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I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? St

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

fabatka 4y ago
I never understand this apparent motive of "elected officials getting power hungry". How would this legislation make the people in the EU Commission more powerful? Am I just lacking imagination?
- jaywalk 4y ago
  This legislation means the EC gets to decide what is allowed and what's not in private communications. It always starts with child pornography, because everybody finds it abhorrent. But once you open that door...
- photochemsyn 4y ago
  I mean, intercepting private business communications about say, factory openings or closings, would put the people with that information in a position to make large amounts of money by buying or selling property in those areas. There are dozens of similar examples that don't require much imagination to envisage. Blackmail material on politicians, insider knowledge on energy transactions and plans, advance warning on populist protests against EU policies, etc. Just look at the history of any mass surveillance state to see how that works out in practice. The East German STASI is a relevant example, and there are others one could think of as well. Recommended watching: "The Lives of Others".
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    > I mean, intercepting private business communications about say, factory openings or closings, would put the people with that information in a position to make large amounts of money by buying or selling property in those areas. Like the US did with Airbus in the echelon scandal even before the pervasive surveillance that came in after 9/11. Just saying this is not a remote "worst case" scenario but a real-world one.
    - throwawayboise 4y ago
      Agreed. History is replete with examples. We might like to think we're more civilized and tolerant, that we've evolved morally since then. But we're still the same humans we've always been.
- reedjosh 4y ago
  > Am I just lacking imagination? Yes. The EU is becoming a totalitarian regional government of elites. Originally it wasn't even supposed to have a military presence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_forces_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_forces_of_the_European... It was supposed to prevent the need of passports. https://www.covidpasscertificate.com/europe-digital-green-pass/ https://www.covidpasscertificate.com/europe-digital-green-pa... All the good things are going out the door and all the bad things are walking on in.
  - dijit 4y ago
    In the interest in saving peoples time when responding to this: don’t. It’s trolling at worst and nerd sniping at best. The author of this comment knows this full well. His comment history is full of this kind of “drop bomb” and run crap. “covid passports” being required is not exactly the fault of the EU, if anything it’s because of the freedoms the EU still has. Anti-covid rhetoric needs to die, anti-EU bad faith propaganda needs to die. This is a legitimate constitutional crisis, not a time to try to pile on with nonsense.
    - hakre 4y ago
      Which can be easily seen as it proclaims "many good things" without naming a single one. It's written to play with feelings in a very cheap way.
    - reedjosh 4y ago
      > is full of this kind of “drop bomb” and run crap. Hello. I usually keep responding to people. I'm not from the EU, so if you disagree with me I'll respond. It's not unlikely I'm wrong. I am a crazy anti-government guy though, so you've got me there.
      - dijit 4y ago
        Well, I'm going to take this argument in good faith then and assume you're not trolling, but I'll be extremely disappointed if I'm proven wrong. I'll start by saying that the EU does have issues, I can talk fairly about what the EU even is first, why it evolved and then talk about those issues as fairly as I can. FD: I am pro-EU but it's not like I can't understand that people can have exactly the same information as me and disagree, the EU is trade-offs and I'm personally in favour of those trade-offs; I can understand why some people would not. ---- The EU, at its core started off, as everyone mentions repeatedly: as an economic union; the purpose of which was to make the idea of war in Europe unpalatable. This core fact is why when people complain about "jobs moving to x,y,z EU country where the labour is cheaper" they're right, but that was the purpose of the economic union from the beginning and not the EU; since that's the point of the EEC (the pre-cursor to what became the EU). Over time it became apparent (during the cold war, specifically) that Europe is directly in the crossfire of two super powers, and each of us alone is not capable of fending off either of them, either economically (since the power imbalance in economics means Russia, the US or even China can basically dictate terms to us) or in terms of defence (a scrambled response will be slow and ineffective). Thus: the EU was formed, to try to compete at the same level as the Soviet Union and USA. (and, recently, China is a super power). The way the EU functions is actually the most democratic system that exists in Europe itself; no government is more transparent, more directly elected or more advanced with regards to how it decides who gets seats. This is probably contestable on some level, maybe there's some more balanced democracy that I'm not aware of, but as a Swedish/British citizen: the EU parliament is far more representative of votes than the UK parliament or Swedish Riksdag (though the Swedish one comes a lot closer). Every time someone complains about the EU they're doing so from either a place of ignorance ("the EU mandates bananas cant be too bendy!"[0]) or a place of understanding of inefficiency (France being unwilling to release the EU parliament from being moved between cities half of the year[1]; or the growing right wing totalitarian regime in Poland and Hungary[2]). When you conflate ignorant topics with important topics it muddies the water; it's impossible to have a reasonable conversation about reform. Why would we need reform instead of abolishing the institution though? Because the EU countries are actually under serious threat from Russia, the USA and China (as mentioned). While it might not be obvious to those living in the EU; the same way the presence of a military or police is sort of invisible and people act "reasonably" most of the time; you might wonder if you even need the police or the military. I might sound like I'm fear mongering, but I'm not, it's just the reality of trading and defending as a bloc; the same is true at nearly any scale. For example in Sweden it's common for an entire apartment building to negotiate for internet, and the rates that they get are significantly cheaper than if they had negotiated alone. Apes together strong. The downside of that negotiation is: everyone must be aligned on the decision being made, and you lose the individual freedom to choose a provider. But the result is a better experience for everyone. Most of the time you elect representatives, in Sweden this is a board in a housing community, and they act on behalf of the interests of the bloc. Crucially, this is what the EU is doing; and what you said about COVID passports is one of those things that's there because the EU does not impose itself on member states, the EU is very hands off on many areas. There's a few projects or initiatives which go through the (directly) elected parliament, but they often must get unanimous consent of all member states, not just "Germany throwing its weight around" as is commonly suggested, that's not really possible with the way the EU is structured, the EU is structured in a way that it's easy for most member states to stop the EU from doing something; and really difficult to make something new happen. This is why certain problems are occurring: the French holding on to the EU parliament for 6 months of the year, the French can simply say "no" to proposals to stop that inefficiency from existing and the EU can't really do anything about it. The same is true for any potential sanctions against Poland and Hungary suppressing freedom of the press. Obviously the potentially sanctioned country can't vote on if it gets sanctions, but if Hungary say "no" to sanctions against Poland, there's nothing the EU can do. The EU is optimised for ensuring basically nobody is doing anything against their will, except in rare cases where everyone but 1 member state agrees; but historically there have been "opt-outs" to many things. The UK being in the country in the EU has the most asterisks of every country combined in any treaty usually. [0]: Overly disfigured bananas are supposed to bear a classification, they're not banned: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/en/news-and-press-releases/euromyths/bendybananas.