> UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from a database reserved for members of the passport-free Schengen travel zone.
The UK is not in the Schengen travel zone and had no right to be accessing the data or sharing it with other foreign powers.
The problem is that too much power is collected in one place that encourages bad actors to weaken security so that they can later do a grab and dash with "Plausible deniability".
When people raise this warning it is dismissed as fear mongering, when the fears turn out to be justified people side step the issue and argue that the title should be millions instead of all.
Some people have argued that the EU do not have a database of EU citizens fingerprints, but they have been building that database since 2004 [2].
These massive databases of personal information represent too much of a risk and should not exist. The only way to protect power from corruption is to distribute the power rather than consolidate it.
Other countries that are not in the Schengen area do have access to the SIS. Their access rights were given by them signing various agreements (the status is quite complex, you should check the SA status[1] for more details).
Yes, the title should be millions. Of mostly missing or wanted persons or lost passport and national IDs. Not sure how you would propose to ensure the security of a zone without a massive database of people that are not desired in that zone or documents that should not be used because they are reported as lost by their owners.
The SIS database is 100% blacklist - people who should be stopped at the border, arrested, reported or followed, objects that should be seized (like stolen cars), objects that prompt for more inquiries (like stolen/lost passports).
A dismissive cynical attitude helps no one. Sure, some perhaps many, people are corrupt and exercise power given to them for wrong ends. Nevertheless, at large, people want law enforcement, they want stolen goods returned to them, they want criminals to be stopped. You have better suggestion to maintain law and order?
> Sure, some perhaps many, people are corrupt and exercise power given to them for wrong ends.
That's in the nature of power dynamics. Not abusing power is the exception to the rule.
> You have better suggestion to maintain law and order?
I think having the rules decided upon and enforced by the people (not some centralized institution that's disconnected from the social fabric) would help a lot.
What would help even more is to address the roots of criminality. There are for example many studies in the past two centuries showing that social inequalities necessarily lead to theft and violence (whether institutionalized or de facto), and that reducing unemployment (not with shitty uberized jobs) is an effective way to lower crime rates, if that is your objective.
Other root causes include the repression itself of crime: prisons and psychiatric hospitals are themselves fostering very violent human interactions.
Emma Goldman had a very good piece back in 1911 on prison as part of the problem:
> I think having the rules decided upon and enforced by the people (not some centralized institution that's disconnected from the social fabric) would help a lot.
And how exactly are "the people" going to decide upon and enforce the rules? Just gathering all the people together to talk until they come to consensus is hardly scalable to the size of a small town, let alone a country or continent. Hence representative democracy, institutions, governments, police forces, court systems.... all that stuff. It may be far from perfect, but it's not clear anyone has come up with a better mechanism.
Representative/indirect democracy exist because'the people' can't make informed decisions. A regular parliament session in any bigger country (or the EU parliament) will vote on a dozen laws. No way to scale this to country level decisions. Even in Switzerland direct votes on an issue are the exception, not the norm.
Sure, our institutions can and should be improved. And I believe that by and large, we are moving forward. But it is not the case that we are currently doing it wrong and we can do it somehow right. We can only aim to do it better. The state of society changes and get reevaluated.
Still, the way I see it, in any point in history or in the future, crime will exist and, if we want law and order maintained, we will have to maintain a database of stolen goods and of criminals. Do you see any alternative?
While given the general lack of real civil liberties (not just civil privileges, granted conditionally by the state) in the region, I wouldn't be surprised if some of these are illegitimate; I suspect the vast majority of them are for legitimate (murder, forcible rape, evasion of arrest, larceny, movement of materiel for terrorists and other criminals, etc.) purposes.
I've been fighting against governments violating human rights for a while and I have to say: I didn't know what to do then, and I don't know what to do now.
Me too. I tried voting and while it was fun it didn't seem to matter. I tried bitching about it on the internet and while it was fun it didn't seem to matter. I guess if we are all fucked I might as well have some fun.
The UK has even hacked the largest ISP of another EU member country (Belgium) without consequences. It is not the first time that a member of the 5 eyes alliance is caught red-handed...
Personal attacks will get you banned here. If you're concerned about abuse of HN, you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it, but not welcome to break the site guidelines. Would you mind reviewing them?
Sooo who gets hit with a bigger GDPR fine? The UK government, for collecting/processing personal data without consent? Or the European Commission for failing to timely notify individuals impacted by a personal data breach?
The title is incorrect. The Schengen Information System does not keep data for "all EU citizens", it only keeps such data for wanted persons, missing/stolen identity documents or objects (like cars, boats and so on).
There is no centralized database for EU citizens photos or fingerprints (not even at national level in many countries).
>There is no centralized database for EU citizens photos or fingerprints (not even at national level in many countries).
"The database will aggregate the details of more than 350 million people, including their identifying information, such as names, passport number, dates of birth, as well as biometrics like fingerprints and facial scans."
This was an announced intention in April this year. The implementation of this decision probably needs further approvals and ratifications, and even after that, it takes time. The source material does not even exist, and I expect that in some EU countries collecting this data of all citizens will not be possible due to country legislation. Thus this is certainly far from complete, if even started at all.
It's safe to say that there is no database of 350 million EU citizens' fingerprints that anyone could copy.
What they seem to be saying is not that the data hasn't leaked, but that it likely does not even exist. If that's true, a headline of "X has been copied" would be wrong if X didn't exist.
The data does exist, and they are and have been collating it into one super database according to the article pknight posted. So I go back to my argument:
> So we should wait until every one's details are leaked before deciding this is a bad idea because it will inevitably leak?
You claim the data does exist - but where did it come from? There has been no program to forcibly collect fingerprints of all EU citizens. There is some biometric data collected for Schengen passports, but not even close to all people even have a passport. And if you claim my biometric passport fingerprints are in that DB, you are claiming that the police in my country has performed a massive illegal data handover. If you have evidence of that, give it - heads will roll.
For most countries, biometric passport data is only stored inside the passport's chip and not in a (national or otherwise) database. It's to be used by border control (of other countries) to compare the person presenting the passport with the (signed) data.
For Romania, it is in a national database. Source: family member that is a high ranking policeman, he checked my records and there is more than I thought, having a perfectly clean criminal record.
