations, one court room at a time. Those in the legal field grok this. Those with less experience in the legal field typically fear the law for its seeming black-and-white attribute when it's really a lot of grey.

People take the worst case because statistically it will happen to someone. You can't average risk in your life like you can with insurance.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#196

Post by Rinzler89 » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 1:01 PM UTC

lo_zamoyski wrote: post #152

germandiago wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This looks to me, increasingly and clearly like the current people want to keep the power tight. Not the politicians necessarily, just the whole oligarchies that govern. In my humble opinion, they have pushed Europe to a disaster if things do not get fixed in the next few years.

It makes sense to pay attention to what is being pathologized by the EU establishment, because that can make you a target. However, interestingly, if you look at US Department of State travel advisories, note those for the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and Sweden and compare those with Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary, for example. One element is that the very policies that the EU is pursuing co…

Of course countries in Eastern Europe like Poland can be safer. Who knew that being selective with who you let in and unwelcoming to people who enter your country illegally instead of giving them generous welfare can make it safer? That's like being surprised that standing in the rain makes you wet.

Unfortunately promoting strictly enforcing immigration laws and borders makes you a right wing supremacist in the other progressive EU counties so they need to make themselves unsafe in order to virtue signal to the world how welcoming and tolerant they are.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#197

Post by throw100321 » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 1:01 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #183

throw1834 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Uniparty" is a concise term that English readers are familiar with. Noam Chomsky (far left) uses the same language: https://chomsky.info/20081010/ I'm disappointed but not surprised that you are trying to discredit a comment based on a single term that saves a paragraph of explanation. The same tactics that we talk about in this submission.

Chomsky, so far as I'm aware, has never written "Uniparty." What he generally seems to be referring to when he says "One Party System" is the enthrallment of the USA government to capitalist interests. "Uniparty," as in that exact word, is very much a Trumpean era creation, brought back into popularity by right wing q-anon aligned USA presidential candidate (I believe candidate?) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Someone's usage…

Chomsky say exactly the same without using the term. What does Wikipedia say?

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

"Supporters of the 2000 Green Party presidential bid of Ralph Nader used the term extensively, and Nader himself called the prevailing political structure a 'corporate uniparty' in his 2002 book Crashing the Party."

Pinning this term the right is the usual tactic to outlaw the term and remove it from the dictionary.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#198

Post by llm_trw » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 1:02 PM UTC

komali2 wrote: post #189

llm_trw wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To use a real world example: of the three men that were shot by Kyle Rittenhouse all were felons with extensive records of drug use and prison terms for everything from domestic violence, statutory rape to false imprisonment. If you randomly shoot at a anti-fa rally and hit 100% meth heads and felons there's an issue with anti-fa rallies.

> If you randomly shoot at a anti-fa rally So, Kyle Rittenhouse was shooting randomly into the crowd? Interesting, I wonder what his goal was in doing so.

Statistically speaking? Given the convictions of all involved: killing pedophiles. The one who wasn't only got an arm blown off.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#199

Post by PeterisP » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 1:03 PM UTC

rbanffy wrote: post #162

aldsfh wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is currently an initiative to forbid a political party, the AfD in Germany. This is not supported by the CDU, but by others. While I do not like the AfD, forbidding political parties that serve as an outlet for people who do not support the uniparty and their essentially identical policies seems to be one of the most totalitarian measures in postwar Germany. The SPD should instead examine why they themselves ar…

Considering what the AfD stands for, I'm in for them being banned from political life. German society has been extremely patient with them, refraining to use the word "nazi" when it kind of fits. I don't think it'll happen though, because they manage to be as nazi as possible within the letter of the law. > The SPD should instead examine why they themselves are losing votes. Extremist discourse is appealing. Much lik…

Radical parties gaining mass support is an indication that the centrist parties which should be 'more reasonable' are deliberately ignoring some major factor which a lot of the voters care about.

Anyone looking at the rise of AfD should also look at the example of Denmark, which some years earlier had also seen a strong rise of radical alt-right parties, but once the centrists switched their stance against immigration, at the next elections the radicals went back down to their rightful 1% or so of votes. That is also an example which shows that indeed it is possible to compete with hate-based politics with actual actionable and long-term viable policies.

Indeed, SPD should instead examine why they themselves are losing votes and consider it their duty to provide some alternative for German voters so that a person can vote against immigration without getting the full neo-nazi package in addition to that.

Re: EU: Definition of "potential terrorists" opens door to broad information-sharing

#200

Post by shiandow » Thu, Oct 03, 2024, 1:05 PM UTC

wickedsight wrote: post #76

simianparrot wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A "belief" that someone "may commit a future crime" is practically speaking psychic nonsense.

> “objective, verifiable information” leading to a belief Is very different from 'a belief'. What you're doing is wordsmithing this into something that sounds much worse than the actual text, which is textbook misinformation spreading.

It's only marginally different. I can look out of the window right now and see objectively verifiable information that has lead some people to believe the earth is flat.

What a belief is based on means squat, it is how that belief came to be that is important.