5 ms·

This pops up every few years, and I bet once it gets in it never goes away. It seems asymmetric that one side only has to win once to win permanently while the

This pops up every few years, and I bet once it gets in it never goes away. It seems asymmetric that one side only has to win once to win permanently while the other side has to win constantly. Is there any mechanism to stop this in the EU and make this kind of legislation explicitly barred?

azmodeus 1y ago
Vote them out and never vote for their parties in your general elections If your Member of European Parliament supports chat control stop voting for their parties and politically support their opposition
- progbits 1y ago
  Not good enough. They can get in again next election.
- vaylian 1y ago
  I agree. But also: I've been doing that for a long time already. The problem is that these surveillance laws don't get enough attention by the general public until they come into effect. For example: The UK's online safety act.
  - izacus 1y ago
    So make general public aware of them. Campaign. Inform. That's how democracies work. Don't expect others do to the legwork for your pet case.
- kurthr 1y ago
  Vote for an opposition which promises mass deportations? Certainly, they will never go back on their word to create a surveillance state?!? Asking your politicians to lie to you is not a substitute for changing their incentives. The key point to make is that once you're spying on your own people, you've created the single weakest point of entry for your geopolitical opponents spying on you and manipulating the population as well. It's such a dumb political move, it seems like it could only come from extreme fear, greed, or manipulation. Switch it around and make them afraid of the alternative.
  - okucu 1y ago
    Can only speak for Germany and the mass deportations here are done by liberals. They also let 40k+ people drown in the Mediterranean, support literally every single war, support multiple genocides and export weapons to all dictatorships known to man. At this point I'm not sure the actual Nazis would be worse than liberals. Also very weird how whenever "liberals/centrists" are in power the (ultra) right gain lots of momentum. Must be the weather Almost forgot: we're also in our third year of recession and the only investments are made in the military industry to prep for starting the next world war
    - FinnKuhn 1y ago
      I don't want to get too political, but calling the CDU/CSU liberal is pretty misleading in this context considering that they are part of the EVP (conservative) on a European level and not Renew Europe (liberal).
      - okucu 1y ago
        What has anything I said to do with the European parliament? I'm talking about the same parties in general. Greens are even further right than cdu/csu who have the same policies in 99% of cases as libs >I don't want to get too political Do you practice self censorship like the German media?
        FinnKuhn 1y ago
        > What has anything I said to do with the European parliament? This whole thread is about EU politics. > Greens are even further right than cdu/csu who have the same policies in 99% of cases as libs Trying to paint the greens as further right than CDU/CSU is just plain wrong by any measure. The greens are a green/social liberal party while the CDU/CSU are conservative center-right party. None of their politicians would ever argue that they are more left than the greens which is pretty obvious when looking at a quote from Friedrich Merz (German chancellor and party leader of the CDU/CSU) where he quite literally says that the greens are more left. [1] [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/merz-gruene-100.html https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/merz-gruene-10... English: "In the coming weeks and months, we will once again significantly intensify the debate with the Greens and, above all, counter the impression that we are always looking to the left and saying that we absolutely must form a coalition with them at some point."
- wqaatwt 1y ago
  Problem is that very few “normal” people are even aware of this. Very few people particularly interested about most policies on the EU level. So they pretty much have free reign to do anything with minimal repercussions. For better or for worse the EU itself is about as much of a democracy as some of the European empires were back in the in early 1900s with their sham parliaments which had very little real power.
- raxxorraxor 1y ago
  Every member (aside 2 crazy people I believe) of the European Parliament voted for age verification and more user surveillance. It isn't salvageable. Maybe it is a result of sending the biggest idiots off to the EU when they failed in national politics, but the problem remains.
- t0bia_s 1y ago
  You still belive that vote solve anything? Divide and conquer is strong indeed. We should focus to abandoning giving our responsibility to unknown electorate.
Y_Y 1y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_Lisbon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_... Like when the Irish electorate rejected the Lisbon Treaty, and then was then harangued into accepting a reheated version. Opponents of the treaty reasonably asked if it could be best-of-three.
- messe 1y ago
  > and then was then harangued into accepting a reheated version After receiving concessions.
  - rusk 1y ago
    Importantly around neutrality which was most people’s issue anyway. The real problem was that the referendum commission (the state body in charge of informing the public on these matters) was deemed “too neutral” and was forever after hobbled and since then we have had to vote in a veritable information vacuum.
- sunshine-o 1y ago
  The Dutch and French also massively rejected the first version of this in 2005. Strangely they didn't bothered to ask the citizens the second time. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constitution_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constituti... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_European_Constitution_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_European_Constitut...