In mine, the police has the picture and fingerprints of everyone older than 12 years old and any younger person that needed an ID card for whatever reason, travelling being just one.
Maybe that information has been shared with that database, maybe it hasn't. I have no way of knowing. Other EU countries have the same level of information about their citizens (and some record even more data).
Can we simply agree that what the UK has done is bad, should be investigated and, if true, the people resposible should face charges for it? Or should we spend days arguing about what information might/might not have been copied and how many people have been afected?
A bit late to the discussion, but does it really change that much if, instead of "my country", I say "Spain"?
In this case Spain hasn't done anything wrong (the data gathering for the id cards was done before entering the EU and complies with EU's regulations[0]). Other EU countries gather less or more data according to their specific legislations.
The country in question here is the UK and, to a lesser extent, the US. Specifics about other EU countries are, IMHO, irrelevant.
[0] Another question, for a different discussion, is if they should record all that data.
That link does not describe the EU collecting fingerprints it just reports that their is an EU requirement for passports to contain biometic data. The EU do not collect or store that data national governments do.
The link suggests that this was announced in April this year. Do you think all the necessary DBs have already been connected? I would expect it to happen next year earliest.
I suspect it's nowhere near live yet, but it's relevant to this topic. There will be a massive new database and it's a terribly unlikely that this data will not be leaked or shared at some point.
Do we really believe we ca trust these groups with this data?
This is like the Vogons justifying blowing up a planet because the paperwork was filed years ago.
It’s not about the details. It’s about trust in institutions and I’m pretty sure we can see we should have none with these official bodies and the corporate buddies they give our work away to
The Dutch version of this database supposedly only keeps data of people associated with serious crimes. It has 1.3 million people (all of the Netherlands has about 17 million). These supposed restrictions are just a ruse.
not to mention that eu+us+uk does not equal the so-called '1st world' in it's entirety (see also: canada, japan), and also that there is some notion of a '2nd world' as well.
The confusion stems from the fact that most people perceive it as a "measure of economic development", while in fact it's political cold war terminology:
First world = US + close allies
Second world = USSR + close allies
Third world = Everybody else
There is no visa information in the SIS, you are probably referring to a different system (maybe VIS). Yes, when you apply for visa you will probably be _searched_ in the SIS, but this will happen many times in the EU anyway (or even before approaching the EU - likely when boarding a flight to an EU country).
Regarding fingerprints, let's not forget that non-police system (eg. biometric passports) only register a subset of flat prints. On French passports, only two fingers are saved, and the prints are 'flat' - not rolled . Those are usable as a verification (is the holder of the document the actual owner?), but would prove very hard to use to identify someone out of a crowd (whose prints are on this gun/knife/glass?).
I would say it's more generic than that. Not all the data is for EU citizens, and not all the data has photos and fingerprints. What dangerface quoted from the euobserver[1] seems to be the best approach, maybe make it shorter... As I said in another comment, I would emphasize more on the "classified" than "personal information", but that's only me (I would say Facebook has way more info on "normal" people than what's in the SIS database).
There's also the issue of "copied to US", which was not demonstrated. It's really hard to keep all the US companies out of the SIS when you are using an Oracle database.
I would put it like this: "UK made illegal copies of classified personal information from the Schengen Information System"
What’s more interesting to me is in the Tweet: UK made illegals copies of hundreds of millions of people’s data (since you were mostly hung up on that, I qualified it better).
Another (small) correction: There aren't hundred of millions persons registered in the SIS. The "hundred of millions" comes from the number of EU citizens. Of course, one person's data leaked is too many, but anyway, that's how it is. Also, most of the person alerts do not have binaries (photos or fingerprints); usually only the persons that have an European Arrest Warrant do have these.
I see this as more of a security issue than a privacy issue. The data in the SIS is mostly about law enforcement, meaning that a leak would expose that a person is wanted (some of the person searches are undercover, and the data also covers a person's aliases - so if a "bad" person has access to the data it can react) and also, the SIS data is a "living" organism - using a copy (snapshot) of the data in a law enforcement activity is actually unlawful - if the snapshot is old it means that you cannot find a person that was added yesterday and also that you will find a person that was "cleared" yesterday.
HN self-polices the titles here pretty well. Correcting inaccurate titles is a regular occurrence on HN. I think it leads to a much better user experience. Wanting an accurate headline on HN does not have to conflate to a person not understanding or disagreeing with the linked content. It can just be a representation of an overall goal of the HN community to keep headlines accurate.
Sometimes I can‘t help thinking whether the UK is just the US‘ trojan horse in the EU. Well, things might change quite a bit after October 31st, so hurry up!
Not much to think about we completely and totally are.
One of the things that came out of Snowden releases was just how bloody efficient and interconnectef GCHQ is with the NSA.
It's rather typical that the most efficient government body appears to be the one used for spying on its own (and everyone else's) citizens.
It's ok though as the new home secretary is a stable and sensible...no wait it's Priti "I had to resign because I had secret undeclared meetings with a foreign power" Patel[1].
I had a phone call with the Inland Revenue where they collected most of my details by an automated voice based system - which worked flawlessly.
This came as a slight surprise as literally no other voice activated system works for me in any way that is remotely usable (Apple, Android, whatever is in my car...).
I wonder where they get their voice recognition technology from? ;-)
Highly targeted voice recognition is much simpler to train, which makes endpoints like inland revenue much more accurate than generic voice assistants. In many cases this is a problem of "did you say one of these 20 things" vs "let's try to transcribe every one of these words from a full dictionary".
Even if I can understand some Brexit fatigue, I believe this is a short-sighted view, even if they are out of the EU, geography won't change, so the UK will have to keep cooperating with continental Europe.
A weak UK, that would become the pawn of another super power, would be bad news, for both UK and EU.
I think this is sad that UK is leaving but no matter what, they will remain our ally and partner.
UK has been actively acting on USA's interests for decades, nothing new here. I am a foreigner living in the and it saddens me, but you can't keep someone in a union by force.
UK economy will probably get damaged but it will recover (in a couple of decades) and we will all have to thank a) David Cameron, b) BoJo, c) the voters of "Leave" for that.
