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I think this isn't getting nearly enough traction, especially considering how undemocratic EU's legislative procedures can get. Considering the lack of direct d

I think this isn't getting nearly enough traction, especially considering how undemocratic EU's legislative procedures can get. Considering the lack of direct democracy in the European Union, exposure and public protest is the only viable way to oppose this legislature. There's also an ongoing petition against the legislature: https://www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/preserve-eprivacy-protect-childrens-rights-stop-chatcontrol https://www.openpetition.eu/petition/online/preserve-eprivac...

zibzab 5y ago
Hold your horses, put down the pitchforks. You realise the author is a _member of the European Parliament_?? And at least in my corner of EU we vote on who to send to EU parliament. You can vote on whoever you want in the national elections and then vote for the pirate party for the EU seat. Edit: from your comment history I guess you vote far right, which is usually the part of EU pushing hardest for these measures??
- herbst 5y ago
  It's still no and far from a direct democracy.
  - loriverkutya 5y ago
    Can you please be sensible? Direct demoracy is not working with 445 million people.
    - bondarchuk 5y ago
      Mathematically it's not more difficult to determine the majority vote among 400 million people, than among 10 million. What would prevent it from working for you?
      - tchalla 5y ago
        > it's not more difficult to determine the majority vote among 400 million people Democracy is not majority voting.
        thegrimmest 5y ago
        "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." Basically it is. You don't need representatives to be democratic.
    - herbst 5y ago
      Yes? Any data for that?
      - loriverkutya 5y ago
        No direct democracy existed in known history with 445 million people.
    - effie 5y ago
      It could work, just do referendum in every country and then implement the result. It would require that people in power in all countries wanted to give power to their people, and implemented it securely. Which is why it won't happen.
    - lwn 5y ago
      In my opinion it's impossible for a small group of people/ politicians to determine what's good for 445 million people.
  - toxik 5y ago
    Direct democracy is not a panacea. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. Fair and effective governance is a very difficult thing to achieve, tending either to be subvertible, or totalitarian.
    - herbst 5y ago
      Not saying that is not true. Yet living in one of the few direct democracies it is the very best we have in terms of democracy. On a bigger scale liquid democracy may is more interesting. Edit:// the EU or even the US has shown multiple times that it will act against the majority of they can.
    - bondarchuk 5y ago
      I think representative democracy specifically does not work to stave off totalitarianism. When the issue under consideration is about increasing the power of politicians over the citizenry, many politicians will switch from voting as representatives of citizens, to voting as politicians. A binding referendum that can only retract proposed laws, like we have/had/will have (sorry, I don't know exactly) in NL, seems like it could largely solve this issue, provided it gets sufficient traction.
    - tacocataco 5y ago
      Direct democracy is best when the amount of people voting stays small. Think local government.
    - t0bia_s 5y ago
      Democracy cannot work without free acces to information. However, most people wont care about it. Especially nowadays when public opinions are shaped by social networks with censorship and sensations. We can implement all kind of ideologies on masses very fast. So direct democracy could be more dangerous than you can imagine.
  - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
    > far from a direct democracy. And? Direct democracies are far worth than representative democracies in practically everyway. The Covid crisis should have made clear to all that people are not policies experts. Given than no country in the UE significantly uses direct democracy (referendums are pretty much never used and always devolve into a ridiculous race to who can say the most outrageous thing in front of the media), I don't see how that can be leveraged against the institution.
    - herbst 5y ago
      You realize that Switzerland hasen't voted to wear masks and get restrictions? Having a direct democracy does not mean the gov can't make their own decisions at times.
      - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
        Yes, I do realize Switzerland doesn't actually use direct democracy for things that matter and when they do they often end up with xenophobic laws. I don't even want to talk about town assemblies voting on naturalisation decisions.
        hhlbf 5y ago
        So if they want to be xenophobic, what's the problem? It's their country and they can do whatever they want with it.
        MauranKilom 5y ago
        "So if they want to kill all the Jews, what's the problem? It's their country and they can do whatever they want with it." Creating laws based on popularity makes populism rule. Hence why democracy usually has an explicit legislative branch abstracting over individual sentiments. That helps prevent policy from being devised through an overly greedy algorithm. That is not to say it prevents all these problems. But it evidently helps.
- kristjank 5y ago
  It's not my fault that I was too young to vote at the last EU elections. That's changed since and you bet your ass that I'll vote for the right people when I'm able to. Also raising awareness and promoting a petition about an issue isn't the same as raising pitchforks. I'm thinking there's a subtext here...
  - dmos62 5y ago
    I chuckled when you said "the right people". Like, there's the right people, and then what's left. Get it? Right and left. Puns.
    - Zenst 5y ago