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/en/news-and-pre... [1]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/18/why-does-parliament-move-between-brussels-and-strasbourg https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/18/why-does-parli... [2]: https://cepa.org/what-can-we-do-about-poland-and-hungary/ https://cepa.org/what-can-we-do-about-poland-and-hungary/
- jollybean 4y ago
  Yes, you are lacking in imagination. The ability to almost arbitrarily spy on people especially in a politicized environment is 'powerful'. It's the 'most powerful thing'. There are innumerable ways for a program like this to go wayward. There are a few legit reasons for such things but 'proper oversight' is hard.
Mikeb85 4y ago
> Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Pretty much. While no one supports it, few people see it as something that directly affects them so they don't fight it.
everyone 4y ago
I assume some corporations are lobbying for it. So they can harvest more data, and maybe sell the tech that will do this. In the past some stuff like this has either gotten through of been attempted, and its usually in some trade deal with the US. So apparently the US really wants this all over the world.
- api 4y ago
  They could also be lobbying for it simply because it creates more barriers to competition. If this passes you'd never be able to make another chat/IM/etc. startup. Compliance would be crazy complex or expensive or both. Complex or difficult to comply with regulations are a regressive tax on businesses, impacting smaller or new businesses far more than large ones. The cost of compliance drops with scale.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  There is a difference between having your data intercepted by statal agencies or by having it intercepted by private entities. The latter would be harder, in absolute terms, to justify. (And still PSD2 has given private entities accesses to dashboards of financial details of individuals - some of us have not yet understood in which terms.) Moreover, there is a matter of legal boundaries for each involved agent, and also a matter of a will for those legal boundaries to be actually enforced (as opposed to being expressed as an appeasing veneer).
freeflight 4y ago
> I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways. Try looking past IT-affine circles, there the mindset of "nothing to hide, my info is not worth anything anyway" is shockingly prevalent. Particularly once the virtue signaling starts along the lines of "People who oppose this, support organized crime, terrorism and child abuse!", once these topics are brought up pretty much everybody has to fall in line, or risk being accused being one of those nasties. There is also a substantial part of the Zoomer generation that openly, and loudly, demand censorship, to hide those opinions online that don't fit their Overton window. Thanks to a decade of propaganda about disinformation by "social bots", relying on technology that ain't even a thing yet. People literally demanding to be protected from views that make them uncomfortable. And it's apparently not censorship because private corporations do it, the same corporations that dominate the majority of the online discourse these days. But who cares about details like that, when it's about protecting "democracy, freedom and the children"?
- api 4y ago
  I really hate to fall for zoomer stereotypes but I do get the feeling that this generation is (on average) broadly more open to all forms of authoritarianism. It seems to apply across the political spectrum with the zoomer right being NatCon/alt-right and the zoomer left being what you describe. They also seem comfortable with a lack of privacy in general and with hyper-centralization of businesses and services they use.
  - freeflight 4y ago
    I mean, who can really blame them? Most of them only know the web in this centralized state [0], and most people older than them keep telling them how much progress, and how everything is so much better, with that "digital economy" revolving around a handful of fat unicorns. So from their perspective, it's easy to see it as the natural progression where things should head even more. [0] https://staltz.com/the-web-began-dying-in-2014-heres-how.html https://staltz.com/the-web-began-dying-in-2014-heres-how.htm...
- mdp2021 4y ago
jollybean 4y ago
? I don't get it, it's the easiest thing to understand. Terrorism, human trafficking, 'high treason' (i.e. nuclear secrets, spying). Those are very real things and I think it would be relatively easy to convince the population that some degree of oversight is necessary. Because there's legitimacy. I fully support the idea, nominally, except that I don't trust the bureaucracy at all, and so I'm pretty much against it, other than in careful situations with a ton of oversight. To the point where I think a national committee ought to validate every single surveillance request, not even a local judge. And FYI the issues is far more nuanced - it's going to be politicized to narrow the range of acceptable behaviour and thought, as various groups try to designate 'the others views' as 'hate speech' etc.. We've always had high common standards of morality, but there were always many escapes - nobody cares what 'the guy said at the beer hall / pub'. It was just some boozing up. It 'didn't count' so to speak. Now we record everything everywhere and context is lost.
- mildmotive 4y ago
  > To the point where I think a national committee ought to validate every single surveillance request, not even a local judge. Which wouldn’t make it mass-surveillance. The problem is when the government enforces an infrastructure of mass-surveillance where information about everybody, in their homes, outside, their communication, and so on, is being collected. Regular people like you and I will have zero ability to vet how this information is used. We can’t let the government have this much power over us. The best way to prevent this mass-surveillance is by not allowing this data to be collected in the first place. Selective surveillance is something different. It’s not logistically possible for your government to selectively surveil everyone the same way they do with the mass-surveillance infrastructures that are being deployed. This logistical limitation is a feature, not a bug.
  - jollybean 4y ago