> UK has been actively acting on USA's interests for decades
can't one say this isn't the other way around?
bretton woods was basically a joint us+uk project,
most macroeconomic policy & related geopolitics in the west (including EU) post wwII stems from this..
us is basically fighting iran overtly or covertly on behalf of the UK, and vietnam was massively in the french interest as some 'small' examples..
That's a very charitable view. Bretton Woods was the US (mostly Harry White's) rejection of Keynes' plan and the best that could then be agreed. As a result it has a very US flavour. Not especially surprising considering most nations were near bankruptcy at the time with the sole exception of the USA. What resulted in the shape of the IMF and World bank was far different to envisaged and provided none of the speculative and recession control.
History has mostly backed up Keynes' opinion, though it worked sort-of reasonably until Nixon abandoned the gold standard.
Edit: Far more of the last 40 years geopolitics and economics stems from the oil crisis and the chaos of the immediately following years than Bretton Woods.
Well, maybe. The future of the EU isn't safe beyond all doubt, so there's a risk this'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy of EU doom.
i.e. Despite the shock of brexit causing EU support to rise pretty much everywhere (IIRC including in the UK, but I'm not sure on that one), most italians are still decidedly negative (which is relevant because post-brexit Italy would be the #3 EU economy).
If Brexit were to be followed by an It-exit or even merely systematic subversion, that could seriously undermine the EU. Note also that some of the former soviet-block countries have governments currently that are much more euro-hostile that their populace, and they might well try a to undermine the EU as much as possible as long as they can do so without being voted out.
And furthermore, if some other countries were doubting their options, I'm not sure they'd compare themselves too much to the UK. There's simply been so much incompetence on the UK government's part that it's hard to believe any other country would need to follow their example. A little more strategically played exit might have been a lot less painful.
Well- assuming Brexit happens at all anyhow, which is pretty much anyone's guess at this point.
The future of the EU isn't safe beyond all doubt, so there's a risk this'll turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy of EU doom.
There is certainly more potential downside than a lot of people seem to realise.
The EU27 member states are not going to be affected in some uniform way by Brexit, particularly if we get the no-deal version without any sort of overall orderly transition. Those states that are particularly exposed to Brexit overall -- such as Ireland and the Netherlands -- stand to take a large economic hit, perhaps even worse than the UK itself in the Irish case. Other states may do fine in many respects, but specific industries or other collaborative efforts may be seriously affected.
This is why I find the Irish government's strategy puzzling: they continue to insist on a measure that has been a proven deal-breaker for an orderly withdrawal, which means unless they genuinely believe that the UK will fold and call the whole thing off, their strategy is almost certain to cause the maximum damage of any plausible outcome to their own country.
It's also worth saying, because it is relevant but rarely reported, that the economic models for different scenarios and how much effect they would have on various European countries' economies relative to a baseline no Brexit case do tend to assume that in the baseline the EU economy continues as-is or grows significantly. I have yet to see any serious economic model that compares outcomes for different types of Brexit against a no-Brexit scenario where the underlying problems with EU economics do then cause another serious problem or there is some sort of black swan event that affects the EU or Eurozone.
> This is why I find the Irish government's strategy puzzling: they continue to insist on a measure that has been a proven deal-breaker for an orderly withdrawal,
I don't think the Republic of Ireland has a good alternative. If they accept a hard border, then they suffer some of the worst no-deal effects anyway. If they accept customs checks between the Republic of Ireland and the continent (effectively putting them alone in a customs union with the UK), then the effects might be worse.
Really, getting the remainder of the EU to agree to this is an important victory for them. Under different circumstances, the continent could have thrown Ireland under the proverbial bus for the sake of a deal.
I don't think the Republic of Ireland has a good alternative.
Given that the rest of the EU has been giving RoI a de facto veto on any UK withdrawal agreement, and given that the backstop appears to be the only complete deal-breaker here, they could have compromised in various ways that would be strictly better for them than driving everyone into a no-deal outcome.
For example, accepting a time-limited version of the backstop while May was still in charge would probably have got the WA through the UK Parliament. Brexit would have happened, defusing a lot of the political tension in the UK and liberating the EU27 from having a half-in, half-out member and all the attendant uncertainty. Everyone would have benefitted from a more orderly transition, including keeping the Irish border open without needing checks due to either WTO MFN rules or the EU's need to protect its overall border. There would have been perhaps another 5-10 years to clarify the future relationship and resolve any issues still arising at the Irish border, which would have been a far more plausible than magicking something up overnight in the event of a no-deal outcome. And the EU would have been dealing with a basically pro-EU government in the UK while that was going on, at least for the next few years.
That possibility appears to have been lost with the arrival of Boris Johnson as PM. If the Irish do want a 23:59 reprieve, it's going to cost them a lot of political capital to get it at this point. But realistically, I don't see that happening. I think they've blown it, and either a no-deal Brexit or a UK general election that certainly could result in a majority hard-Brexit government now seem like the most likely outcomes.
Critics often say, with considerable justification, that this is a mess of the UK's making. Certainly the UK's negotiators haven't done very well in all of this. Still, if we're playing the blame game, I think there is plenty to go around. The EU's rigid approach and negotiating strategy also caused problems right from the start, and the Irish hardline stance on the backstop in recent times has essentially sealed their own fate. It's all very sad, because it won't matter whose fault it was if a decade from now, as the Irish government's own commissioned analysis suggests, their economy is still significantly smaller and real terms wages are still significantly lower.
I still don't understand why both sides went into this with such an adversarial and rigid approach to the negotiations. There was so much common ground that could have been established early on, and if we were going to have Brexit, we could have had an amicable separation where we remained good friends even if by mutual agreement our relationship was not going to be as close as before and we'd each gain a bit more flexibility in other respects. The whole thing just seems like not only a huge missed opportunity, but an opportunity missed by following a process where glaring mistakes were made by both sides and both sides refused to then fix them even when they were widely criticised. It's just... sad.
- set in stone that it is possible to leave the EU bureaucracy
- set a role model on how not to leave the EU
The fact that the UK has done a piss-poor job of taking advantage of an unprecedented opportunity does not negate the fact that leaving, if done properly, is a once-in-a-lifetime good opportunity.
Not necessarily a bad idea, unless you have other ideas as to which global power you will be under the influence of, or that your country can withstand such influences on its own.
