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Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

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Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#81

Post by iagovar »

zozbot234 wrote: post #75
iagovar wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO the accusation of terrorism is too much, but honestly some of the actions are worrying. I'm against the Catalonian independence, so everyone knows where I'm coming from, but I understand why so many Catalonians are angry and protest for. But I also understand what different police forces are facing. You get actions like putting trees and blocks of concrete on railroads, making it very dangerous for passengers and…

> You get actions like putting trees and blocks of concrete on railroads, making it very dangerous for passengers and workers. There are laws against doing such things on the books, I'd assume - even if the motive were "just" to block railway traffic. The government should focus on investigating those responsible. It's not at all clear that blocking an app that might have countless legitimate, non-violent uses is the…

If I was from the police I'd probably want to block the chance to coordinate such attacks, not only do an investigation to track certain individuals. What would be the point to spend many resources to put a guy or a few of them in jail when they can be easily replaced.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#82

Post by GonzaloQuero »

Schiphol wrote: post #78

Some commentators are pointing out, not implausibly imho, that the Spanish government is pushing the terrorism accusation against the pro-secession movement as a way to tap into terrorism-related extradition agreements in Europe. Right now there are a few Catalonian political exiles in Belgium and other countries. By the way, Tsunami Democràtic explicitly rejects violent action: https://tsunamidemocratic.github.io/no…

Terrorism is also a quick way of instilling fear in Spain, as most people around 30 years old still remember the times when we had three active terrorist groups, so I wouldn't be surprised if they're using it just to spark those feelings in voters. After all, there's another election coming in two weeks.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#83

Post by arien »

ricardbejarano wrote: post #65
StavrosK wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true, and neither side is handling this very well. The government could have let the referendum happen but campaign against it, appeasing the people who wanted a democratic vote but still winning. Instead, they went full suppression and made themselves look much worse.

The thing is, the government can't let a "comunidad autonoma" organize a binding referendum about a region's secession of Spain, because that would put the region's sovereignty on the region's people, and that's against the Spanish constitution (art. 1.2, the sovereignty of the entire Spanish territory is of all Spanish citizens). That also infringes Spanish constitution's 2nd art., "the Constitution is fundamented a…

It didn't have to be binding, just advisory or symbolic with no action to be taken. It might have prevented most of the current situation if the result had been to remain (which would have been most likely, back then, now I'm not so sure). If it had been independence I suppose we would be in a very similar situation.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#84

Post by physicsguy »

swebs wrote: post #47
kzrdude wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government is often understood to be the executive part, somewhat like 'administration', I don't know if there is a better word to use.

Not in the English speaking world at least. "Government" is an umbrella term which includes the legislature, executive, and judiciary.

No, that's a US English meaning that isn't widely used in other English speaking countries.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#85

Post by tremon »

pmarin wrote: post #12

The title is intentionally misleading. It's not the government but the judicial authorities, in Spain we have distribution of power. From the take down notice: > In Spain, judicial authorities are responsible for the supervision and control of websites in order to prevent the dissemination of criminal content as it is specified in the article 35 of our Law 34/2002 and the article 13 of our Criminal Procedure Code.

Distribution of power, yes. Separation of power, no.

As long as Spain's judiciary still sees it fit to hand out multi-year sentences to people peacefully following democratic principles, they seem very much an extension of the government and not an independent body.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#87

Post by iagovar »

tremon wrote: post #85
pmarin wrote: post #12

The title is intentionally misleading. It's not the government but the judicial authorities, in Spain we have distribution of power. From the take down notice: > In Spain, judicial authorities are responsible for the supervision and control of websites in order to prevent the dissemination of criminal content as it is specified in the article 35 of our Law 34/2002 and the article 13 of our Criminal Procedure Code.

Distribution of power, yes. Separation of power, no. As long as Spain's judiciary still sees it fit to hand out multi-year sentences to people peacefully following democratic principles, they seem very much an extension of the government and not an independent body.

> As long as Spain's judiciary still sees it fit to hand out multi-year sentences to people peacefully following democratic principles, they seem very much an extension of the government and not an independent body.

There's nothing in that paragraph that qualifies as an argument against the separation of powers. In fact, I'd say that's pretty much the opposite, considering that PSOE has been pressuring for lower sentences.

There are such arguments, like how the Constitutional Court judges are elected, but in the end it's up to the Judiciary branch to decide what to do about, and nobody can interfere.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#88

Post by GonzaloQuero »

komarrian wrote: post #2

This is outrageous "Tsunami Democratic" has not coordinated any terrorist attack nor has an attack taken place in Spain... They are abusing antiterrorist laws to quash peaceful protests and GitHub is complying.

I've been living out of Spain for the last three years, but these kinds of things make me think that we're going back to the "everything's ETA" years.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#89

Post by zozbot234 »

iagovar wrote: post #81
zozbot234 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You get actions like putting trees and blocks of concrete on railroads, making it very dangerous for passengers and workers. There are laws against doing such things on the books, I'd assume - even if the motive were "just" to block railway traffic. The government should focus on investigating those responsible. It's not at all clear that blocking an app that might have countless legitimate, non-violent uses is the…

If I was from the police I'd probably want to block the chance to coordinate such attacks, not only do an investigation to track certain individuals. What would be the point to spend many resources to put a guy or a few of them in jail when they can be easily replaced.

Of course it depends how many people are involved in such things, and whether the app specifically is allowing them to coordinate these attacks. Most of the commentary so far has been about demonstrations, sometimes turning into violent riots. Purposely sabotaging/obstructing a piece of critical infrastructure is something rather different, although whether it could be defined as "terrorism" is somewhat ambiguous.

Re: Spanish government orders GitHub to take down Tsunami Democràtic repository

#90

Post by deltron3030 »

iagovar wrote: post #62
banjodeluxe wrote: post #35

For a bit of context I'll leave my two cents here trying to be as objective as possible, leaving politics out of it as much as I can. Following the judge's veredict of the Catalan politicians who coordinated the "proces", or series of political movements to attempt to secede Catalonia from Spain; demonstrations have arisen within Catalonia protesting said judgement - the politicians were essentially deemed as conspir…

IMO the accusation of terrorism is too much, but honestly some of the actions are worrying. I'm against the Catalonian independence, so everyone knows where I'm coming from, but I understand why so many Catalonians are angry and protest for. But I also understand what different police forces are facing. You get actions like putting trees and blocks of concrete on railroads, making it very dangerous for passengers and…

>I'm against the Catalonian independence, so everyone knows where I'm coming from

The question is if a democracy can be called democratic if it's impossible/unlawful for minorities to secede. I also think that a secession wouldn't be the smartest choice, but that's a totally different matter.

A functional democracy implies that the whole has to arrange itself democratically with the parts it consists of, if not it risks degrowth, parts that split off from the whole and form their own units.

Enforcing unity therefore can't be democratic because it lacks democracy at the lowest level. A functional democracy regulates itself through trade offs and common sense. If the outcome of that is something you're opposed to you still have to accept that if you want to live in a real democracy, not just a hypocrite simulation of it.

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