  - extraduder_ire 1y ago
    Calling what would become the Lisbon treaty a "constitution" was always going to be a losing proposal.
- munksbeer 1y ago
  I'm failing to understand the problem here. The Irish rejected the proposed treaty, the took that rejection and the reasons, went back to rework it, and asked if the next version was suitable, and it was. That sounds exactly like you'd expect it to work, and yet people seem outraged by it. Why?
dylan604 1y ago
It's funny to me that in the cops vs robbers scenario, it is the bad guys that have to be perfect to avoid getting caught while the good guys only have to get lucky once to catch the bad guys. Your use of this then would translate to the governments wanting to read all the mail to constantly stay informed would be the bad guys where the other actors only have to get lucky once by having a mission complete would be the good guys?
- chii 1y ago
  that analogy is drawing similarities when there is none. The "bad" guys in the cops vs robbers scenario is one where the bad guys have already done something worthy of needing to be caught.
- saltcured 1y ago
  Metaphors matter, but often bias us. Cops vs robbers? Christians vs lions in Rome? Or, we're merely fish in a barrel and trying to convince ourselves we have any control over whether we get shot?
ThrowawayTestr 1y ago
Any kind of legislation to prevent it can be legislated away.
nradov 1y ago
Leave the EU.
zackmorris 1y ago
This is the same problem in the US. Legislation (that protects the environment, minorities, the ability to compete in the market, etc) that took years, even decades to get signed into law, is getting repealed today by the current administration via executive order or simple majority vote. Because sabotage is much easier than building something. Unfortunately the only answer that I know of is eternal vigilance, which is the price of liberty. I decided to look up who that saying is attributed to, and apparently it's John Philpot Curran, not Thomas Jefferson. But I like Orwell's saying better, because it shows why all of you are just as ineffectual at steering government policy as I am: https://www.socratic-method.com/quote-meanings-and-interpretations/george-orwell-i-sometimes-think-that-the-price-of-liberty-is-not-so-much-eternal-vigilance-as-eternal-dirt https://www.socratic-method.com/quote-meanings-and-interpret...
- piaste 1y ago
  I'm sure you just linked the first google result you found, and it's not like the internet wasn't full of crappy 'quote' websites in the halcyon days of 2021, but it's incredibly depressing to click that link and get drowned in paragraphs of worthless AI blathering. After a quick search - and ignoring Google's helpful clanker who tries to point you to the _wrong_ Orwell text - it's not hard to find a clean source: https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/RoadToWiganPier/wiganpierpart_4.html https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/RoadToW...
- jimmydddd 1y ago
  It's amazing how much is done by executive order these days. Which means it can be instantly undone when the other party comes into office. And I assume that once an executive order is made, then the party has no interest in trying to have congress vote in a bill locking in the same issue.
AlecSchueler 1y ago
No, it couldn't be done without amending the treaties. Currently each Commission has to govern with the same powers as their predecessors so there's no mechanism for them to bind the power of those who come after them.
ccorcos 1y ago
Sounds like you need a constitution.
raxxorraxor 1y ago
For me it is a sign the the EU construction does simply not work. It is an undemocratic technocracy that is easily lobbied by players pushing for this and I don't feel represented by a parliament where I don't know anyone. They circumvent the accountability of nation states, it is a development catastrophe since people cannot have a reasonable influence on policies anymore.
- munksbeer 1y ago
  Nation states are the ones asking for stuff like this. The EU commission focuses on objectives set by the heads of the nation states. The elected EU parliament then votes on the proposals. The bad thing about the EU is that it opens up views like yours, trying to absolve your own nation of any culpability, when that is just not true. If you don't like the direction of the EU, vote in a government and MEPs who will steer it in a different direction. If enough people do this, then the EU changes, as happens in every democracy. What you're seeing is simply democracy in action. You think these things are going against the majority, but the reality is, the majority of citizens are ok for this to happen at the nation state level, and by extension at the EU level. Stop blaming the EU. It is lazy and makes the problem worse. Look closer to home.
  - raxxorraxor 1y ago
    No, the institutions of the EU allow nation states to push through unpopular legislation, for which they could be held accountable on a national level. At least to a larger degree. So in this case it is the fault of the EU as well because its structures allow this to happen. I prefer battling one national government instead of 27. The EU certainly isn't democracy in action, on the contrary it is highly technocratic. Without the promised proficiency though.
    - munksbeer 1y ago
      You're making the mistake that populations don't want this, when it is largely in the realm of HN or reddit or wherever else nerds hang out. Population polls have repeatedly shown that people want age verification checks and are ok with message scanning "to save the children". Lot's of people are ignorant of the stupidity of this stuff, but that is democracy for you. You're blaming the EU for something that is the fault of our populations, voting in governments who increasingly push these agendas. You're not helping anything by doing that.
nickslaughter02 1y ago
The legislation would have to be proposed by the very same people who are pushing for this. It's not going to happen.