There is no denying it, the meddling in foreign affairs from the western point of view shows that the influence of global powers on individual countries is very possible and this can easily come back around to bite you if you're not part of an equal or greater power.
The UK will be fine on it's own, because they have always been under the influence of a greater global political power.
> The UK will be fine on it's own, because they have always been under the influence of a greater global political power.
I'm assuming you mean the US there and ... I'm not convinced because when the UK asked the US for assistance with their Iran-seized ship recently, the US told them to go away. They had to go to the EU for assistance (hilariously.)
That just shows the power dynamic between the two, and military assistance is a lot more open and obvious than the murkiness of the financial industry. The UK itself can't protect all this wealth with only a fraction of the power it once had.
This current issue is not a biggie, the US doesn't really need to get involved over a single British flagged tanker that is operated by a Swedish company with no British crew. The US already has been trying to hurt Iran with sanctions and pulling out of the nuclear deal, and they stated themselves that they have no interest in protecting tankers in the strait of hormuz. Clearly not important enough for the US's own oil industry.
I will agree the UK has never really embraced the whole EU project as it has become. I also agree that in many votes, the UK has been the stumbling block and with that did anybody in the UK and those wanting to keep the UK in the EU ever asked themselves - what is best for the EU?
I did and that is why I voted leave myself - better for the EU and the UK. That was my reason for voting as I did. Equally, many area's in the EU that need fixing and by the UK leaving, those would stick out and get fixed. Case in point, the UK initially asked for reform within the EU and got palmed off with some concessions and we had a vote on the back of that. Now after the vote - Tusk et all have said, the EU needs reform and Macron is driving for that reform. Ironically that reform won't happen or even start to be discussed, until the UK leaves.
I often get people who go on about the EU and how they are pro-EU and demanding a second vote (probably a third....until they get the result they want...) but if you ask them - what has the UK done for the EU? They stumble.
The UK helped the EU be more dynamic than it otherwise might have been, avoiding a certain French big-state mindset that could have seen eurobureaucracy really run riot on national laws. It definitely attracted capital investments from across the globe into the EU market, and it relieved some of the unemployment pressure in poorer countries thanks to a very dynamic labor market.
Obviously there have been sore points (complete opposition to real federalism, coordinated defence, and fighting dirty money / tax evasion), but overall both the UK and EU members have benefited from working together. Brexit is a lose-lose scenario that we will all have to endure rather than enjoy, whichever side of the fence we sit on.
You do know that the driving force behind the Single Market was Margaret Thatcher? Much of its legislation was set up initially to benefit the UK, and still does. Quite apart from that, there are plenty of individual pieces of legislation that originate in the UK.
I am very happy to agree that the UK has never fully felt at home in the EU, but it is definitely wrong to say that our membership was never in the EU's best interest.
So how should the UK leave the EU? As the vote wasn't held on the basis of leaving without a deal, and you don't want a 2nd vote to ask an actionable question.
Actually no deal is what the government leaflet that they sent EVERYBODY who voted outlined.
They said leaving the EU meant leaving the customs union and single market - that was pretty clear, that was what people understood from this and that is how they voted.
Alas many for whom the vote did not go as intended, seem to feel that everybody else did not understand what they voted for.
For me - staying in a customs union or single market would entail as best solution - staying in the EU. Leaving those meant leaving the EU.
Even mader is that the EU laws and article 50 state that any member state must leave without a deal as no deal can be negotiated until....they have left.
So this whole aspect of we can not leave without a deal, goes against EU law in article 50.
So really is very crazy how those aspects get overlooked and allowed to drag on when it was pretty well clear cut for so many and still is today.
Even mader is that the EU laws and article 50 state that any member state must leave without a deal as no deal can be negotiated until....they have left.
Actually a transition period was proposed (and agreed upon in the current deal) for exactly that.
The problem, of course, is that if the UK breaks out without a deal there will be no transition period.
> "They said leaving the EU meant leaving the customs union and single market"
Not sure about leaflets (who reads these?), but the main point that people understood leave meant 'leave the customs union and single market' is correct.
The idea that people didn't understand this is a useful delusion for those who want to undo the result.
Most leading Brexiteers expected some kind of access to the single market. Farage himself talked about a Norway type arrangement immediately post referendum at least.
I really wonder how many people will own up to their short-sighted visions and online evidence of those when the first bullets are fired in a shooting war in Western Europe in one of our possible futures. There is a very good chance that Brexit will be pointed at by future historians as the vote that changed history irrevocably.
You may be roght but i think you have causal relationships reversed.
World war 2 was set in motion the moment the WW1 peace agreement was codified.
Who is to say that WW3 was not started the moment an intrepid set of bureaucrats set about merging a diverse range of populations that have nothing in common whatsoever?
As also a French, I think the French are expecting too much from the EU and that this hope is vain because most of the other countries are quite happy the way EU is right now (and as such, they don't care if it is stuck by Brexit or whatever).
Maybe just sabotage some federal aspirations but also did a lot to enhance and enlarge the free market aspects. What did France meaningfully contribute so we have a baseline for comparison?
France was a founding member of ECSC proposed by Robert Schuman, french prime minister, created by the Paris treaty and regarded as the premise of nowadays European union and expanded to up to 28 countries.
France played an instrumental/leading role in building the very idea of a community of nations in europe.
The contributions of that country toward European institutions are literally countless, but let’s name a few major ones: a shared currency (€), schengen area and absolute freedom of movement for citizens, goods, services and capital (none of which UK took part of). No one can sensibly deny France contributions to pretty much any regulation, judicial/defense/scholar/research/scientific cooperations.
I’m not saying UK played absolutely no role in building these institutions, but they’ve always displayed some reluctancy for further integration. Just fyi, France and Germany have been compensating since the 70s the budget contribution UK refused to make.
Your point is that since it wasn’t able to work before, it’ll never work? I mean, Leonardo Da Vinci wasn’t able to build a working flying machine, does that mean the Wrights were dumb to think they would succeed where Leonardo failed?