    Yes, but it's more complicated. For example - I think in the US, Verizon etc. has to keep a history of 'call records' - so that, in the event of some issues, that information can be acquired. I don't know how much oversight goes into that later part, but ideally, it would be a lot. Even in that case, there is kind of a 'record' or 'background tracking' related to what would otherwise be 'very legit' situation. Same for search, tweets, DMs etc. etc.. I'm fine with it as long as there is 'really good oversight' ... which I don't trust any of our governments to do. Not the EU/UK/US/Canada etc.. The answer is always the same: 'it depends' , 'it's nuanced', and always requires 'high degree of competence', 'transcend politicization', 'transcend descent into bureaucracy' and 'unforeseen situations' esp. 'data leaks', 'weird constitutional rulings' and 'weird populist political situations'. Etc..
DocTomoe 4y ago
The very idea of the EU is to move control away from democratically elected governments. It is designed to prevent democratic participation of its people. The one direct democratic structure, the European Parliament, is toothless, and being defanged, and the Commission is an organisation made up by politicians you want to get rid of at home (because of looming political scandals usually). Can't get your dystopian policy through at home? Delegate it to Brussels, then publicly claim that 'it can't be helped, it's an EU directive', washing your hands in innocence. I do understand why the British decided to leave. It was a crazy idea, it's incredibly damaging to their economy, but subjectively, I can understand them.
- PortiaBerries 4y ago
  How can it be a "crazy idea" to leave what you describe in your first 2 paragraphs? Crazy just economically?
  - DocTomoe 4y ago
    In the end, most people are even happy living under the most brutal of dictatorships as long as they themselves live a relatively comfortable life, and for that you need a working economy (and the hand of luck protecting you from being in the group that said dictatorship thinks the scapegoat should be). The same is much more true for "well, this is essentially not a democracy anymore, and has some weird tendencies, but at least we're not forced to salute the flag every morning in school" style systems.
- denton-scratch 4y ago
  I'm a brit that voted exit because of the EU democratic deficit, not because of xenophobia. I expected it to damage the economy for a decade, and I stilll wanted out. I knew that would put me in the same group as the xenophobic racists, but I still voted out. I also knew it would cause pain; the last people I wanted at the wheel during Brexit was Boris Johnson and the Tories. But I voted Brexit anyway, because I figured that it would be a very long time before we'd be allowed a referendum on EU membership again. I consider myself European, and I welcomed the UK joining the EU back then. But over the years, I've seen new entrants promptly ignoring the financial rules, the division-of-powers rules, and a bunch of other rules, and not get kicked out, or even sanctioned. I don't want to be in a union of governments with authoritarian racists.
Macha 4y ago
Yes Minister covers it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks Tell them you're going to have their messages scanned on behalf of the government and nobody wants it. Tell them you're going to introduce measures for online safety and to crack down on child abuse, and everybody wants it. Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer they want.
- xanaxagoras 4y ago
  > Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer they want. This summarizes a good 75% of modern political discourse.
  - citilife 4y ago
    Ironically, this is why a lot of people argue everyone shouldn't vote. Basically, if you add some minor barriers to voting you'll get only those who know and care about what's going on to vote. Otherwise, you'll have lemmings. Where people with a bit of propaganda will drive everyone else off the cliff.
    - Matl 4y ago
      > Basically, if you add some minor barriers to voting you'll get only those who know and care about what's going on to vote. You'll get people with a lot of time on their hands for sure, that's about the only thing one can say with certainty.
    - mdp2021 4y ago
      (It's not «everyone shouldn't vote», it's «not everyone should vote».) «Minor barriers» are not the only way to achieve that - you can use sophisticated voting systems -, and the definition of such «barriers» is not trivial on many levels (of effectiveness, of fariness etc).
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
tinus_hn 4y ago
But what about the drugs! And think about the children! And if you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to hide! In general a large portion of the electorate doesn’t actually care or can be swayed using the flimsiest of arguments.
akomtu 4y ago
Royalty and their kids, probably. Those people who just own land, collect rent, and are scared that one day people will realise that they don't need that ballast.
arcticbull 4y ago
Abortion is especially strange since a supermajority of Americans, across the political spectrum, of both genders, generally agree that some abortions should be permitted [1]. 70% want to keep the status quo. [2] It's even arguably a violation of the religious freedom of Jewish folks to ban abortion [3]. It's not forbidden by the Bible either - the Bible makes it clear that life begins 'at first breath' (Genesis 2:7) [4]. Super weird. [edit] Feels like the anti-abortion folks are the dog that caught the bus. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-i... [2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-americans-stand-on-abortion-in-5-charts/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-americans-stand-o... [3] https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-bans-may-violate-jewish-womens-first-amendment-rights-2022-5?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-bans-may-violate-je... [4] https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/26087-abortion-nontract#when-does-life-begin https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/26087-abortion-nontract#w...
- pyinstallwoes 4y ago
  The stipulation comes at the definition of what life is and what taking life away is. It’s a very difficult thing to define what life is, thus legally it is for lack of a better phrasing “a can of worms.” If you’re programming minded, you may see how such a definition is ambiguous and opens many attack vectors for interpretation. After seeing it this way, I began to understand why it’s so hotly contested.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - narag 4y ago
    Best legal definition I've heard involves death. When is a person considered dead? Brain activity ceased irreversibly. In the opposite end you have first brain activity (around three months since fecundation) as the best milestone. Of course there is philosophical discussion that goes beyond that, but since making it a crime is a legal matter, it's probably within reason.
lucideer 4y ago
> does any of their actual constituency want it? While one can technically argue that the EU Commission has constituency, it's worth noting that it's a few layers of abstraction away: Commissioners are typically people with industry background who are nominated by the "EU Council". The EU Council is in turn made up of state leaders. (The "EU Parliament" is a separate body that is actually elected by voters). Lobbyists also have much more direct access to commissioners than any constituents ever would. For some context, Thierry Breton is the current EU Commissioner for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Defence Industry and Space, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. His background is running France Télécom & acquiring Xerox IT outsourcing. (He's also the former French Minister of Finance, but ministries are not elected positions in France).
- native_samples 4y ago
