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This is a nice piece of democracy right here: "a measure it had rejected twice in March. Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs
by teekert 3mo ago
This is a nice piece of democracy right here:
"a measure it had rejected twice in March. Although a majority of voting Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) actually opposed the regulation (314 against, 276 in favor, 17 abstentions), the motion to reject it failed to secure the required absolute majority of 361 votes. As a result, mass scanning is now permitted again until 2028."
"Oh no we can't get a majority to pass the law!"
"Have you tried getting a majority to not pass the law?"
"Worth a shot!"
"It worked, should we also do this multiple times?"
"Of course not! Pass the law, quickly!"
- xaitv 3mo agoWhat I don't understand, based on this: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775 https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775 the votes are the other way around, with the majority being for. I'm guessing that site has it reversed then or I don't fully understand the proposal? Looking at which politicians from my country voted "no" on this site it seems to be mostly the ones that I'd expect to vote "yes", so that would support this site just having the options reversed.
- dmichulke 3mo agoFound this, source: https://fightchatcontrol.eu/ https://fightchatcontrol.eu/ On 7 July, MEPs voted 331–303 to fast-track the return of Chat Control 1.0 mass scanning. A binding vote follows Thursday, 9 July, where an absolute majority of 361 MEPs is needed to stop it. Take action now to demand they defend your private messages. "Yes" means stop control, because it's a "proposition de rejet" we're looking at. rejet = reject. Parties in favor of chat control were: - European People’s Party and - Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. Countries in favor of chat control were: Spain, Poland, Romania, Sweden, Hungary, Portugal, Greece, Ireland, Lithuania, Latvia, Cyprus If you look at the initial vote from July 7, there are a few countries who actually wanted to make it an "urgent decision" (other than the countries above): France, Czechia, Finland, Croatia, Luxembourg
- thisOtterBeGood 3mo agoThe selection of countries seems so random. The poorer countries seem to be in favor, no judgment there... It looks like a pay-off list, though.
- omnimus 3mo agoThe whole thing also played like a game. 6 months ago the vote was signaled as pretty safely against chat control. You could watch how one by one the MEPs switched their positions. I assume they realized the vote wont hurt them because it's under the radar of general population. So it was safe to follow the lobby money.
- tsimionescu 3mo agoI don't know about the other countries, but in Romania most politicians are aligned with our secret service (quite a few even in the upper echelons are literally undercover agents - which sounds like a conspiracy theory but is well documented in some cases), so they are quite naturally aligned with this initiative.
- petre 3mo agoHmm most MPs from Renew, Greens and eurosceptics (ECR) from my country voted yes. I'm a bit surprised since some of those are hardliner Christian conservatives that I'd never vote for under any circumstances.
- teekert 3mo agoMaybe the voters also got confused and that's why it passed?
- gus_massa 3mo agoThey have one job (with a high salary), a lot of personal assistants and technical support from specialist from their own party. They only have to remember if they have to press the red or the blue button.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- sampo 3mo ago> What I don't understand, based on this: https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775 https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/195775 the votes are the other way around They voted for "Proposition de rejet". It's written there, but it's in French.
- fschuett 3mo agoDemocracy is when you just try and try again and again until it passes with 51/49. Then its democratic and legitimized and only evil terrorists would oppose those laws we have all democratically agreed upon. Also, see the case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCseyin_Do%C4%9Fru https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCseyin_Do%C4%9Fru - if you aren't liked by the EU courts, they just accuse you of "collusion with Russia" and ban your bank account via "sanction policies". The ECJ doesn't have to provide any evidence of crime, you have to provide counter-evidence of the absence of crime (and good luck defending yourself without money). The ECJ judges, who interpret and impose these laws, are also not democratically really elected or anything, yet they hold power over your bank account. Makes ya think.
- ivan_gammel 3mo agoHow did you connect the linked Wikipedia article to EU courts and ECJ? This journalist was not sanctioned by the court.
- Pragmata 3mo agoThe court approved the sanctions when he tried to challenge them.
- ivan_gammel 3mo agoI do not think this is true. Do you have any proof? I‘m aware only of German court refusing to apply urgent procedure to unblock his bank accounts. The sanctions were applied not that long ago for him to get decision by German courts or ECJ.