As citizens at least, it's pretty well understood that in majority we don't want to leave, one half definitely doesn't, the other half are mostly a combination of naive, manipulated and coerced based on false claims and social media, some portion are not manipulated or naive but have settled on some narrow view of a very large and complex decision... and finally the minority (the small number of racists and xenophobes you inevitably get in any country who want to cut off the rest of the world and built walls or some shit).
We've been fucked over because we let the vulnerable portion of the other half get manipulated. The only valid vote was no, because the premise was entirely flawed... it's like having a referendum for "Do you want lower taxes" without saying exactly how, but "leave the EU" is even more complex not only in how but what that even means and what that affects which is so broad, it's like taking a huge list of very specific not necessarily related things putting them in a bag and then saying "you wana change this stuff in undefined ways" - fuck no, if you want to watch the world burn at least be up front about it.
> it's pretty well understood that in majority we don't want to leave, the other half are mostly a combination of naive, manipulated and coerced based on false claims and social media...
What?
There was a vote. A vote where everyone elligible had the chance to voice their opinion and the majority (albeit slim) said "we want out".
As for the slur of being naieve and manipulated that's bullshit (from my standpoint anyway).
You seem to be referring to people getting their news from social media... if that's their source then hell-mend them. Social media is an echo chamber. It's not designed for two-sided debates.
WRT to the false claims: If anyone actually believes that a politician has their interests at heart then they're delusional.
You seem to just be bitter that you (I assume) voted to stay in... I suppose you want another one until you get the result you would prefer!
The point is that isn't really actionable, it isn't a plan.
Hard Brexit was discussed, soft Brexit was discussed, BRINO, Norway plus. Everyone voted for their own preferred Brexit, so now we're in the situation on which Brexit to implement, and no one can agree, so which Brexit to go for?
And I would like to point out that no deal Brexit was never seriously discussed in the run up to the referendum, so there isn't a mandate for that. We were though promised that we would be able to leave the EU, keep access to the common market, and save ourselves £350 million a week, in what would be the 'easiest trade deal in human history'.
> We were though promised that we would be able to leave the EU, keep access to the common market, and save ourselves £350 million a week, in what would be the 'easiest trade deal in human history'.
If it sounds to good to be true, it usually is. Surely it isn't the case that more than half the voters really believed Brexit was going to be that easy?
Slightly less than half of voters voted for a concrete thing, slightly more than half voted for anything else.
Its like the tax cut someone else mentioned. Sure 52% of the population could vote in favour, are all of those going to vote in favour of a tax cut for the rich? Or a tax cut for the poor? Or for low carbon technologies? Or to support the coal mining industry.
And because there wasn't a 'plan' for Brexit there wasn't a decent conversation on any Brexit plan. You couldn't pin down the Brexiteers because as soon as you suggested that leaving the common market would damage the economy, they'd tell you we could stay in the common market.
To answer your question more directly, I don't think the level of integration was appreciated, Northern Ireland wasn't discussed at all. Further than that I'm not sure you can say anything about all Brexit voters because its such a broad church, as it was never defined.
The Murdoch press and their shills plus some of the other tabloids relentlessly and over decades systematically trashed the European project with lies, half-truth and other unsavory tactics.
How, exactly, do you expect a populace to make an informed decision under such a relentless assault?
Maybe not all of the Leave voters believed it would be that easy, but enough did. Or alternatively at least bought some of what the Leave campaign were selling - the "we send £350m a week ..." stuff was a big one
It was never seriously discussed because Theresa May didn't believe in it. Now that there will be an actual supporter in charge, you'll probably see more action on it.
What does that matter? The point was that "hard brexit" wasn't raised as a real possibility by the Leave campaign before the referendum (in fact hard vs soft wasn't even a thing before the vote). The campaign was based on promises of a lovely favourable trade deals and a hybrid in-and-yet-out where it suited us arrangement.
The fact that Boris is PM and he's A-OK with hard brexit doesn't change any of that. And I don't know what "more action" we could see - it is by very definition the zero-action option.
But the vote was poorly informed and actively manipulated. Many people voted leave as a protest against the state of the country, not the EU, and have said so. And many of the most persuasive statements made by the leave campaign were shown to be deliberate falsehoods.
I respect the desires of those who genuinely wish to leave the EU, but the referendum result was not anything close to a true measurement of that, and any measure since has been grossly polluted by the ensuing acrimony.
The referendum was about many things, and most of them weren't our membership of the EU.
> Many people voted leave as a protest against the state of the country, not the EU, and have said so.
This is true in my experience, almost all arguments I have ever heard in person are of this form... I don't know where this came from but suspect the concept of "Leave == Change" was likely seeded on social media.
> The referendum was about many things, and most of them weren't our membership of the EU.
Yes, this is the source of the problem, even though manipulation is more of a problem than it used to be, this vote is particularly vulnerable to it because it's so poorly defined - it's basically impossible to have a sane and comprehensive debate about the topic so instead people naturally cling onto something that fits their values, and it's extremely easy to just fabricate those things in this case.
Perhaps I live in a bubble but to me it was pretty clear: In or out.
As for the result not reflecting the people that's nonsense: Everyone with the ability to vote and the right to vote could and should have voted. If they didn't then tough.
If people were swayed by politicians promising one thing or another and all the nonsense that flowed through social media then that's on them.
I don't get this attitude that people have of "oh, it's not fair, we were lied to". We are talking about policicians here: they are only going to say whatever makes them popular and gets/keeps them in power.
Except that in or out isn't clear because it doesn't cover the details of what out means.
I'm assuming you wouldn't expect the Brexiteers to stop campaigning if they had lost the vote? They'd just carry on trying to smash things up until they got their way.
There were supposed to be rules follow with regard to funding and truthfulness on the part of the Leave campaign and it's now clear that those rules were broken. [1]
So in short, those of us in the UK that think the UK would be better off as a member of the EU are still going to fight for that because we care about doing what we think is best for the country.
I agree with you but that doesn't invalidate the initial vote. The only marginally democratically legitimate way to do a revote would be for the UK to ask to voters to choose between actually negotiated and realistic terms (or maybe multiple, e.g. hard brexit + any deal they can strike with the EU if ever) and staying.
Oh yeah, absolutely all of the people who voted leave were completely rational. Like my father-in-law who voted leave so we can send all them Indians back home.
One person's anecdote (that we don't know happened) doesn't represent half of a country's population.
