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EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

patrick-breyer.de

831–840 of 947 posts

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#831
post #566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure any country actually has a Constitution with rights that are not up for a vote. There is generally a separate, harder procedure for changing the "basic law" or Constitution of a country -- for example, 2/3 of delegates or a 2/3 of states or something of that nature -- but I'd be surprised if there's a country where they have literally no way to change it at all.

Amending the US Constitution takes a lot of voting, with very large majorities in Congress / Senate and state legislatures. This has been achieved a number of times, and some of these decisions were rather unwise, like the Prohibition (18th amendment).

Yes, there is a separate, harder procedure for changing the Constitution of the United States -- but that procedure is also a vote.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#832

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That page specifically says the constitution grants rights to the government and reserves the rights of the people. There is a lot in there about the case against the bill of rights, a big part of which is that itemizing the rights implies that they are limited to the list. Editing to clarify that this isn't just semantics: under the 'grant rights to the people' model, a government that grants one set of rights is ju…

So that means there it offers zero protection against private corporations? It seems like that is a bad idea, isn't it better to say people have rights that nobody is allowed to violate instead? Like freedom of speech doesn't matter much if private corporations are allowed to silence you.

There are plenty of protections against private entities in the US legal system -- other people, corporations and organizations. Those were not the issues the founders were trying to address, though -- the common law offered many such protections.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#833

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is a list of restrictions on government power, not a grant.

Those are the same thing, with no difference existing between them in any context. You're complaining about the difference between a document that describes party A buying something from party B versus another one that describes party B selling the thing to party A. Think about what it might mean for (a) the government to give me the right to live in your house; or (b) the government to restrict you from expelling me…

The difference is whether you say "thank you" to the government that does (a) or "screw you" to the government that fails to do (b). It's the difference between me not killing you and me granting you the right to be alive- if I am doing the latter, you are my subject rather than my equal. It implies that I have the right to take it away. Welfare, the FDA, and protectionism are examples of (a) while your basic human rights fall under (b).

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#834

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please could you cite your sources for this. I think what you've typed is not representative of what happened here. My understanding is that the EU Council forced this second-reading, not the Commission. To provide evidence for my argument: https://fightchatcontrol.eu/ Look at "Timeline". This is the Council, not the Commission. This is your elected heads of state. This is "democracy" in action. "Council and EPP atte…

The Council must go at some point. It is a "legislative" body... composed of members of the _executive_ branch of the individual countries. Granted, that's not the only problem with EU governance, but it is a rather glaring anomaly in terms of transparency and accountability. Furthermore, at least in the case of Italy & other parliamentary systems, there's something like 3 levels of indirection between the people and…

Why not just have two bodies like every other parliamentary system? Europeans elect an MP and each member state elects a Senator. Then the majority party in the Parliament appoints a Prime Minister, who can appoint a cabinet. Nobody is more than two steps away from an elected position.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That summurizes it pretty well. The Commission is essentially omnipotent, and there is no relevat judiciary to stop it. This is farcical. Yes, from a PURELY MONETARY viewpoint, Brexit was a disaster. But there are more important things than money. I'm from Spain btw.

I tried to explain to my wife (American lawyer) how the EU Commissioners are selected and she told me "I'm not having fun understanding this." I had thought it was just the heads of government from each member state. That would make sense given the immense power of the body. But that's apparently not how it works.

You are mixing it with Council ;)

Yeah, EU setup is absurdly convoluted but it's simply a result of the consensus that tires to balance difference sources of power (the people and the countries).

Ideally the whole EU population should just vote for MEPs in EU parliment, which the would form the government. But that would completely sidestep member states government which they won't ever agree to. And any even mention of reforminng the EU towards that is immediatelly shoot down because nationalists are screetching about soverignty (which at the same time complain that the EU is undemocratic)

So we have the setup with European Council (heads of governments) setting the agenda, Comission (presiden of which is selected by council and approved by parliment) that makes that into law and then Parliment and EU Council (not European council!) votes for it.

A coupld of infographics how that works:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/topics/en/article/20240524STO...

https://static.cfr.org/sites/default/files/image/2022/03/-la...

https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022...

