Comment by dalbasal | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dalbasal | Hacker News Reader

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Idk...

The EC pushes through controversial decisions, that are not controversial between states... the bar is generally something high in this regard.

National Governments get a buffer between them and discontented citizens, because "it's the EU." There is also a lot of pressure to conform to EC "consensus," parties/individuals that want to be seen as government material.

EC totally discounts digital privacy especially privacy from state actors and there is corruption, carve out a and such. I disagree with a lot of their agreements. I agree that they make far too many laws and are way too bureaucratic but....

EP is a shitshow on another level. It's literally the star wars senate. Endless factions, recreational politics. No about to act in a way that might result in anything but show. It's trump, but boring.

National governments also don't lack in corruption. Politics sucks.

IMO, what is badly missing is an active electorate. Civil society. There needs to be an organized, pro-freedom movement. ATM, EC is taking advice from tech industry,dirty insiders and spooks. No one speaks for "The Cause" because, to paraphrase americans... "When I need to speak to Europe's digital freedom people, who do I call?"

You probably call the CCC. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_Computer_Club

Or the European Pirate Party or similar. They have a handful of elected MEPs at any given time.

That is the problem though. That's not very serious politics. If it's a coalition of tech companies, law enforcement and whatnot vs pirates and anarchists... guess who wins?

A normative, liberal movement/coalition that is for digital freedom is not far fetched. It just doesn't exist. That's why we're losing.

This post demonstrates the problem quite well.

There is certainly corruption in the use of EU funds within the programmes but do you have evidence of actual corruption in the institutions in recent years? The only cases I'm aware of were all in the parliament, which is unsurprising if national parties send good "party soldiers" chosen for loyalty rather than quality. Corruption at national level seems however much more common, see recent stories on Bavarian backroom deals and kickbacks during COVID. Nothing at that scale or brazenness seems to ever happen in Brussels.

Yes, corruption at national (and subnational) levels is much greater.

EC institutions don't control enough programs, funds or building permits to rival states on this front.

I do think there is "soft" corruption (as OP alludes) in the "EU as a regulatory powerhouse" complex. Lobby-adjacent corruption, like in the US. A lot of that is very dirty money, with foreigns states or industries literally buying a seat at the table. The cleaner end is Google & Apple getting a seat at the table via ireland (and others) who simply have a national interest in giving it to them. The dirtier is Qatar, China or whatnot getting proxied in for political donations, payola, funding of specific nonprofits/etc.

Anyway... that exists. It is (IMO) almost entirely contained at the top level, and it mostly bleeds in from national politics.OTOH, competence and professionalism also exists in the EC. That means the can actually deliver on the job, if they're tasked with a good job.

The EU has very little advocacy or awareness of digital freedom. Foreign ministry staff don't understand it at all. We're just a stream of weirdo complaints that appears whenever they try to do anything digital related. I know it's hard to grok, but they do not have any idea what we are talking about... and that's kind of our fault. Democracy has some essential bottom up components.

On the positive side... a sound, rational and tactical movement can (IMO) really succeed and get stuff. The good thing about eurocrats, is that once they're mission is the right mission... they get it done better than most. EU consumer protection, for example, is quite excellent relative to any examples I know. EU infrastructure and transport projects were executed way better than national equivalents (see Ireland again for examples).

There is no serious political/factional/ideological barrier to EC adopting digital freedom goals. Just ignorance. There's hope.

To be an EU public servant, you need a PhD. Many, many of them have “fake” PhDs, written by PhD candidates for money. How do I know? I used to date a girl that was writing one for an EU servant.

And yes, there is plain corruption. Look at Mario Draghi that overlooked Greece's false debt accounting at Goldman Sachs (GS) and then became president of the ECB. Or Emmanuel Barroso, that went swiftly to work at GS after his mandate. Or the commissioner on digital economy that went to work for Uber. That's corruption.

Yes it is.

The pertinent question (to me) is the relative corruption and/or other dysfunction to national and/or subnational governments. That's the competition.

> recreational politics

This. Fringe parties tend to do much better in EP elections than in national elections.

Isn't that mostly due to different electoral systems?

yes..

Also, MEPs are often elected differently allowing otherwise unlikely or fringe candidates to succeed.

And, parties/people just don't treap. EP seriously. Everyone knows it's a clownshow. Treat it that way. EP can't have more power because clownshow. Cycle.

It's a perfect 19th century steryotype of upper house (Council) and lower house (EP). One is a club. The other is a square. Public square, atm, are a hard place to do anything but show off and fight.

> There needs to be an organized, pro-freedom movement.

https://edri.org

They seem to have the right idea. Do you know much about them? Are they good/effective?

As of October 2022, EDRi is made of more than 40 NGOs, as well as experts, advocates and academics from all across Europe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Digital_Rights

Let us have a look. That page features Corporate Memphis-like artwork picturing a black crippled man, a blonde woman, and a woman wearing a headscarf. It talks about decolonization. The about us page lists a few organizations I wouldn't trust anywhere near policy in general.

Which organization you wouldn't trust?

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