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the EU is becoming a parody >we've got to save democracy by restricting free speech and enforcing laws and regulations created by unelected officials
by ren_engineer 2y ago
the EU is becoming a parody
>we've got to save democracy by restricting free speech and enforcing laws and regulations created by unelected officials
- sunaookami 2y agoEver since von der Leyen became president. Typical for her since she also tried the same shit in Germany.
- andrepd 2y agoHah! Life would be great if the EU's problems started with von der Leyen
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoWhere did it start out of curiosity?
- Detrytus 2y agoWith its creation, by which I mean Lisbon Treaty. Before that EU was basically just a free trade zone, after Lisbon the eurocrats took over, trying to turn EU into socialist's version of heaven on Earth.
- blackeyeblitzar 2y agoDo you think individual countries can or will want to either limit the EU’s scope to make it far less invasive than today?
- throwaway48540 2y agoThey can't, not without the support of France and Germany
- switch007 2y agoWill another country leave the EU? Probably not after watching the UK
- andrepd 2y agoJesus, there's a balanced and nuanced take!
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- oska 2y agoSome say it began as a CIA project. > Declassified American government documents show that the US intelligence community ran a campaign in the Fifties and Sixties to build momentum for a united Europe. It funded and directed the European federalist movement. > The documents confirm suspicions voiced at the time that America was working aggressively behind the scenes to push Britain into a European state. One memorandum, dated July 26, 1950, gives instructions for a campaign to promote a fully fledged European parliament. It is signed by Gen William J Donovan, head of the American wartime Office of Strategic Services, precursor of the CIA. > The documents were found by Joshua Paul, a researcher at Georgetown University in Washington. They include files released by the US National Archives. Washington's main tool for shaping the European agenda was the American Committee for a United Europe, created in 1948. The chairman was Donovan, ostensibly a private lawyer by then. > The vice-chairman was Allen Dulles, the CIA director in the Fifties. The board included Walter Bedell Smith, the CIA's first director, and a roster of ex-OSS figures and officials who moved in and out of the CIA. The documents show that ACUE financed the European Movement, the most important federalist organisation in the post-war years. In 1958, for example, it provided 53.5 per cent of the movement's funds. https://www.quora.com/Was-the-European-Union-a-CIA-project https://www.quora.com/Was-the-European-Union-a-CIA-project
- csomar 2y ago> Some say it began as a CIA project. Modern day EU, is a sharing of power structure over the EU between France and Germany. The institutional seats for the EU are in Brussels, Frankfurt, Luxembourg and Strasbourg. Poland and the UK wanted Turkey to join the union to provide voting balance against Germany and France. This didn't happen and France made it clear that they'll never agree to it. The UK left because of this imbalance (despite having special privileges). One way to think about the current EU in medieval terms: A personal union between France and Germany; and a bunch of associated vassal states.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoSo if we want to tie this back to CIA, it's less a CIA project, and more of major European powers deciding to band up before CIA comes for them too.
- Aerroon 2y agoSadly, this isn't the case. I keep bringing it up since people forget about it: in 2006 the EU adopted the Data Retention Directive that forced all ISPs to save the browsing history of everyone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive It was eventually declared invalid by the European court of human rights, but it was still in effect for many years. Countries that did not implement this (eg Romania because their constitutional court found it illegal) were sued by the EU commission. The EU's attempts to spy on people go back decades. You'll also note that government gets exemptions from all the privacy stuff the EU pushes. I hope the EU changes course on this, but as with their handling of other tech... I'm not holding my breath.
- codedokode 2y agoIs that directive the reason why website operators do not want to implement ECH (Encrypted Client Hello) which allows to encrypt server name in TLS connection? I tried googling this, but Cloudflare blog only says that they disabled ECH without disclosing the reasons: [1] [1] https://community.cloudflare.com/t/early-hints-and-encrypted-client-hello-ech-are-currently-disabled-globally/567730 https://community.cloudflare.com/t/early-hints-and-encrypted...
- stavros 2y agoThey never re-enabled it?
- codedokode 2y agoNo, and other sites seem to not support it. This is a list of top 10 000 sites and it seems that virtually nobody supports this TLS extension: https://divested.dev/misc/ech.txt https://divested.dev/misc/ech.txt .
- stavros 2y agoThat's a real shame, I wonder if the decision to not enable it really is coming "from above".