  In theory Commissioners are appointed by the Council. In practice the head of the Commission has a veto. In the treaties this veto power doesn't exist, but Juncker admitted he regularly vetoed appointees and it's unlikely vDL gave up that power. So that leads to the question of how the head of the Commission is picked. Again, by treaty it's up to the Council to decide. How do they do that? Nobody knows. They walk into a room and have a secret meeting, at the end they jointly announce the decision. Is there a vote? Does everyone even get to express their view? Do countries make threats to get their way? How are the candidates selected? What did the different country leaders think? Do their statements in private even match their statements in public (sometimes not, it seems). The process is entirely opaque. After that was done, just to make the comparisons with North Korea super-duper obvious, they gave the European Parliament a "vote" on who should be Commission head. The voting slip had a single option on it - vDL. MEPs could either vote for her, or not vote at all.
- orwin 4y ago
  He basically destroyed Bull's engineering culture, and still help them get contracts they don't deserve, by "subtle" political pressure. If you want to get on European PPPs as a tech company, better have good relation with Bull/Atos. My former manager worked at Thompson during Breton's presence there, let's say he was unsurprised when he learned about the suicide waves at France Telecom. I don't know much about corruption, but he is the prime example of what i would consider corruption in France.
orwin 4y ago
The commission is unelected. However, they don't write the proposal (i least i don't think so), they just review the proposal and help with the parts that would be striked down by EU court. Doesn't always work btw). I think that this have to come from either a citizen petition, a quarter of the nations, ECB or the parliament itself.
throwaway0a5e 4y ago
>I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways. They're you, your neighbors, your coworkers, your family. Authoritarians are everywhere. They won't outright support the surveillance state but they'll say things like "well, government gonna government amirite" when these dragnets get used against people they don't like (usually various breeds of petty criminals and scofflaws who aren't really harming anyone at their scale). And of course they act all outraged when the .gov is using the same mechanisms to go after stuff they do like. If cognitive dissonance was a physical object I would bludgeon people with it.
323 4y ago
All the left wing press is calling for this, by running articles about how the far right is using encrypted chats to organize violence: > Why right-wing extremists’ favorite new platform is so dangerous. Telegram’s lax content moderation and encrypted chats make it a convenient tool for extremists. https://www.vox.com/recode/22238755/telegram-messaging-social-media-extremists https://www.vox.com/recode/22238755/telegram-messaging-socia... > In collaboration with anti-fascist research group the White Rose Society, the Guardian has tracked McLean’s activity through the rabbit warren of largely unregulated Telegram groups and found that he describes a vastly different version of his intentions. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/26/where-freedom-meets-the-far-right-the-hate-messages-infiltrating-australian-anti-lockdown-protests https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/26/where... > Far-right groups move online conversations from social media to chat apps — and out of view of law enforcement https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/14/telegram-warned-of-nurturing-subculture-deifying-terrorists https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/14/telegram-war... > White supremacists openly organize racist violence on Telegram, report finds https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/tech/white-supremacists-telegram-racism-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/tech/white-supremacists-t... > Are Private Messaging Apps the Next Misinformation Hot Spot? Telegram and Signal, the encrypted services that keep conversations confidential, are increasingly popular. Our tech columnists discuss whether this could get ugly. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/technology/personaltech/telegram-signal-misinformation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/technology/personaltech/t... > A report this week found that the messaging app had emerged as a central hub for several conspiracy movements espousing antisemitic tropes and memes, including QAnon, as well as others on the extreme right promoting violence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/15/parler-telegram-chat-apps/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/15/parler-...
marto1 4y ago
> I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things I'd guess the much older folks that don't use any of these means of communication wouldn't be strongly opposed and will probably be voting for some social benefit carrot program that is included as part of the package. That said I have no data on this whatsoever and am just speculating.
verisimi 4y ago
> Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? What elected officials? They are appointed. Its been a technocracy from the start and they are open about this. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/7/how-are-the-commission-president-and-commissioners-appointed https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/7/how-are-the-com...
gambiting 4y ago
Really? I meet "regular"(non tech) people all the time who really believe that full surveillance is the only way to stop pedophiles and terrorists and all kinds of criminals - and who absolutely have no issue with any of this. You can try using the usual privacy-focussed arguments with them but it all falls on deaf ears.
- mdp2021 4y ago
  Clearly today "emulsional" pseudo-societies have developed in which communion is ruled out: people which should not be mixed are pooled in a single pot. The social crisis extends today from past base instances to, nowadays, irreconcilable divergences in aspirations.
dathinab 4y ago
> Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? For some maybe yes. But in many cases they don't understand technology, they often end up with very incomplete and wrong partial understandings by extrapolating from things they do understand, but which do also have very different dynamics. Also while they often insist on their broken understanding they are not stupid and do realize that there is a lot they don't understand. That frightens them. Then there are real problems around child abuse/porn in the internet. But they are hard to solve without doing much more damage in other ways. But because they don't understand the dynamics of the internet they don't realize that. Like in the world they understad requiring a thing which allows people to publish things to (skimingly) check the things published isn't hard or a problem (as it's something like a printed book or newspaper, few publisher, many consumer). But if you try to apply this to modern internet platforms it all falls apart. But they don't see it for them e.g. a dating app is nothing more then a fancy "locking for people" section in a small regional newspaper or something like that. So in my opinion it's less because of power hunger then more because of arrogance and incompetence. And without question there are exceptions.
mcv 4y ago
As far as I understand it, it's always been the European Commission who wants this, and the European Parliament that opposes this. Hopefully they will do so again, but it might be prudent to remind them that they need to oppose this.