- NamlchakKhandro 3mo agoSounds like something a Russian colluder would say
- gmueckl 3mo ago
- consensus1 3mo ago[flagged]
- mrkeen 3mo agoWe're currently running a long-term offshore experiment to see if 2A has any measurable impact on dragnet surveillance and the NSA.
- consensus1 3mo agoThere are plenty of things to complain about here, and that is one of them. But that authorization was passed by our elected representatives by a super majority and reauthorized by them multiple times. It was not done by a sneaky maneuver where the majority of congress voted against it but somehow it still became law.
- mrkeen 3mo agoAnd yet people were happy to call Snowden a traitor for breaking the news of it.
- Jtarii 3mo agoTrue, the solution is to just start murdering politicians. Thanks for the advice America.
- consensus1 3mo ago[flagged]
- inferniac 3mo ago>This is a nice piece of democracy right here: this is just eu in a nutshell, the irish were made to vote on both nice and lisbon treaties twice (both were voted no in the first vote)
- sveme 3mo agoWell, the No vote triggered some adjustments, so this is indeed relatively democratic. What would be the alternative?
- ndarray 3mo agoLet's just as enthusiastically revote on the chat control law right now then! Oh, wait... revotes only happen when the bureaucrats/lobbyists want them
- rayiner 3mo agoThe revised law not passing until it gets a majority would seem more democratic.
- blackqueeriroh 3mo agoSo is it undemocratic if a law is voted on by a majority and doesn’t pass because the law says it takes 3/4 to make that type of change?
- rayiner 3mo agoIt’s less democratic, yes.
- int_19h 3mo ago"The right of equal suffrage among the States is another exceptionable part of the Confederation. Every idea of proportion and every rule of fair representation conspire to condemn a principle, which gives to Rhode Island an equal weight in the scale of power with Massachusetts, or Connecticut, or New York; and to Deleware an equal voice in the national deliberations with Pennsylvania, or Virginia, or North Carolina. Its operation contradicts the fundamental maxim of republican government, which requires that the sense of the majority should prevail. Sophistry may reply, that sovereigns are equal, and that a majority of the votes of the States will be a majority of confederated America. But this kind of logical legerdemain will never counteract the plain suggestions of justice and common-sense. It may happen that this majority of States is a small minority of the people of America; and two thirds of the people of America could not long be persuaded, upon the credit of artificial distinctions and syllogistic subtleties, to submit their interests to the management and disposal of one third. The larger States would after a while revolt from the idea of receiving the law from the smaller. To acquiesce in such a privation of their due importance in the political scale, would be not merely to be insensible to the love of power, but even to sacrifice the desire of equality. It is neither rational to expect the first, nor just to require the last."
- spikels 3mo agoNot only was Chat Control 1.0 already rejected twice by the European Parliament but: - This vote took place on last day of the session when many MEPs had already left for Summer vacation - 112 MEPs of 719 didn't vote. - The vote was called only two days before as an "Rule 170 - Urgent procedure" - 73 MEPs missed the vote making it "urgent". Normally it takes months of procedure to come up for a final vote.
- GiorgioG 3mo agoSo 112 MEPs didn't do their job...got it.
- rowanG077 3mo agoPoliticians can take vacations. Many things went wrong here but this ain't it.
- Romanulus 3mo ago[dead]
- mflaherty22 3mo agoVery reductionist comment- if you're an elected representative and you leave early to take a vacation knowing you'll be missing votes, you're not doing your job..
- joe_mamba 3mo agoThis. When I need to take my summer vacation, I need to request it to my manager in due time so the team can plan customer deliveries accordingly, and in my last day before leaving I need to do a handover of my open tasks to whoever will do the work in my absence. I can't just spontaneously decide one day that tomorrow I'm leaving for 2-4 weeks on vacation with no notice and no handover to my team. What's stopping MEPs from having to do that? Do they have literally zero responsibilities and accountabilities? Because their job is pretty critical for our society an security, even if a trained monkey could do it in theory.
- hintymad 3mo agoHonest question: when Europeans give so much power to EU and usually favor regulations by the government, isn't it natural that the government will try to implement more control? And it looks EU officials do not have to accountable for anything. They will not suffer personally even when their policies wreck havoc. I don't quite understand why Europeans can trust EU at all. Case in point, EU HQs shut down its air conditioning on floors 1 through 7 to prevent electrical overloads, leaving the upper levels used by top officials unaffected. Yet did anyone like Leyen get punished? Note I'm not naive enough to believe politicians don't have special treatment in other countries. But at least in some countries, politicians will not be so shameless that they'd do it in broad day light.
