Comment on the Arab Reaction on European Caricatures

On BBC we can read that:
Ministers from 17 Arab countries on Tuesday urged Denmark's government to punish Jyllands-Posten, the Danish newspaper that first published the caricatures, for what they described as an "offence to Islam".

Well, let me tell you, you wise seventeen (probably unelected) leaders. Your demand that the Danish goverment punish the people whom you do not agree with, and whose opinions you despise, are an offence against liberty, democracy and the free word.

I have two demands:

• I demand at once that you punish yourself for these acts of disrespect.
  
• I demand that you apologise to all friends of liberty and freedom of speech in the world.
  

I do not agree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.
- Evelyn Beatrice Hall

Legitimacy and Federalism

First, I'd like to apologise in advance for my spelling and grammar. But I am home, sick with the Chicken pox(!), and have a numb head. Complain in the comments section if you'd like.

Now to the issue. Today I will rant about legitimacy and federalism.

The problem with a lot of politicians, is that they do not understand. They do not understand that the legitimacy problems with the Union really are constitutional problems. The problems is the Council and the fact that the Union is still an international organisation in to many aspects; and that the Union is very complicated. The legitimacy is also a matter of how democratic and transparent the law making organisations are. These problems could be solved with a clear federal constitution, but seeing this is difficult for a person not interested in politics, which is the majority in my understanding.

The word federalism used in the previous paragraph, has been known as the f-word in some circles (the one who introduced this was actually no other than Marget Thatcher) and can be very sensitive. I've met several who just went pale in the skin when one mentioned the word "federation", but when asking them about the issues they had with the Union, and the solutions for these, a lot of the anti-federalists came up with very federal solutions for a lot of the problems, e.g. shift power from the Council to the Parliament. And this when not realising that the solutions was just what the federalists want.

I am not afraid to call my self a federalist (which should be clear for those reading this blog on a regular basis) and of course, being a federalist does not mean that you believe that everything from Brussels is good (a lot of the anti-federalists seem to believe that this is the definition of federalism). I am a federalist, but still, if you read this blog, you can find some substantial critique of the Union's architecture and it's policies, so how does this mix?

Federalism is belief in a form of government where the decisions are taken on the lowest level possible, preferably by the individual. A federalist accepts that there are questions that cannot be answered solely by an individual, a family, a municipality or even a state. Thus with a federal system we have a level of government above the states. In order to clarify, all decisions should be taken in a democratic form, and laws should NEVER be made by assemblies that are unelected.

Thus, a federalist typically want the Union to handle foreign policy, defence and internal trade, but the rest is typically supposed to be up to the states or at lover levels. More importantly, since the Council is unelected, we do not want the Council to exist in it's present form. It should either be abolished and hand over all their power to the elected parliament or transform themselves into an elected senate.

Federalism is not blind obedience to the federal government, it is the belief in a federal and democratic constitution, where decisions are taken on the lovest level possible and law is made by elected representatives and not indirectly appointed officials.

Stop the Tyrant

Jingle.se has published this image in protest against the Swedish minister of justice Thomas Bodström.

In my most humble opinion, this man is the most grave threat against the liberties of ALL EUROPEANS. Bodström was one of the greatest proponents for the data retention directive, and in the local state debate, he has even more wild ideas that would scare any true supporter of liberty and democracy.





Also, in other news, the Swedish goverment is preparing a proposal that will redirect all wire-bound telecommunications that cross the Swedish border to the FRA (the Swedish version of the NSA) head quarter. They in term will filter ALL E-MAIL and other electronic traffic, that is sent abroad, and in this case, abroad is as always defined as not in Sweden, this mean that any messages you send to friends and family in the EU, in Norway, the US, the Japans and other places, will be monitored. Allthough, while the FRA stated that they will delete any love mail caught in the filter, this deletion still relies on the fact that a human operator reads it and decides that it is not a terrorist message.