fabatka 4y ago

I never understand this apparent motive of "elected officials getting power hungry". How would this legislation make the people in the EU Commission more powerful? Am I just lacking imagination?

jaywalk 4y ago
This legislation means the EC gets to decide what is allowed and what's not in private communications. It always starts with child pornography, because everybody finds it abhorrent. But once you open that door...
photochemsyn 4y ago
I mean, intercepting private business communications about say, factory openings or closings, would put the people with that information in a position to make large amounts of money by buying or selling property in those areas. There are dozens of similar examples that don't require much imagination to envisage. Blackmail material on politicians, insider knowledge on energy transactions and plans, advance warning on populist protests against EU policies, etc. Just look at the history of any mass surveillance state to see how that works out in practice. The East German STASI is a relevant example, and there are others one could think of as well. Recommended watching: "The Lives of Others".
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  > I mean, intercepting private business communications about say, factory openings or closings, would put the people with that information in a position to make large amounts of money by buying or selling property in those areas. Like the US did with Airbus in the echelon scandal even before the pervasive surveillance that came in after 9/11. Just saying this is not a remote "worst case" scenario but a real-world one.
  - throwawayboise 4y ago
    Agreed. History is replete with examples. We might like to think we're more civilized and tolerant, that we've evolved morally since then. But we're still the same humans we've always been.
reedjosh 4y ago
> Am I just lacking imagination? Yes. The EU is becoming a totalitarian regional government of elites. Originally it wasn't even supposed to have a military presence. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_forces_of_the_European_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_forces_of_the_European... It was supposed to prevent the need of passports. https://www.covidpasscertificate.com/europe-digital-green-pass/ https://www.covidpasscertificate.com/europe-digital-green-pa... All the good things are going out the door and all the bad things are walking on in.
- dijit 4y ago
  In the interest in saving peoples time when responding to this: don’t. It’s trolling at worst and nerd sniping at best. The author of this comment knows this full well. His comment history is full of this kind of “drop bomb” and run crap. “covid passports” being required is not exactly the fault of the EU, if anything it’s because of the freedoms the EU still has. Anti-covid rhetoric needs to die, anti-EU bad faith propaganda needs to die. This is a legitimate constitutional crisis, not a time to try to pile on with nonsense.
  - hakre 4y ago
    Which can be easily seen as it proclaims "many good things" without naming a single one. It's written to play with feelings in a very cheap way.
  - reedjosh 4y ago
    > is full of this kind of “drop bomb” and run crap. Hello. I usually keep responding to people. I'm not from the EU, so if you disagree with me I'll respond. It's not unlikely I'm wrong. I am a crazy anti-government guy though, so you've got me there.
    - dijit 4y ago
      Well, I'm going to take this argument in good faith then and assume you're not trolling, but I'll be extremely disappointed if I'm proven wrong. I'll start by saying that the EU does have issues, I can talk fairly about what the EU even is first, why it evolved and then talk about those issues as fairly as I can. FD: I am pro-EU but it's not like I can't understand that people can have exactly the same information as me and disagree, the EU is trade-offs and I'm personally in favour of those trade-offs; I can understand why some people would not. ---- The EU, at its core started off, as everyone mentions repeatedly: as an economic union; the purpose of which was to make the idea of war in Europe unpalatable. This core fact is why when people complain about "jobs moving to x,y,z EU country where the labour is cheaper" they're right, but that was the purpose of the economic union from the beginning and not the EU; since that's the point of the EEC (the pre-cursor to what became the EU). Over time it became apparent (during the cold war, specifically) that Europe is directly in the crossfire of two super powers, and each of us alone is not capable of fending off either of them, either economically (since the power imbalance in economics means Russia, the US or even China can basically dictate terms to us) or in terms of defence (a scrambled response will be slow and ineffective). Thus: the EU was formed, to try to compete at the same level as the Soviet Union and USA. (and, recently, China is a super power). The way the EU functions is actually the most democratic system that exists in Europe itself; no government is more transparent, more directly elected or more advanced with regards to how it decides who gets seats. This is probably contestable on some level, maybe there's some more balanced democracy that I'm not aware of, but as a Swedish/British citizen: the EU parliament is far more representative of votes than the UK parliament or Swedish Riksdag (though the Swedish one comes a lot closer). Every time someone complains about the EU they're doing so from either a place of ignorance ("the EU mandates bananas cant be too bendy!"[0]) or a place of understanding of inefficiency (France being unwilling to release the EU parliament from being moved between cities half of the year[1]; or the growing right wing totalitarian regime in Poland and Hungary[2]). When you conflate ignorant topics with important topics it muddies the water; it's impossible to have a reasonable conversation about reform. Why would we need reform instead of abolishing the institution though? Because the EU countries are actually under serious threat from Russia, the USA and China (as mentioned). While it might not be obvious to those living in the EU; the same way the presence of a military or police is sort of invisible and people act "reasonably" most of the time; you might wonder if you even need the police or the military. I might sound like I'm fear mongering, but I'm not, it's just the reality of trading and defending as a bloc; the same is true at nearly any scale. For example in Sweden it's common for an entire apartment building to negotiate for internet, and the rates that they get are significantly cheaper than if they had negotiated alone. Apes together strong. The downside of that negotiation is: everyone must be aligned on the decision being made, and you lose the individual freedom to choose a provider. But the result is a better experience for everyone. Most of the time you elect representatives, in Sweden this is a board in a housing community, and they act on behalf of the interests of the bloc. Crucially, this is what the EU is doing; and what you said about COVID passports is one of those things that's there because the EU does not impose itself on member states, the EU is very hands off on many areas. There's a few projects or initiatives which go through the (directly) elected parliament, but they often must get unanimous consent of all member states, not just "Germany throwing its weight around" as is commonly suggested, that's not really possible with the way the EU is structured, the EU is structured in a way that it's easy for most member states to stop the EU from doing something; and really difficult to make something new happen. This is why certain problems are occurring: the French holding on to the EU parliament for 6 months of the year, the French can simply say "no" to proposals to stop that inefficiency from existing and the EU can't really do anything about it. The same is true for any potential sanctions against Poland and Hungary suppressing freedom of the press. Obviously the potentially sanctioned country can't vote on if it gets sanctions, but if Hungary say "no" to sanctions against Poland, there's nothing the EU can do. The EU is optimised for ensuring basically nobody is doing anything against their will, except in rare cases where everyone but 1 member state agrees; but historically there have been "opt-outs" to many things. The UK being in the country in the EU has the most asterisks of every country combined in any treaty usually. [0]: Overly disfigured bananas are supposed to bear a classification, they're not banned: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/en/news-and-press-releases/euromyths/bendybananas.html https://www.europarl.europa.eu/unitedkingdom/en/news-and-pre... [1]: https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/18/why-does-parliament-move-between-brussels-and-strasbourg https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/18/why-does-parli... [2]: https://cepa.org/what-can-we-do-about-poland-and-hungary/ https://cepa.org/what-can-we-do-about-poland-and-hungary/
jollybean 4y ago
Yes, you are lacking in imagination. The ability to almost arbitrarily spy on people especially in a politicized environment is 'powerful'. It's the 'most powerful thing'. There are innumerable ways for a program like this to go wayward. There are a few legit reasons for such things but 'proper oversight' is hard.