What't the GPs are doing are dismissing valid views from the other side by shouting racism. There's no proof or any real evidence provided that the other side is racist, just anecdotes.
> if that's their source then hell-mend them. Social media is an echo chamber. It's not designed for two-sided debates.
I think you are writing off a huge portion of people because their manipulation is convenient and happens to fit your opinion. The effects of manipulation through social media are a real and significant societal problem that undermine any type of democratic process. It is particularly vulnerable when the decision is poorly defined in almost every way imaginable beyond the entirely abstract concept of "not part of the EU".
This is nothing to do with my opinion... Social media is an echo chamber. Plain and simple. Opposing views are unwelcome!
Here's a small test for you: go into an anti-vax group on FB and present a reasoned argument as to why vaccines are safe.
You will be annihilated!
If people believe their social media was manipulated they either need to stop using it or at least stop believing it.
If they can't do that then how do you hope to have a reasoned debate about the pro's and con's of Brexit?
I don't disagree that the Brexit thing was a joke from start to finish but we are talking about politicians here. Everything is a game to them and in my opinion as a group they are inherently untrustworthy.
I honestly do not believe you will ever hear the truth from either side. Or if you do, it will be drowned out by the noise.
FWIW I think social media is societal cancer to put it mildly.
social media is a real problem though. witness how Brazil's elections went: basically WhatsApp was used to spread really nasty stuff about the opponents, and since it's a country whose consumption of social media >> any other media, that had a real effect.
i suspect we'll see this used in other elections ASAP.
it's like having a referendum for "Do you want lower taxes" without saying exactly how
There's no reasonable way to ask voters complex questions, which is why most countries have representative democracy and not a direct democracy. The only possible way to ask the voters those types of questions has to be a very simple choice, and than let government/parliament sort that out.
As an external observer, it looks to me like its the UK political class which looks most ridiculous here, more than voters of either persuasion. Parliament has so far voted against all possible options for the UK (including another referendum), the equivalent of putting fingers in their ears. Nothing good can come from that, not until they say what they do want.
I disagree. I think the majority of the people want to leave, but sadly the majority of MPs don't. What you are seeing in the UK is a clash between the People and their MPs.
Yes the mindset of racist/xenophobes and small minded people often take a small outliner and project that upon the group as a whole. I feel you may be on the verge of an epiphany.
I’m Swedish and we are one of the allies of the UK in that we fought together to grant each other exceptions. I would love for us to become more integrated with the rest of the continent.
It could all get very messy - I think it is is highly likely that Scotland will want a second independence referendum as a major argument for staying in the union the last time was that it meant Scotland would stay in the EU. However, I also think the current government is also unlikely to allow a second referendum, and it wouldn't surprise me if the Scottish Government decided to have one anyway.
Edit: To be clear: I mean messy legally/politically - not anything worse.
Yeah, it’s going to be Catalunya all over again. Except Scotland is not a little province, and if the SNP is forced underground, stuff will start to blow up for real.
Catalunya isn't a little province either - in fact much of the issue is because it has a large amount of the GDP.
I'm English but was living in Scotland at the time of the referendum there (I abstained) and having been living in Barcelona since (including the vote here).
I'm not sure if independence would be good or not in either case (thus why I never voted) but I hope the UK Government never tries the sort of violent voter suppression I saw here.
Support for Scottish independence is greater in England than it is in Scotland. The U.K. isn’t Spain, the English are no more likely to keep the Scots in by force than the Canadians were going to keep Quebec in by force.
That's nonsense. Some English might claim indifference or scoff at the idea of an independent Scotland. In reality however the UK is more a part of their identity than it is ours - Scotland splitting away literally kills off the concept of the "UK".
Force wouldn't even be needed however - Westminster can just brush off pleas for an independence referendum (they'll point towards the one we had a couple of years ago pre-Brexit ), there's no revolutionary movement and I really don't foresee one developing any time soon.
... yet. A few years of Westminster arbitrarily frustrating calls for independence, coupled with Brexit-induced hardships and a resurgence of sectarian violence in NI, could well radicalise the SNP into taking matters in their own hands.
Scotland has Oil. England has gone through so much trouble over so many centuries with murders, wars, manipulation, lies, propaganda, provocacia, and other dark methods to ensure that England will rule over the UK/GB, so Scotland and Northern Ireland (to leave UK/GB and rejoin it's natural/geographical state - Irelad) will have to try very hard for independence from England and towards EU.
And it is a pity for this, especially after enjoying so many years of peace.
I find it highly ironic to point out that it was actually Scotland that took over ruling England (James I and all that). It's not our fault he didn't like Edinburgh and decided to move down South.
Well you can't really say that the UK was welcomed into the EU (or EEC) with open arms in the first place. France blocked the UK's entry three times. So there's probably always been some mutual distrust.
As a Swede, I'd like to keep the UK in the EU as an ally against creeping federalism. Luckily it seems that nobody outside the Benelux is all that keen on Macron's ideas.
Which is ironic because some of the reasons Brits want to leave is because of the French, e.g. why does the EU parliament have to spend 100million+ EUR to have the parliament in Strasbourg for 3 days of the month?
Most of the EU agrees that the Strasbourg sessions are dumb, but I challenge you to find a single prominent Brexiteer who cited this (or anything else directly related to France) as a reason to leave.
02:35 - "But once a month, do you know what happens? They load the contents of our offices and papers into big, plastic trunks, and they put those trunks on lorries, and they drive them nearly 400 miles down Europe’s motorways to a French city called Strasbourg where, for four days, the contents of our offices, and our papers, are put into a new office, and the parliament then sits there..."
(Given, this video was shot after the election, not before, but Nigel Farage most likely spoke about this before too.)
Yeah, I can imagine him mentioning it among many other things, but of course there was no bus driving around with this painted on it. Still, good find.
Don't pretend your opinion is any more valuable than an opinion of any of the other 27 members.
I'm an outsider on this, but I could imagine this as an effective quote to replay in any "leave" campaign. Can we really imagine UK (or Germany) ever being relegated to having only the influence of e.g. Slovenia?
Countries don't have direct representation, political blocs do.