- MrBuddyCasino 2y agoThe censorship initiatives in the west largely originate from the US „Blob“, the amalgamation of the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and the soft-power NGOs. Mike Benz, a former insider, spends his days explaining how this works. This is not the best introduction that he has done, but it is the latest space he recorded on the Telegram affair: https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827514567884255430 https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827514567884255430 Update: there will be a part two on the „The Geopolitics of Telegram & who is really after Pavel Durov“ 1am ET tonight. This is going to be one of the best sources of background info on the subject. This is not some random conspiracy theory hack, I promise. https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827550903324598354 https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827550903324598354
- MrBuddyCasino 2y agoRecording of „The Geopolitics of Telegram & who is really after Pavel Durov“: https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827580931974029821 https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827580931974029821
- MrBuddyCasino 2y ago„A turbo-charged 10 mins on Telegram as an instrument of US statecraft, why the US State Dept selectively promotes Telegram as a free speech tool in some countries but pressures gov'ts to censor Telegram in other countries, and Who Dunnit behind Pavel's arrest.“ https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1828267107353583869 https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1828267107353583869
- Glacia 2y agoHow arresting Durov restrict free speech?
- dyauspitr 2y agoUnelected officials = experts We don’t expect our politicians to dedicate their lives to scientific research so this perspective is inherently flawed.
- hexxagone 2y agoThere are experts working at the commission.
- wwtrv 2y ago> Unelected officials = experts What? Not in the commission. It's a 100% politically appointed body made up of politicians, it's just not elected. Also even on the lower levels being an "expert" EU apparatchik has absolutely nothing to do with dedicated your life to science. In any case it's a deeply flawed system, minimum oversight and a lot of money to spend/waste can't ever lead anywhere good.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoMost of officials in every democracy, purported or otherwise, are unelected. For practical reasons, you always elect a group, which then sets up or elects other groups, which together form the government.
- wwtrv 2y agoAnd your point is? Generally only unelected officials are allowed to formulate or propose EU policy (the EU "parliament" is only there for rubber stamping it) how is that similar to most countries?
- blackeyeblitzar 2y ago[flagged]
- BlueTemplar 2y agoLike reddit is representative of what EU citizens think. Also hopefully LinkedIn will get banned indeed, or have you already forgotten how Microsoft has been (at least theoretically) illegal for nearly a decade already in the EU, because they were (and most likely still are) complicit with the US government in violating human rights, and that is even before considering the monopoly issues ?
- wkat4242 2y agoI would love for LinkedIn to be banned. I just play along there because it's the only option if you want to get a job. But the people repeating sickening corporate PR and marketing crap there making me nauseous. It's 100x more fake than Facebook. I really hate it. If it'd be banned I could do without it because nobody would have it.
- JeffAllen 2y agoSo a website you don't like you would ban for everybody else as well just because you decided that it is merely marketing crap there making you nauseous. So you then conclude it should be banned for everyone else? How do you think the world would look if everybody had the power to ban things with similar reasons? We'd have nothing left in the world. Scary.
- wkat4242 2y agoI know, it's just wishful thinking on my part :) It won't happen but that doesn't mean I can't wish for it.
- trustinmenowpls 2y ago[flagged]
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- nebula8804 2y ago[flagged]
- stavros 2y agoI like a lot of things the EU is doing, but this spread of surveillance is something I'll always protest against. That's my biggest gripe with the EU, and I hate the Big-Brother-like thinking that gives us the GDPR and also mass surveillance. It's clear the EU's mindset is "nobody can compromise your privacy except me, but it's OK, I'm benevolent", and I'm not a fan of that exceptions.
- nebula8804 2y agoThat is totally fair. They only way people can keep all these protections and rights is to continually fight for them.
- croes 2y agoHow is the GDPR big-brother-like-thinking?
- stavros 2y agoThe GDPR is the "nobody can compromise your privacy" part and the surveillance is the "except me" part. Big Brother's whole spiel was "we're watching over you for your own good". To clarify, I like the GDPR, and wish the EU would give us more of that and less of the surveillance.
- croes 2y agoBut because of the privacy laws their surveillance laws get sacked in court. Same with their attempts to make the data export to the US legal. Safe Harbor, Privacy Shield, etc. They try and try but fail every time because it's always the same just a different name. Hopefully that prevails.
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- ekianjo 2y agono they are not lying, they just have a different meaning for "democracy", it just means "them". So if you are against them, you are effectively against "democracy".
- 28304283409234 2y ago"free speech" has never meant "free of consequence".
- Ray20 2y agoIn the context of this thread, freedom of speech always meant exactly that.
- dang 2y agoPlease don't take HN threads on generic tangents and please don't perpetuate flamewars. These things are in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41341607 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41341607. p.s. No, this is not a comment on the EU or any of your views—just about unsubstantive/flamey forum posts.