Time to get serious about encrypting e-mail.

Eat that Tony!

Mr. Blair who placed a lot of presteige in getting an agreement for the Unions budget between 2007 to 2013, have now after he handed over the precidency to Wolfgang Schüssel, received a major setback. The parliament overthrew Tony Blair's budgetary proposal with 541 votes against 56, plus 76 abstentions.

Blair's budget was to cut down Union spendings by 4.13 %, and this in a time of enlargement. The Union will also annex at least two more states during this time frame, maybee more.

The defeat of this budget is a welcome one.

Bibliography
Euronews

DRM, No Thanks!

Everyday, we vote with our money. I usually have this in mind when buying stuff, but not everyone do this. In order to vote with your money, you have to state your reason for not buying the thing, otherwise, the producer will never learn what they did wrong.

Now, this is for the music industry (presently occupied with annihilating themselves): I herby pledge that I will never, ever buy a CD with DRM. Nor will I buy music online with DRM, except if there is a way to disable the DRM without loosing quality in the process.

You can pledge the same here

EP Approves Data Retention

The EP approved the data retention directive, with amendments laid down by EPP and PES. This is a dark day for the Union and the liberty of Europeans. I suggest that all those who voted for these parties will think both once and twice when the next parliamentary election is held.

The directive will call for retention of data under a period between six moths and two years. A monitoring organisation such as this has not been seen since the fall of the Berlin wall.

What is life without liberty I ask. What is the next step in this horrifying spiral? When will people wake up from their dream and finally realise that liberties that we take for granted are being eliminated one by one?

I for one am extremelly displeased with the ongoing development, a sad day indeed.

The Fate of Europe is Decided Today

Today within a few minutes, the parliament will vote about the draconian dataretention directive. Bodström (the Swedish minister of justice) who is one of the brains behind the proposal has whith his accociates in the council made the groupleaders for EPP and PES position them for the proposal. There is a clear oposition against the proposal in the EPP, among others have Charlotte Cedersköld clearly shown her oposition.

It is wrong when the state regulates what data and for how long it is to be stored. Perhaps it is reasonable that the police can query for existing data, but this is not the question treated in this proposal.

The directive that Bodström say that in order to query for the information, the suspected crime has to be valid for an European arrest warrant. Which does not only include serious crimes such as terrorism, murder and trafficing, but also filesharing and other minor offences.

If the parliament opposes the directive, it will be an important point made against the council's undemocratic methods. And if Bodström & co would choose to bypass our elected parliament by screaming out "third pillar", it will be made even more clear that the council lacks in democratic legitimacy and how much the Union's constitution would have been.

In Sweden, the disposal of Bodström must be priorotised, everything else come on second place and I would have made a deal with the devil himself in order to get Bodström, the greatest enemy against liberty in Europe, fired.

Merde!!!

More on the draconian data retention directive planned have surfaced. Apparently the parliamentary committee on civil liberties approved a preliminary version of the comission's directive. The directive after the committee's amendments is certainly better than the horrifying draft directive that the council made available a few months ago; but really, this one is not nice either. But it do give right to compensation for the ISPs, although the compensation will come from taxes, so it's a real waste of tax payers money.

Interesting now, is that the entertainment industry has lobbied the parliement in order to get access to the data that is supposed to help combat terrorism and organised crime. Though, their attempts were luckilly in vain.

I believe that I have stated this before, WE DON'T WANT NO STINKING DATA RETENTION LAW!!!

What should be done is the more sane and sensible things such as making way for a European FBI, simplification on information transfers between law enforcement agencies across Europe. And as far as the traffic data goes, yes, I think it's a good idea to allow access to existing traffic data across borders state borders, but forcing the ISPs to store more and additional data than necessary is despicable. Especially the manner this is introduced and the council's actions so far.


Bibliography

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/11/25/data_retention/
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/legal/0,39020651,39238422,00.htm
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/24/2243246&tid=123&tid=141