Each country picks its own members (at minimum, six of them in the European Parliament), those members congregate into political blocs, those blocs make proposals, build a majority within EUs regulatory bodies, and adopt changes.
The difference between Germany and the UK is that German parties recognize this process and follow it. UK's (right-wing) parties, on the other hand, go on a tantrum locally whenever something doesn't go their way on an EU level, because they believe they're in a privileged position and that their vote means more within the EU. It doesn't.
My aim isn't to convince "leave" campaign that they should stay. On the contrary, I agree with the comment that said good riddance. Their tantrums stopped the progress of the EU far too many times.
If you think that the electoral college in the US is terrible, please, look up how Boris Johnson got to the position of the Prime Minister. The process was so undemocratic than it can't be considered anything but a complete joke. Brexit will finally happen, EU will move forward, and we'll all sit back and watch the UK's economy crash and burn. In over two years, they haven't even figured out what Brexit actually means, so the thoughts of them figuring it out within the next four months is laughable at best. There's not gonna be enough popcorns in the world for that shitshow.
You do realise that UK won't be the only looser in Brexit don't you?
To use a bit of metaphor, we, the UK, are definitely shooting ourselves in the foot but we're doing it inside a metal box with the other member states. We'll loose a foot for sure but when the bullet starts ricocheting it's going to hit all of us sooner or later. Our economies are entwined.
Since I don't live in California or Texas anymore, and didn't really identify with their priorities when I did, I don't "think that the electoral college in the US is terrible". Echoing your sentiments, the large states are not in a "privileged position" even if they sometimes think they should be. The electoral college, and federalism in general, makes the system more resilient and robust. (Not that this is an unalloyed benefit: this resilient and robust system does some terrible things.)
I don't share your gleefully grim expectations about UK's economic outlook. Sure, EU customs will be an issue. Making it too big an issue doesn't seem to be in anyone's interest, however. I can't imagine that e.g. Ireland want to hurt their own economy through any sort of "work to rule" policy. I can think of one EU member as important to the overall European economy as UK is (and it ain't France).
Even if it's the largest foreign investor, that's not so surprising. It's the 5 largest economy in terms of GDP, the only ones bigger are the US, China (limited in how they move capital), Japan (luckily for their national debt, they prefer to buy domestic govt bonds), Germany (the only likely alternative for investing more).
Also London is a major finance capital, so it could just be British banks buying US stocks with money from Russian oligarchs or whatever.
Of course it is. You could note it from all the US-friendly legislation they've been pushing within the EU.
It's one of the reasons I was glad Brexit happened. The UK was usually the most important nation members pushing for surveillance laws in the EU and then have the EU share that data with the US.
I recently discovered a documentary: "The Spider’s Web – Britain’s Second Empire". Highlights that as much as 25% of the worlds wealth is held in offshore and onshore British jurisdictions.
The Russians have nothing to do with Trump or Brexit, in my view the connections have been fabricated to seem real only to turn out to be dead ends that don't lead directly to the Kremlin in any meaningful way, both of these events have stifled democracy and social progress. The negative effects will only hurt the population and not the corrupt and nontransparent institutions.
The US and UK look like the least likely countries in the world to start a revolution. The powers at be know this, and we the people know this to an extent.
>The UK has a lot more in common politically and philosophically with the US than the EU.
Not even close, let's take a basic fundamental US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK. The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed. The UK has more import and exports with the EU that the US and because of geographic constraints this will not change Brexit or not.
> US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK.
The UK has a right to freedom of expression in both common law and the Human Rights Act (incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights). There are many exceptions, but that's also the case for the First Amendment of the United States' constitution.
Both the UK and US have defamation laws, criminalise real threats, Official Secrets Act / Espionage Act, gag orders, etc.
One could argue there is a better right to free speech in the US, and that it has stronger legal protections, but it's by no means absolute or beyond comparison with that of the UK.
> One could argue there is a better right to free speech in the US, and that it has stronger legal protections, but it's by no means absolute or beyond comparison with that of the UK.
Yes in the UK freedom of speech and religion is tolerated to an extent that exceeds the word of the very restrictive law, but the US has actual legal protections and a culture that protects those legal protections, there is a very big difference between the two.
You can compare the US free speech with our limited speech but at the end of the day Spain has free speech and privacy laws and culture thats way closer to the US than the UK nanny state.
There are other big differences between US and UK culture like GUNS! to name one
The only thing the UK and US hold in common is the want to have an empire. Oh and to steal brown people oil.
It's actually bang on the money. Two words: Common Law.
I would suggest, strongly, that the UK does indeed have vastly more in common with the US, at the most fundamental level. Our freedoms, law, government and society at large are based upon it, and this makes our countries much closer than any European nation based upon Civil Law will ever be. It's not just down to legalities, it shapes our entire attitude to how a society should run, and how the laws of the land are made and changed over time. In all these things, the UK and US are almost entirely the same.
Common Law is central to the fundamental philosophy, and political and judicial processes which make our societies run. Most European countries have Civil Law. It's very different, and I would argue that much of the friction between EU institutions and UK law (and public) is because it's trying to impose the Civil Law framework onto a Common Law system, and it's not really compatible. Much of the time, in the UK, we look at the actions and attitudes of EU political figures with disbelief. Because they make little sense, for people used to Common Law. In Civil Law, it's more understandable. The public's expectations are quite different in both systems, and this is a fundamental disconnect which can't be papered over. It's one of the reason many in the UK, including myself, feel that the rules-based EU is fundamentally undemocratic and unfit for purpose. Because from our rather less hidebound and laissez-faire point of view, this is absolutely the case. We're much more used to the "whatever is not specifically forbidden, is allowed" point of view. And when it comes to the law, we're used to our juries and judges being able to interpret and shape the law in new ways by common sense, rather than being rigidly stuck to the letter.
>>Not even close, let's take a basic fundamental US principle like the right to free speech, it doesn't exist in the UK.
Sadly, this is correct, but I believe the UK has less constrained speech than continental Europe. I'd love to see a right to free speech brought into force in the UK
>>The UK has had relation ships with most of the European countries for longer than the US has existed.
This is also true, but neglects the fact that US was founded by Britain and was a British colony for 170 years. US law is based on English common law.