Mikeb85 4y ago

> Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Pretty much. While no one supports it, few people see it as something that directly affects them so they don't fight it.

everyone 4y ago

I assume some corporations are lobbying for it. So they can harvest more data, and maybe sell the tech that will do this. In the past some stuff like this has either gotten through of been attempted, and its usually in some trade deal with the US. So apparently the US really wants this all over the world.

api 4y ago
They could also be lobbying for it simply because it creates more barriers to competition. If this passes you'd never be able to make another chat/IM/etc. startup. Compliance would be crazy complex or expensive or both. Complex or difficult to comply with regulations are a regressive tax on businesses, impacting smaller or new businesses far more than large ones. The cost of compliance drops with scale.
mdp2021 4y ago
There is a difference between having your data intercepted by statal agencies or by having it intercepted by private entities. The latter would be harder, in absolute terms, to justify. (And still PSD2 has given private entities accesses to dashboards of financial details of individuals - some of us have not yet understood in which terms.) Moreover, there is a matter of legal boundaries for each involved agent, and also a matter of a will for those legal boundaries to be actually enforced (as opposed to being expressed as an appeasing veneer).

freeflight 4y ago

> I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways. Try looking past IT-affine circles, there the mindset of "nothing to hide, my info is not worth anything anyway" is shockingly prevalent. Particularly once the virtue signaling starts along the lines of "People who oppose this, support organized crime, terrorism and child abuse!", once these topics are brought up pretty much everybody has to fall in line, or risk being accused being one of those nasties. There is also a substantial part of the Zoomer generation that openly, and loudly, demand censorship, to hide those opinions online that don't fit their Overton window. Thanks to a decade of propaganda about disinformation by "social bots", relying on technology that ain't even a thing yet. People literally demanding to be protected from views that make them uncomfortable. And it's apparently not censorship because private corporations do it, the same corporations that dominate the majority of the online discourse these days. But who cares about details like that, when it's about protecting "democracy, freedom and the children"?

api 4y ago
I really hate to fall for zoomer stereotypes but I do get the feeling that this generation is (on average) broadly more open to all forms of authoritarianism. It seems to apply across the political spectrum with the zoomer right being NatCon/alt-right and the zoomer left being what you describe. They also seem comfortable with a lack of privacy in general and with hyper-centralization of businesses and services they use.
- freeflight 4y ago
  I mean, who can really blame them? Most of them only know the web in this centralized state [0], and most people older than them keep telling them how much progress, and how everything is so much better, with that "digital economy" revolving around a handful of fat unicorns. So from their perspective, it's easy to see it as the natural progression where things should head even more. [0] https://staltz.com/the-web-began-dying-in-2014-heres-how.html https://staltz.com/the-web-began-dying-in-2014-heres-how.htm...
mdp2021 4y ago

jollybean 4y ago

? I don't get it, it's the easiest thing to understand. Terrorism, human trafficking, 'high treason' (i.e. nuclear secrets, spying). Those are very real things and I think it would be relatively easy to convince the population that some degree of oversight is necessary. Because there's legitimacy. I fully support the idea, nominally, except that I don't trust the bureaucracy at all, and so I'm pretty much against it, other than in careful situations with a ton of oversight. To the point where I think a national committee ought to validate every single surveillance request, not even a local judge. And FYI the issues is far more nuanced - it's going to be politicized to narrow the range of acceptable behaviour and thought, as various groups try to designate 'the others views' as 'hate speech' etc.. We've always had high common standards of morality, but there were always many escapes - nobody cares what 'the guy said at the beer hall / pub'. It was just some boozing up. It 'didn't count' so to speak. Now we record everything everywhere and context is lost.

mildmotive 4y ago
> To the point where I think a national committee ought to validate every single surveillance request, not even a local judge. Which wouldn’t make it mass-surveillance. The problem is when the government enforces an infrastructure of mass-surveillance where information about everybody, in their homes, outside, their communication, and so on, is being collected. Regular people like you and I will have zero ability to vet how this information is used. We can’t let the government have this much power over us. The best way to prevent this mass-surveillance is by not allowing this data to be collected in the first place. Selective surveillance is something different. It’s not logistically possible for your government to selectively surveil everyone the same way they do with the mass-surveillance infrastructures that are being deployed. This logistical limitation is a feature, not a bug.
- jollybean 4y ago
  Yes, but it's more complicated. For example - I think in the US, Verizon etc. has to keep a history of 'call records' - so that, in the event of some issues, that information can be acquired. I don't know how much oversight goes into that later part, but ideally, it would be a lot. Even in that case, there is kind of a 'record' or 'background tracking' related to what would otherwise be 'very legit' situation. Same for search, tweets, DMs etc. etc.. I'm fine with it as long as there is 'really good oversight' ... which I don't trust any of our governments to do. Not the EU/UK/US/Canada etc.. The answer is always the same: 'it depends' , 'it's nuanced', and always requires 'high degree of competence', 'transcend politicization', 'transcend descent into bureaucracy' and 'unforeseen situations' esp. 'data leaks', 'weird constitutional rulings' and 'weird populist political situations'. Etc..