      The whole polarization of political issues into right and left is and always will distract from the issues being debated and more so, ends up derailing any debate and discourse about the issues as they get drowned out by the labels. Very easy to label something right wing or left wing to distract from the issue at debate and it has become very much a political tool in much the same way the "think of the children" card is played.
      - dmos62 5y ago
        You get no argument from me. I just really enjoyed the pun.
        dmos62 5y ago
        You could turn it around: right assholes and what's left.
        dmos62 5y ago
        I'll show myself out...
- tomxor 5y ago
  > we vote on who to send to EU parliament. You are describing a representative democracy, the parent pointed out the lack of direct democracy in the process. And I would tend to agree that there needs to be more direct democracy involved at some point in the policy making process to accommodate just such a scenario where it's clear the vast majority are not happy with the result. Representative democracy has it's place, but the reality is that you cannot pick and choose - most people want privacy, but most people are also aware of the wider issues and concerned if the fringe parties are competent enough in making decisions in other areas. Perhaps a good compromise is to be able to shoot down their propositions, so that even though they may not further the ideals the majority want in all areas, they will at least be prevented from eroding them. But as the parent pointed out, there is no mechanism in place to do this currently, so people are limited to protests and petitions.
  - toshk 5y ago
    Even a representative democracy is a far fetched idea with the EU. Nobody really understand how the EU works, except for a few bureaucrats. There are too many proxies. You vote for a local party, then you find out they go into a coalition because the parliament is huge: over 700 seats. And those parties in one coalition have very different agenda's. Then you look deeper, and the parliament's power is very limited, and most of the power lies with the council and commission. Both are not chosen in an election but in negotiations by the governments, which tends to mean certain countries like Germany and France have a very big say. Of course in a very indirect way these are somewhat chosen by certain part you of the people in the EU.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - marcus_holmes 5y ago
      This got really apparent in the discussions around Brexit. Lots of people saying "I vote in EU elections", assuming that the EU elections work the same as all the other elections they vote in. It really doesn't. The EU is very much an oligarchy controlled by a small number of unelected bureaucrats. They've been very careful to not let the curtain slip too far, and preserve the appearance that popular opinion can change policy. But there's no legislative connection. This kind of legislation is an interesting case in point. Who wants this? Who benefits from this? Is it actually going to make a dent in child abuse? Generally the EU is keen on privacy, so what changed that for this? Are there any states really pushing for this so they can read their citizens' mail (Poland, maybe, I guess, but they're not having a great time in the EU at the moment so probably not)? As TFA says, this is not a popular move, and there's no popular wave of anti-pedo sentiment at the moment, so why now? The suspicion of palm-greasing (sorry, "lobbying") remains. Reading our messages means more data for the AI, means better ad targeting.
- olodus 5y ago
  Yup. Have done and will continue to do exactly this. While I don't find the Pirate party's policies comprehensive enough for my national government, I do find the EU parliament the perfect level of government for the issue they address to be handled at.
- ant6n 5y ago
  You realize a single or even multiple MPs cant block the passing of laws in parlaiment, since laws are passed by majorities, not consensus/unanimiusly. So please do get out those pitch, especially since this is the next level of surveillance.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    What you are in effect saying is, since your (our) positions have not the majority in parliament, we need to resort to violence? Can we try other established democratic ways, like voting, petitioning, demonstrating, etc. before that?
- cjfd 5y ago
  The EU parliament has far too little power to come anywhere close to the EU being a democracy. The problem being that in second reading there has to be a 2/3 majority to approve amendments.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- playguardin 5y ago
  I won't argue with you that democracy sucks.
- dang 5y ago
  Please keep name-calling and personal attacks out of your comments here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - zibzab 5y ago
    Exactly where is this name calling? Please unflag this so we can continue the discussion.
    - dang 5y ago
      "Hold your horses" and "put down the pitchforks" count as name-calling in the sense that the HN guidelines use that term, because they are swipes that don't reply to the actual argument. Ultimately they're just putdowns. Please omit those from your posts to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
suction 5y ago
The lack of direct democracy in the EU is the only thing that keeps it from becoming the UK.
- richardwhiuk 5y ago
  Most major democratic governments don't have direct democracy.
ceilingcorner 5y ago
I wish people understood the origins and structure of the EU. It grew out of a trade association (ECSC) and has very little to do with direct or even representative democracy in the standard sense of the word, i.e. representative of the populace. It is an external political class with only tangential connections to individual citizens. This is an issue, because it gives opponents of European integration a fairly legitimate position to be critical.
dmos62 5y ago
You sure are throwing words around. Undemocratic, lack of direct democracy. Are you confusing the two, or are these different complaints? Sounds like you're trying to say that any representative democracy isn't really a democracy.