I reckon the five eyes were sharing these kinds of infos for years. After the Snowden revelations I tend to think that there ain‘t no info about us citizens that the three letter organizations don‘t have or cannot have. Phone call logs, personal infos, medical records, everything we can think of. If they are interested in something, they‘ll get it. Sucks big time. But it seems ain‘t nothing we can do about it.
The thing is: The moment you feel you could be observed or that you have no room for private thought or discussion, you start to censor yourself. Political discourse starts to get weakened.
My gut feeling is this: Many people don't dare to express their true opinions even in supposedly private channels, fearing that these thoughts / ideas might come back at them years later. And I don't even mean radical thoughts.
In a world where we non-americans are asked for our cellphone passwords, laptops, social media handles and passwords, how can we dare to criticize world affairs?
Or imagine you are a young ambitious person who wants to change something by participating in the political process. You spend years getting somewhere, and then comes an info out of nowhere about your past and stops your carreer abruptly (like you cheated on your university diploma or something like that).
> Many people don't dare to express their true opinions
If there's one thing the Internet has taught us is it not that most people's "true opinions" are merde?
I don't like it either, but I think we have hope of stabilizing on a kind of "greatest common denominator" of behaviour, but only if the systems that do the surveillance are self-referential: they must apply to the powerful as much as the little guy.
His link says that the UK made copies, and that private contractors hired by the UK government such as IBM were given access. IBM, and most other firms that the UK government likely uses as contractors, have offices and data centers in the UK.
I didn't notice anywhere in his link that said that anyone moved copies of the data to the US.
Reading the comments in this thread and others, it seems to me that a lot of people want to argue about how many canaries have to die before the threat to the miners is taken seriously.
That any of the Schengen information made it to the US at all is a dead canary.
The allegation is not that the UK authorities made a copy and gave it directly to the US authorities.
The allegation is that the UK authorities made copies for its own and its contractors use. These contractors include US companies- IBM is one example.
It really sounds like poor regard for security measures / lack of ownership and enforcement in the UK rather than anything malicious.
It is also noted that several other member states have similar issues.
It should also be noted - certain US authorities probably have or can get copies from various non-uk states and the UK. But that isn't what this incident is about.
The title is also misleading in that it claims (unlike the linked tweet) that all EU citizens are impacted. In reality many EU citizens never had their fingerprints taken.
> It really sounds like poor regard for security measures / lack of ownership and enforcement in the UK rather than anything malicious.
The UK understand exactly how to do Passport security if they did it in a insecure way it was with malicious intent that gives them "plausible" deniability.
And yet 'Assange' and 'treason' are often mentioned in the same sentence. Which is of course ridiculous for the reason you mention, but if I were in his shoes I would be very afraid they'd find a way to make those charges (or "lesser" charges that nevertheless result into you disappearing forever) stick.
How could you commit treason against the EU? You don't owe allegiance to her, nor does any one. The EU was never as cohesive as, say, America (an entity to which she has been compared). Different nations are party to different treaties, see this graph: https://europedirectemn.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/treaties...
They very much pick and choose to which treaties they wish to agree, and retain sovereignty. There are more things than treaties that define a nation - the people, culture, history, etc. Or to grab the definition off google, "a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory." The EU does not really share those, to the extent of a proper nation.
The countries that run with with ESTA have already give these and much more info to USA's government a long time ago. Basically the countries volunteered all data beforehand to please the big boss (sorry I mean to say reduce bureaucracy and waiting times).
Right, but it's worth mentioning that unlike the US and perhaps Ireland, countries in the Schengen area are required to issue passports containing fingerprint data, though most (all?) do not have a centralized database of citizens' fingerprints.
The Netherlands planned to create a centralized store but it seems to face public opposition.
There is no requirement to provide fingerprints for a US passport.
The only way I could see a US passport containing fingerprint data is if you were naturalized, but even then, it would require USCIS/USCBP to actually share that data with the State Department.
As a Danish citizen I’m deeply concerned about this and am strongly considering an FoIA request and lawsuit for lack of disclosure... if this is really true.
In Dutch it's WOB and from German and Dutch colleagues I heard it's a thing there as well. I don't know of an EU country that doesn't have it. I thought it was an EU regulation, just like GDPR is mandatory to implement, but I can't find anything about it and our law is from 1991, so I guess it might not be after all.
While this is bad and they should increase the security of this data, for now, I don't see how it would affect EU citizens.
Any ideas?
If you applied for a visa to the US, they already have your photo and fingerprints (hell, they had mine before my own country, before biometric passports). If not, what can they possibly do with that information?
Reading the actual memo in the Tweet, it says that US Companies contracted by the UK were provided access to the data.
So, as a made up example, [Massive US-based multinational consulting firm - IBM was listed in the euobserver article)] was contracted to do work for the UK government in this specific area and was provided access to the data (probably after being cleared to do so via a lengthy process that is typical for contracting with governments).
Do we have any indication that this data was "copied to the US" in this memo, instead of being worked with in accordance with data security policies to keep it in the EU / UK?
That said - if the UK is making illegal copies that's bad, but I wouldn't overreact to the submission title which is not correct.
Wouldn't be the first time someone about to leave the company exfiltrated a bunch of proprietary information they wouldn't have access to after they left. :-)
Only recently it was the the best source of the whole VLC issue.
Sure twitter has it's issues, anything of scale with that level of user-base will and you get truths, lies and twisted statistics.
Why the better media outlets have standard about two independent sources (BBC one example), however I'm mindful that you can get second sources that are just an echo-chamber of the first and it steam-rolls from there - VLC a good example again upon that.
The UK is not in the Schengen travel zone and had no right to be accessing the data or sharing it with other foreign powers.
The problem is that too much power is collected in one place that encourages bad actors to weaken security so that they can later do a grab and dash with "Plausible deniability".
When people raise this warning it is dismissed as fear mongering, when the fears turn out to be justified people side step the issue and argue that the title should be millions instead of all.
Some people have argued that the EU do not have a database of EU citizens fingerprints, but they have been building that database since 2004 [2].
These massive databases of personal information represent too much of a risk and should not exist. The only way to protect power from corruption is to distribute the power rather than consolidate it.
[1] https://euobserver.com/justice/145530 [2] https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-eu-fingerprints/fingerprin...