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#836
post #719

The EU is a farce, an undemocratic virtue signaling organization, and this is why: - The Parliament voted against the first reading of this proposal twice in 2026, the first time they only supported limited cases for it, while the second time they actually defeated it fully. - The Commission didn't care, and kept the proposal on the table by refusing to withdraw it. - Once the Commission does that, the proposal goes…

While I agree that this setup is not very good, the EU Commission is essentially the equivalent of a government in a parliamentary or presidential democracy, and almost all such democracies I know about either have or have developed "ways" for the government to "push through" the will of the "chamber(s)". However, we do not consider those as farces as well, or so it seems to me, I guess mostly because those governmen…

It's mindbogling how ignorant people are when it comes to how the EU is structured and how it works ;(

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#837
post #759

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Ministers are appointed, not elected. I dont understand this line of reasoning about EU: Ministers are appointed by people we vote. In most democracies the entire government is appointed and maybe indirect voted as a whole (by parliament and maybe directly by citizens). What I am trying to say is people who proposed this are representatives of those countries (even if indirect their citizens votes vor the party tha…

You don't have effective representation just because a vote happens somewhere in a causal chain. A body that's appointed by people who are themselves typically indirectly elected is a lot of layers of indirection. For effective representation, you need a feedback loop between the voting and the policymaking at the other end. If you add all these layers in-between, voters are going to have a hard time figuring out how…

I dont disagree. But I am also limited in seeing practical solutions to make EU better in this sense for people to feel represented at all levels directly. Please note the practical thing here cause idealist solutions I have plenty. It is just that countries are too nationalistic.

Why I find it hard: EU is another abstraction on top of what we already have: local, regional, national. EU is not just an alliance but a real governing body with legislative and executive branches.

Having an average (as in normal) citizen of a country have to think about their local interests, regional (as in around their local cities), national and global interests is too prone to manipulation. As we saw with Brexit and other campaigns. Too many of us are too focused on self interest and locality to be able to dedicate enough time to global matters.

IMHO of course

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#838

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That summurizes it pretty well. The Commission is essentially omnipotent, and there is no relevat judiciary to stop it. This is farcical. Yes, from a PURELY MONETARY viewpoint, Brexit was a disaster. But there are more important things than money. I'm from Spain btw.

I tried to explain to my wife (American lawyer) how the EU Commissioners are selected and she told me "I'm not having fun understanding this." I had thought it was just the heads of government from each member state. That would make sense given the immense power of the body. But that's apparently not how it works.

(1) Replace US president with a Commission of Presidents. One from each state (well, EU only has 27 member states). Each Commissioner is appointed by state legislature, not elected. No more presidential elections. This is the EU Commission.

(2) Replace US senate with a meeting of secretaries, or heads of departments from each state. Only one relevant representative from each state. But the senate composition is not fixed. When the senate discusses e.g. agricultural policy, each state sends their secretary of agriculture, of head of their department of agriculture. No more senate elections. This is the EU Council of Ministers (a.k.a. Council of the European Union or just "The Council").

(3) The house is the EU Parliament.

Take the right of legislative initiative away from the congress, and give it to the Commission of Presidents. The Commission writes the bills, and the senate and the house can only approve or disapprove (with comments).

(4) Change the states to follow the European model: The governor is not elected, but appointed by the state legislature, and is called "prime minister". (Except France has a presidential model.)

(5) The president / Commission is like a CEO. To supervise the CEO, we need a board. The heads of states (governors) meet 4 times per year to discuss and set broad and long term goals. This is the European Council.

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#839
post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>CSAM detection systems Blackboxes which scan your messages and photos for anything 3rd party want with undisclosed criteria.

> Blackboxes which scan your messages and photos for anything 3rd party want with undisclosed criteria. Well the criteria is CSAM? Do you have any evidence that these systems have been used to imprison someone that wasn't CSAM related?

>Well the criteria is CSAM

Could you confirm that in any way?

Re: EU Parliament greenlights Chat Control 1.0

#840
post #719

The EU is a farce, an undemocratic virtue signaling organization, and this is why: - The Parliament voted against the first reading of this proposal twice in 2026, the first time they only supported limited cases for it, while the second time they actually defeated it fully. - The Commission didn't care, and kept the proposal on the table by refusing to withdraw it. - Once the Commission does that, the proposal goes…

It's worse than a farce. It's actually evil. The way "they" are pushing chat control, and how Ursula is avoiding justice (she has a huge corruption case hanging over her head but manages continuously cancel court dates); this makes a all too clear. The only way to fix this is EU member states become more critical: but for politicians in those states an EU position is the best promotion they can make. So almost nobody…

Could you please give more detail about this for those of us less informed of EU things? What corrupt things has Ursula done? Or what has she been accused of, exactly? How long has she been cancelling court dates?

Who is the engineer of all this evil? Her? Someone else?

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