zibzab 5y ago

Hold your horses, put down the pitchforks. You realise the author is a _member of the European Parliament_?? And at least in my corner of EU we vote on who to send to EU parliament. You can vote on whoever you want in the national elections and then vote for the pirate party for the EU seat. Edit: from your comment history I guess you vote far right, which is usually the part of EU pushing hardest for these measures??

herbst 5y ago
It's still no and far from a direct democracy.
- loriverkutya 5y ago
  Can you please be sensible? Direct demoracy is not working with 445 million people.
  - bondarchuk 5y ago
    Mathematically it's not more difficult to determine the majority vote among 400 million people, than among 10 million. What would prevent it from working for you?
    - tchalla 5y ago
      > it's not more difficult to determine the majority vote among 400 million people Democracy is not majority voting.
      - thegrimmest 5y ago
        "a system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state, typically through elected representatives." Basically it is. You don't need representatives to be democratic.
  - herbst 5y ago
    Yes? Any data for that?
    - loriverkutya 5y ago
      No direct democracy existed in known history with 445 million people.
  - effie 5y ago
    It could work, just do referendum in every country and then implement the result. It would require that people in power in all countries wanted to give power to their people, and implemented it securely. Which is why it won't happen.
  - lwn 5y ago
    In my opinion it's impossible for a small group of people/ politicians to determine what's good for 445 million people.
- toxik 5y ago
  Direct democracy is not a panacea. In fact, it can be quite the opposite. Fair and effective governance is a very difficult thing to achieve, tending either to be subvertible, or totalitarian.
  - herbst 5y ago
    Not saying that is not true. Yet living in one of the few direct democracies it is the very best we have in terms of democracy. On a bigger scale liquid democracy may is more interesting. Edit:// the EU or even the US has shown multiple times that it will act against the majority of they can.
  - bondarchuk 5y ago
    I think representative democracy specifically does not work to stave off totalitarianism. When the issue under consideration is about increasing the power of politicians over the citizenry, many politicians will switch from voting as representatives of citizens, to voting as politicians. A binding referendum that can only retract proposed laws, like we have/had/will have (sorry, I don't know exactly) in NL, seems like it could largely solve this issue, provided it gets sufficient traction.
  - tacocataco 5y ago
    Direct democracy is best when the amount of people voting stays small. Think local government.
  - t0bia_s 5y ago
    Democracy cannot work without free acces to information. However, most people wont care about it. Especially nowadays when public opinions are shaped by social networks with censorship and sensations. We can implement all kind of ideologies on masses very fast. So direct democracy could be more dangerous than you can imagine.
- WastingMyTime89 5y ago
  > far from a direct democracy. And? Direct democracies are far worth than representative democracies in practically everyway. The Covid crisis should have made clear to all that people are not policies experts. Given than no country in the UE significantly uses direct democracy (referendums are pretty much never used and always devolve into a ridiculous race to who can say the most outrageous thing in front of the media), I don't see how that can be leveraged against the institution.
  - herbst 5y ago
    You realize that Switzerland hasen't voted to wear masks and get restrictions? Having a direct democracy does not mean the gov can't make their own decisions at times.
    - WastingMyTime89 5y ago
      Yes, I do realize Switzerland doesn't actually use direct democracy for things that matter and when they do they often end up with xenophobic laws. I don't even want to talk about town assemblies voting on naturalisation decisions.
      - hhlbf 5y ago
        So if they want to be xenophobic, what's the problem? It's their country and they can do whatever they want with it.
        MauranKilom 5y ago
        "So if they want to kill all the Jews, what's the problem? It's their country and they can do whatever they want with it." Creating laws based on popularity makes populism rule. Hence why democracy usually has an explicit legislative branch abstracting over individual sentiments. That helps prevent policy from being devised through an overly greedy algorithm. That is not to say it prevents all these problems. But it evidently helps.
kristjank 5y ago
It's not my fault that I was too young to vote at the last EU elections. That's changed since and you bet your ass that I'll vote for the right people when I'm able to. Also raising awareness and promoting a petition about an issue isn't the same as raising pitchforks. I'm thinking there's a subtext here...
- dmos62 5y ago
  I chuckled when you said "the right people". Like, there's the right people, and then what's left. Get it? Right and left. Puns.
  - Zenst 5y ago
    The whole polarization of political issues into right and left is and always will distract from the issues being debated and more so, ends up derailing any debate and discourse about the issues as they get drowned out by the labels. Very easy to label something right wing or left wing to distract from the issue at debate and it has become very much a political tool in much the same way the "think of the children" card is played.
    - dmos62 5y ago