azmodeus 1y ago

Vote them out and never vote for their parties in your general elections If your Member of European Parliament supports chat control stop voting for their parties and politically support their opposition

progbits 1y ago
Not good enough. They can get in again next election.
vaylian 1y ago
I agree. But also: I've been doing that for a long time already. The problem is that these surveillance laws don't get enough attention by the general public until they come into effect. For example: The UK's online safety act.
- izacus 1y ago
  So make general public aware of them. Campaign. Inform. That's how democracies work. Don't expect others do to the legwork for your pet case.
kurthr 1y ago
Vote for an opposition which promises mass deportations? Certainly, they will never go back on their word to create a surveillance state?!? Asking your politicians to lie to you is not a substitute for changing their incentives. The key point to make is that once you're spying on your own people, you've created the single weakest point of entry for your geopolitical opponents spying on you and manipulating the population as well. It's such a dumb political move, it seems like it could only come from extreme fear, greed, or manipulation. Switch it around and make them afraid of the alternative.
- okucu 1y ago
  Can only speak for Germany and the mass deportations here are done by liberals. They also let 40k+ people drown in the Mediterranean, support literally every single war, support multiple genocides and export weapons to all dictatorships known to man. At this point I'm not sure the actual Nazis would be worse than liberals. Also very weird how whenever "liberals/centrists" are in power the (ultra) right gain lots of momentum. Must be the weather Almost forgot: we're also in our third year of recession and the only investments are made in the military industry to prep for starting the next world war
  - FinnKuhn 1y ago
    I don't want to get too political, but calling the CDU/CSU liberal is pretty misleading in this context considering that they are part of the EVP (conservative) on a European level and not Renew Europe (liberal).
    - okucu 1y ago
      What has anything I said to do with the European parliament? I'm talking about the same parties in general. Greens are even further right than cdu/csu who have the same policies in 99% of cases as libs >I don't want to get too political Do you practice self censorship like the German media?
      - FinnKuhn 1y ago
        > What has anything I said to do with the European parliament? This whole thread is about EU politics. > Greens are even further right than cdu/csu who have the same policies in 99% of cases as libs Trying to paint the greens as further right than CDU/CSU is just plain wrong by any measure. The greens are a green/social liberal party while the CDU/CSU are conservative center-right party. None of their politicians would ever argue that they are more left than the greens which is pretty obvious when looking at a quote from Friedrich Merz (German chancellor and party leader of the CDU/CSU) where he quite literally says that the greens are more left. [1] [1] https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/merz-gruene-100.html https://www.tagesschau.de/inland/innenpolitik/merz-gruene-10... English: "In the coming weeks and months, we will once again significantly intensify the debate with the Greens and, above all, counter the impression that we are always looking to the left and saying that we absolutely must form a coalition with them at some point."
wqaatwt 1y ago
Problem is that very few “normal” people are even aware of this. Very few people particularly interested about most policies on the EU level. So they pretty much have free reign to do anything with minimal repercussions. For better or for worse the EU itself is about as much of a democracy as some of the European empires were back in the in early 1900s with their sham parliaments which had very little real power.
raxxorraxor 1y ago
Every member (aside 2 crazy people I believe) of the European Parliament voted for age verification and more user surveillance. It isn't salvageable. Maybe it is a result of sending the biggest idiots off to the EU when they failed in national politics, but the problem remains.
t0bia_s 1y ago
You still belive that vote solve anything? Divide and conquer is strong indeed. We should focus to abandoning giving our responsibility to unknown electorate.

Y_Y 1y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_Lisbon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ratification_of_the_Treaty_of_... Like when the Irish electorate rejected the Lisbon Treaty, and then was then harangued into accepting a reheated version. Opponents of the treaty reasonably asked if it could be best-of-three.

messe 1y ago
> and then was then harangued into accepting a reheated version After receiving concessions.
- rusk 1y ago
  Importantly around neutrality which was most people’s issue anyway. The real problem was that the referendum commission (the state body in charge of informing the public on these matters) was deemed “too neutral” and was forever after hobbled and since then we have had to vote in a veritable information vacuum.
sunshine-o 1y ago
The Dutch and French also massively rejected the first version of this in 2005. Strangely they didn't bothered to ask the citizens the second time. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constitution_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constituti... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_European_Constitution_referendum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_European_Constitut...
- extraduder_ire 1y ago
  Calling what would become the Lisbon treaty a "constitution" was always going to be a losing proposal.
munksbeer 1y ago
I'm failing to understand the problem here. The Irish rejected the proposed treaty, the took that rejection and the reasons, went back to rework it, and asked if the next version was suitable, and it was. That sounds exactly like you'd expect it to work, and yet people seem outraged by it. Why?