DocTomoe 4y ago

The very idea of the EU is to move control away from democratically elected governments. It is designed to prevent democratic participation of its people. The one direct democratic structure, the European Parliament, is toothless, and being defanged, and the Commission is an organisation made up by politicians you want to get rid of at home (because of looming political scandals usually). Can't get your dystopian policy through at home? Delegate it to Brussels, then publicly claim that 'it can't be helped, it's an EU directive', washing your hands in innocence. I do understand why the British decided to leave. It was a crazy idea, it's incredibly damaging to their economy, but subjectively, I can understand them.

PortiaBerries 4y ago
How can it be a "crazy idea" to leave what you describe in your first 2 paragraphs? Crazy just economically?
- DocTomoe 4y ago
  In the end, most people are even happy living under the most brutal of dictatorships as long as they themselves live a relatively comfortable life, and for that you need a working economy (and the hand of luck protecting you from being in the group that said dictatorship thinks the scapegoat should be). The same is much more true for "well, this is essentially not a democracy anymore, and has some weird tendencies, but at least we're not forced to salute the flag every morning in school" style systems.
denton-scratch 4y ago
I'm a brit that voted exit because of the EU democratic deficit, not because of xenophobia. I expected it to damage the economy for a decade, and I stilll wanted out. I knew that would put me in the same group as the xenophobic racists, but I still voted out. I also knew it would cause pain; the last people I wanted at the wheel during Brexit was Boris Johnson and the Tories. But I voted Brexit anyway, because I figured that it would be a very long time before we'd be allowed a referendum on EU membership again. I consider myself European, and I welcomed the UK joining the EU back then. But over the years, I've seen new entrants promptly ignoring the financial rules, the division-of-powers rules, and a bunch of other rules, and not get kicked out, or even sanctioned. I don't want to be in a union of governments with authoritarian racists.

Macha 4y ago

Yes Minister covers it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks Tell them you're going to have their messages scanned on behalf of the government and nobody wants it. Tell them you're going to introduce measures for online safety and to crack down on child abuse, and everybody wants it. Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer they want.

xanaxagoras 4y ago
> Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer they want. This summarizes a good 75% of modern political discourse.
- citilife 4y ago
  Ironically, this is why a lot of people argue everyone shouldn't vote. Basically, if you add some minor barriers to voting you'll get only those who know and care about what's going on to vote. Otherwise, you'll have lemmings. Where people with a bit of propaganda will drive everyone else off the cliff.
  - Matl 4y ago
    > Basically, if you add some minor barriers to voting you'll get only those who know and care about what's going on to vote. You'll get people with a lot of time on their hands for sure, that's about the only thing one can say with certainty.
  - mdp2021 4y ago
    (It's not «everyone shouldn't vote», it's «not everyone should vote».) «Minor barriers» are not the only way to achieve that - you can use sophisticated voting systems -, and the definition of such «barriers» is not trivial on many levels (of effectiveness, of fariness etc).
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]

tinus_hn 4y ago

But what about the drugs! And think about the children! And if you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have anything to hide! In general a large portion of the electorate doesn’t actually care or can be swayed using the flimsiest of arguments.

akomtu 4y ago

Royalty and their kids, probably. Those people who just own land, collect rent, and are scared that one day people will realise that they don't need that ballast.

arcticbull 4y ago

Abortion is especially strange since a supermajority of Americans, across the political spectrum, of both genders, generally agree that some abortions should be permitted [1]. 70% want to keep the status quo. [2] It's even arguably a violation of the religious freedom of Jewish folks to ban abortion [3]. It's not forbidden by the Bible either - the Bible makes it clear that life begins 'at first breath' (Genesis 2:7) [4]. Super weird. [edit] Feels like the anti-abortion folks are the dog that caught the bus. [1] https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-in-ten-americans-say-abortion-should-be-legal-in-all-or-most-cases/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/05/06/about-six-i... [2] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-americans-stand-on-abortion-in-5-charts/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/where-americans-stand-o... [3] https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-bans-may-violate-jewish-womens-first-amendment-rights-2022-5?r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/abortion-bans-may-violate-je... [4] https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/26087-abortion-nontract#when-does-life-begin https://ffrf.org/component/k2/item/26087-abortion-nontract#w...

pyinstallwoes 4y ago
The stipulation comes at the definition of what life is and what taking life away is. It’s a very difficult thing to define what life is, thus legally it is for lack of a better phrasing “a can of worms.” If you’re programming minded, you may see how such a definition is ambiguous and opens many attack vectors for interpretation. After seeing it this way, I began to understand why it’s so hotly contested.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- narag 4y ago
  Best legal definition I've heard involves death. When is a person considered dead? Brain activity ceased irreversibly. In the opposite end you have first brain activity (around three months since fecundation) as the best milestone. Of course there is philosophical discussion that goes beyond that, but since making it a crime is a legal matter, it's probably within reason.

lucideer 4y ago

> does any of their actual constituency want it? While one can technically argue that the EU Commission has constituency, it's worth noting that it's a few layers of abstraction away: Commissioners are typically people with industry background who are nominated by the "EU Council". The EU Council is in turn made up of state leaders. (The "EU Parliament" is a separate body that is actually elected by voters). Lobbyists also have much more direct access to commissioners than any constituents ever would. For some context, Thierry Breton is the current EU Commissioner for Communications Networks, Content and Technology, Defence Industry and Space, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. His background is running France Télécom & acquiring Xerox IT outsourcing. (He's also the former French Minister of Finance, but ministries are not elected positions in France).