      You get no argument from me. I just really enjoyed the pun.
      - dmos62 5y ago
        You could turn it around: right assholes and what's left.
        dmos62 5y ago
        I'll show myself out...
tomxor 5y ago
> we vote on who to send to EU parliament. You are describing a representative democracy, the parent pointed out the lack of direct democracy in the process. And I would tend to agree that there needs to be more direct democracy involved at some point in the policy making process to accommodate just such a scenario where it's clear the vast majority are not happy with the result. Representative democracy has it's place, but the reality is that you cannot pick and choose - most people want privacy, but most people are also aware of the wider issues and concerned if the fringe parties are competent enough in making decisions in other areas. Perhaps a good compromise is to be able to shoot down their propositions, so that even though they may not further the ideals the majority want in all areas, they will at least be prevented from eroding them. But as the parent pointed out, there is no mechanism in place to do this currently, so people are limited to protests and petitions.
- toshk 5y ago
  Even a representative democracy is a far fetched idea with the EU. Nobody really understand how the EU works, except for a few bureaucrats. There are too many proxies. You vote for a local party, then you find out they go into a coalition because the parliament is huge: over 700 seats. And those parties in one coalition have very different agenda's. Then you look deeper, and the parliament's power is very limited, and most of the power lies with the council and commission. Both are not chosen in an election but in negotiations by the governments, which tends to mean certain countries like Germany and France have a very big say. Of course in a very indirect way these are somewhat chosen by certain part you of the people in the EU.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - marcus_holmes 5y ago
    This got really apparent in the discussions around Brexit. Lots of people saying "I vote in EU elections", assuming that the EU elections work the same as all the other elections they vote in. It really doesn't. The EU is very much an oligarchy controlled by a small number of unelected bureaucrats. They've been very careful to not let the curtain slip too far, and preserve the appearance that popular opinion can change policy. But there's no legislative connection. This kind of legislation is an interesting case in point. Who wants this? Who benefits from this? Is it actually going to make a dent in child abuse? Generally the EU is keen on privacy, so what changed that for this? Are there any states really pushing for this so they can read their citizens' mail (Poland, maybe, I guess, but they're not having a great time in the EU at the moment so probably not)? As TFA says, this is not a popular move, and there's no popular wave of anti-pedo sentiment at the moment, so why now? The suspicion of palm-greasing (sorry, "lobbying") remains. Reading our messages means more data for the AI, means better ad targeting.
olodus 5y ago
Yup. Have done and will continue to do exactly this. While I don't find the Pirate party's policies comprehensive enough for my national government, I do find the EU parliament the perfect level of government for the issue they address to be handled at.
ant6n 5y ago
You realize a single or even multiple MPs cant block the passing of laws in parlaiment, since laws are passed by majorities, not consensus/unanimiusly. So please do get out those pitch, especially since this is the next level of surveillance.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  What you are in effect saying is, since your (our) positions have not the majority in parliament, we need to resort to violence? Can we try other established democratic ways, like voting, petitioning, demonstrating, etc. before that?
cjfd 5y ago
The EU parliament has far too little power to come anywhere close to the EU being a democracy. The problem being that in second reading there has to be a 2/3 majority to approve amendments.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
playguardin 5y ago
I won't argue with you that democracy sucks.
dang 5y ago
Please keep name-calling and personal attacks out of your comments here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- zibzab 5y ago
  Exactly where is this name calling? Please unflag this so we can continue the discussion.
  - dang 5y ago
    "Hold your horses" and "put down the pitchforks" count as name-calling in the sense that the HN guidelines use that term, because they are swipes that don't reply to the actual argument. Ultimately they're just putdowns. Please omit those from your posts to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

suction 5y ago

The lack of direct democracy in the EU is the only thing that keeps it from becoming the UK.

richardwhiuk 5y ago
Most major democratic governments don't have direct democracy.

ceilingcorner 5y ago

I wish people understood the origins and structure of the EU. It grew out of a trade association (ECSC) and has very little to do with direct or even representative democracy in the standard sense of the word, i.e. representative of the populace. It is an external political class with only tangential connections to individual citizens. This is an issue, because it gives opponents of European integration a fairly legitimate position to be critical.

dmos62 5y ago

You sure are throwing words around. Undemocratic, lack of direct democracy. Are you confusing the two, or are these different complaints? Sounds like you're trying to say that any representative democracy isn't really a democracy.