dylan604 1y ago

It's funny to me that in the cops vs robbers scenario, it is the bad guys that have to be perfect to avoid getting caught while the good guys only have to get lucky once to catch the bad guys. Your use of this then would translate to the governments wanting to read all the mail to constantly stay informed would be the bad guys where the other actors only have to get lucky once by having a mission complete would be the good guys?

chii 1y ago
that analogy is drawing similarities when there is none. The "bad" guys in the cops vs robbers scenario is one where the bad guys have already done something worthy of needing to be caught.
saltcured 1y ago
Metaphors matter, but often bias us. Cops vs robbers? Christians vs lions in Rome? Or, we're merely fish in a barrel and trying to convince ourselves we have any control over whether we get shot?

ThrowawayTestr 1y ago

Any kind of legislation to prevent it can be legislated away.

nradov 1y ago

Leave the EU.

zackmorris 1y ago

This is the same problem in the US. Legislation (that protects the environment, minorities, the ability to compete in the market, etc) that took years, even decades to get signed into law, is getting repealed today by the current administration via executive order or simple majority vote. Because sabotage is much easier than building something. Unfortunately the only answer that I know of is eternal vigilance, which is the price of liberty. I decided to look up who that saying is attributed to, and apparently it's John Philpot Curran, not Thomas Jefferson. But I like Orwell's saying better, because it shows why all of you are just as ineffectual at steering government policy as I am: https://www.socratic-method.com/quote-meanings-and-interpretations/george-orwell-i-sometimes-think-that-the-price-of-liberty-is-not-so-much-eternal-vigilance-as-eternal-dirt https://www.socratic-method.com/quote-meanings-and-interpret...

piaste 1y ago
I'm sure you just linked the first google result you found, and it's not like the internet wasn't full of crappy 'quote' websites in the halcyon days of 2021, but it's incredibly depressing to click that link and get drowned in paragraphs of worthless AI blathering. After a quick search - and ignoring Google's helpful clanker who tries to point you to the _wrong_ Orwell text - it's not hard to find a clean source: https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/RoadToWiganPier/wiganpierpart_4.html https://www.telelib.com/authors/O/OrwellGeorge/prose/RoadToW...
jimmydddd 1y ago
It's amazing how much is done by executive order these days. Which means it can be instantly undone when the other party comes into office. And I assume that once an executive order is made, then the party has no interest in trying to have congress vote in a bill locking in the same issue.

AlecSchueler 1y ago

No, it couldn't be done without amending the treaties. Currently each Commission has to govern with the same powers as their predecessors so there's no mechanism for them to bind the power of those who come after them.

ccorcos 1y ago

Sounds like you need a constitution.

raxxorraxor 1y ago

For me it is a sign the the EU construction does simply not work. It is an undemocratic technocracy that is easily lobbied by players pushing for this and I don't feel represented by a parliament where I don't know anyone. They circumvent the accountability of nation states, it is a development catastrophe since people cannot have a reasonable influence on policies anymore.

munksbeer 1y ago
Nation states are the ones asking for stuff like this. The EU commission focuses on objectives set by the heads of the nation states. The elected EU parliament then votes on the proposals. The bad thing about the EU is that it opens up views like yours, trying to absolve your own nation of any culpability, when that is just not true. If you don't like the direction of the EU, vote in a government and MEPs who will steer it in a different direction. If enough people do this, then the EU changes, as happens in every democracy. What you're seeing is simply democracy in action. You think these things are going against the majority, but the reality is, the majority of citizens are ok for this to happen at the nation state level, and by extension at the EU level. Stop blaming the EU. It is lazy and makes the problem worse. Look closer to home.
- raxxorraxor 1y ago
  No, the institutions of the EU allow nation states to push through unpopular legislation, for which they could be held accountable on a national level. At least to a larger degree. So in this case it is the fault of the EU as well because its structures allow this to happen. I prefer battling one national government instead of 27. The EU certainly isn't democracy in action, on the contrary it is highly technocratic. Without the promised proficiency though.
  - munksbeer 1y ago
    You're making the mistake that populations don't want this, when it is largely in the realm of HN or reddit or wherever else nerds hang out. Population polls have repeatedly shown that people want age verification checks and are ok with message scanning "to save the children". Lot's of people are ignorant of the stupidity of this stuff, but that is democracy for you. You're blaming the EU for something that is the fault of our populations, voting in governments who increasingly push these agendas. You're not helping anything by doing that.

nickslaughter02 1y ago

The legislation would have to be proposed by the very same people who are pushing for this. It's not going to happen.