native_samples 4y ago
In theory Commissioners are appointed by the Council. In practice the head of the Commission has a veto. In the treaties this veto power doesn't exist, but Juncker admitted he regularly vetoed appointees and it's unlikely vDL gave up that power. So that leads to the question of how the head of the Commission is picked. Again, by treaty it's up to the Council to decide. How do they do that? Nobody knows. They walk into a room and have a secret meeting, at the end they jointly announce the decision. Is there a vote? Does everyone even get to express their view? Do countries make threats to get their way? How are the candidates selected? What did the different country leaders think? Do their statements in private even match their statements in public (sometimes not, it seems). The process is entirely opaque. After that was done, just to make the comparisons with North Korea super-duper obvious, they gave the European Parliament a "vote" on who should be Commission head. The voting slip had a single option on it - vDL. MEPs could either vote for her, or not vote at all.
orwin 4y ago
He basically destroyed Bull's engineering culture, and still help them get contracts they don't deserve, by "subtle" political pressure. If you want to get on European PPPs as a tech company, better have good relation with Bull/Atos. My former manager worked at Thompson during Breton's presence there, let's say he was unsurprised when he learned about the suicide waves at France Telecom. I don't know much about corruption, but he is the prime example of what i would consider corruption in France.

orwin 4y ago

The commission is unelected. However, they don't write the proposal (i least i don't think so), they just review the proposal and help with the parts that would be striked down by EU court. Doesn't always work btw). I think that this have to come from either a citizen petition, a quarter of the nations, ECB or the parliament itself.

throwaway0a5e 4y ago

>I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways. They're you, your neighbors, your coworkers, your family. Authoritarians are everywhere. They won't outright support the surveillance state but they'll say things like "well, government gonna government amirite" when these dragnets get used against people they don't like (usually various breeds of petty criminals and scofflaws who aren't really harming anyone at their scale). And of course they act all outraged when the .gov is using the same mechanisms to go after stuff they do like. If cognitive dissonance was a physical object I would bludgeon people with it.

323 4y ago

All the left wing press is calling for this, by running articles about how the far right is using encrypted chats to organize violence: > Why right-wing extremists’ favorite new platform is so dangerous. Telegram’s lax content moderation and encrypted chats make it a convenient tool for extremists. https://www.vox.com/recode/22238755/telegram-messaging-social-media-extremists https://www.vox.com/recode/22238755/telegram-messaging-socia... > In collaboration with anti-fascist research group the White Rose Society, the Guardian has tracked McLean’s activity through the rabbit warren of largely unregulated Telegram groups and found that he describes a vastly different version of his intentions. https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/26/where-freedom-meets-the-far-right-the-hate-messages-infiltrating-australian-anti-lockdown-protests https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/26/where... > Far-right groups move online conversations from social media to chat apps — and out of view of law enforcement https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/14/telegram-warned-of-nurturing-subculture-deifying-terrorists https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/14/telegram-war... > White supremacists openly organize racist violence on Telegram, report finds https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/tech/white-supremacists-telegram-racism-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/26/tech/white-supremacists-t... > Are Private Messaging Apps the Next Misinformation Hot Spot? Telegram and Signal, the encrypted services that keep conversations confidential, are increasingly popular. Our tech columnists discuss whether this could get ugly. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/technology/personaltech/telegram-signal-misinformation.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/03/technology/personaltech/t... > A report this week found that the messaging app had emerged as a central hub for several conspiracy movements espousing antisemitic tropes and memes, including QAnon, as well as others on the extreme right promoting violence. https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/15/parler-telegram-chat-apps/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/01/15/parler-...

marto1 4y ago

> I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things I'd guess the much older folks that don't use any of these means of communication wouldn't be strongly opposed and will probably be voting for some social benefit carrot program that is included as part of the package. That said I have no data on this whatsoever and am just speculating.

verisimi 4y ago

> Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? What elected officials? They are appointed. Its been a technocracy from the start and they are open about this. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/7/how-are-the-commission-president-and-commissioners-appointed https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/faq/7/how-are-the-com...

gambiting 4y ago

Really? I meet "regular"(non tech) people all the time who really believe that full surveillance is the only way to stop pedophiles and terrorists and all kinds of criminals - and who absolutely have no issue with any of this. You can try using the usual privacy-focussed arguments with them but it all falls on deaf ears.

mdp2021 4y ago
Clearly today "emulsional" pseudo-societies have developed in which communion is ruled out: people which should not be mixed are pooled in a single pot. The social crisis extends today from past base instances to, nowadays, irreconcilable divergences in aspirations.

dathinab 4y ago

> Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? For some maybe yes. But in many cases they don't understand technology, they often end up with very incomplete and wrong partial understandings by extrapolating from things they do understand, but which do also have very different dynamics. Also while they often insist on their broken understanding they are not stupid and do realize that there is a lot they don't understand. That frightens them. Then there are real problems around child abuse/porn in the internet. But they are hard to solve without doing much more damage in other ways. But because they don't understand the dynamics of the internet they don't realize that. Like in the world they understad requiring a thing which allows people to publish things to (skimingly) check the things published isn't hard or a problem (as it's something like a printed book or newspaper, few publisher, many consumer). But if you try to apply this to modern internet platforms it all falls apart. But they don't see it for them e.g. a dating app is nothing more then a fancy "locking for people" section in a small regional newspaper or something like that. So in my opinion it's less because of power hunger then more because of arrogance and incompetence. And without question there are exceptions.

mcv 4y ago

As far as I understand it, it's always been the European Commission who wants this, and the European Parliament that opposes this. Hopefully they will do so again, but it might be prudent to remind them that they need to oppose this.