- tadfisher 3mo ago> Europeans give so much power to EU and usually favor regulations by the government This antecedent is far too broad; what regulations, benefiting whom? It's pretty obvious in this case that the majority of their representatives do not favor at least this type of regulation. In other cases, the majority of representatives favor regulation which prevents private corporations from selling their PII to the highest bidder. So you're going to have to reckon with the nuance of the real world if you don't want to make obviously leading statements like this.
- galangalalgol 3mo agoThe question I would ask next is that if a majority don't actually favor it, who will vote to sanction member countries that refuse to implement it in protest? Giving a central authority significant power likenthis inevitably leads to autocracy per Montesquieu.
- hintymad 3mo agoYou're right, there are nuances in different policies. I was referring to the general power and consent that Europeans grant to the EU council. In my naive view their power is unchecked. As a result, we can start with good intent and good regulations, but eventually they will abuse their power as its the nature of power.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- quater321 3mo ago[dead]
- sebastianconcpt 3mo agoAdding the reminder that these votes and majority rejecting are of unelected bureaucrats, so the way that it was framed was approved from above while making practically impossible to reject but still theoretically possible so people are forced to swallow it. Soviet Union 2.0
- hamper653 3mo ago[dead]
- master-lincoln 3mo agoThe members of parliament are elected every 5 years by the citizens of the european union. What do you mean with unelected bureaucrats?
- sebastianconcpt 3mo agoYou're right, I meant the Commissioners which are the ones essentially designing how to legislate, which is the traditional name for "engineer society behavior"
- rayiner 3mo agoWow does it become law if the majority of those present opposed it? The American Congress might be utterly dysfunctional, but we’ve never had a law pass despite the majority of members voting against it. What am I missing?
- kypro 3mo ago> What am I missing? Nothing really. Some will disagree with this, but this is neither new or surprising behaviour from the EU. In the EU if the political class want something, it doesn't really matter what the public want or vote for. In the US a lot of your dysfunction is from the fact that your political system actually "works". You maniacs actually can vote for someone like Trump (twice), and he can do stuff regardless of how unpopular he is among the political class. Here in Europe things like democracy and freedom of speech are only permitted if our political class approves. We can decide things like tax rates, but some things we're not allowed to express opinions on, and some things we have no power to vote for or against. With some exceptions most European democracies work like this and EU is really the gold standard of this system. They have lots of ways to do what they want regardless of how popular it is, and regardless of what the opinions of our elected representatives are.
- Eueudhsbsj32 3mo agoWho is the "political class" of the EU? In the US, it seems more obvious how corporate money pulls the political strings, but my impression is that corporate influence is a lot weaker in Europe..
- kypro 3mo ago> Who is the "political class" of the EU? Highly educated people, often from wealthy backgrounds, who are very globally orientated. They are generally not representative of the average person in Europe. They are the people who European government appoints. > In the US, it seems more obvious how corporate money pulls the political strings, but my impression is that corporate influence is a lot weaker in Europe.. I agree, but not sure that directly contradicts what I said?
- globalnode 3mo agoEU cant claim the moral high ground anymore with the way this was done. They've joined the rest of the world now. This was a win for foreign companies and makes me wonder if the EU has been infiltrated by outside interests.
- deleted 3mo ago[deleted]
- RealityVoid 3mo agoOh, yes, thankfully the protections for privacy are much better in the US... right? Right?
- throw-the-towel 3mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_you_are_lynching_Negroes
- rustystump 3mo agoCan it be undone? One of the key aspects of any society is that it can in fact change law/policy/leaders/etc without war/rebels. yes harm happens when bad crap gets in but if the system still supports change, it is working. For all the bad in trump era like roe vs wade among many others. The same mechanism are what allowed roe vs wade to exist. A double edge sword but better than alternative variants of totalitarian multi decade long regimes.
- RealityVoid 3mo agoThis has an expiration date baked in for 2028 so if no new legislation comes in until then, it will undo itself on its own.
- izacus 3mo agoAh, "it's only democracy if you vote my way" argument. We usually call that type of governing something else.