European Politics

I think its fair to say, Farage would get a heckling in parts of England too! Assorted UKIP politicians promote the party as the champion of 'Middle England', so campaigning in a predominantly working class part of the North, for example, wouldn't earn him many friends. Some real political incompatibility there, quite apart from their anti-EU stance.
Farage's racism accusation also came shortly after his own party was accused by the media of racism.
 
So what do you think of (possible) Scottish Independence Brigantium? My impression is, it's not a terribly important issue in England right now. Yes/no?
 
I think you can do far worse than give people the choice - if a clear majority want it, then that's what's right.
As usual, a lot of people in England are dismissive of it, but the Government is obviously bothered about the economic implications. I'm worried from a completely selfish standpoint - Scottish independence would leave England/Wales/N Ireland very much dominated by one political party! England even more so if Wales and NI push for independence or greater autonomy. I could see relations deteriorating between the two governments, too, unless they really work hard on the relationship.
 
The article is poorly translated, but the subject is interesting:

Commission Reduction: EU Leaders to Sidestep Lisbon Treaty Rule

The Lisbon Treaty clearly intends for the size of the European Commission to be reduced below its present size of 27 members. But EU leaders have reached unanimous agreement to sidestep the provision -- and even plan to add a seat to the table for the Croatians.
 
Sounds an expensive body to maintain, but I imagine any member state which didn't have representation on the Commission would be uncomfortable about it.
 
I am looking forward to see Merkel addressing Obama, but I am more curious how the whole European Union will deal with this, the day after tomorrow. The first steps are looking good:

A demanding letter has already been sent to your Minister of Justice. Fast and concrete answers are expected.

Europe warns US: you must respect the privacy of our citizens

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/11/europe-us-privacy

EU officials demand answers on what data snooping programmes entail and whether they breach human rights.

European Union officials have demanded "swift and concrete answers" to their requests for assurances from the US that its mass data surveillance programmes do not breach the fundamental privacy rights of European citizens.

The European commission's vice-president, Viviane Reding, has sent a letter with seven detailed questions to the US attorney general, Eric Holder Jr, demanding explanations about Prism and other American data snooping programmes.

Reding warns him that "given the gravity of the situation and the serious concerns expressed in public opinion on this side of the Atlantic" she expects detailed answers before they meet at an EU-US justice ministers' meeting in Dublin on Friday.

She also warns Holder that people's trust that the rule of law will be respected – including a high level of privacy protection for both US and EU citizens – is essential to the growth of the digital economy, including transatlantic business and the nature of the US response could affect the whole transatlantic relationship.

In the letter, released to the Guardian, Reding details her serious concerns that the Americans are "accessing and processing, on a large scale, the data of EU citizens using major US online service providers". She says programmes such as Prism, and the laws that authorise them, could have "grave adverse consequences for the fundamental rights of EU citizens".

The EU's action came as the first constitutional challenge in the US to the widespread surveillance of American citizens was laid down. In a lawsuit filed in New York, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) accused the US government of a process that was "akin to snatching every American's address book".

The ACLU's lawsuit claimed the National Security Agency's acquisition of phone records of millions of Verizon users violated the first and fourth amendments, which guarantee citizens' right to association, speech and to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.

EU officials have repeatedly raised with the Americans the scope of legislation such as the Patriot Act which can lead to European companies being required to transfer data to the US in breach of EU and national law. The commission's vice-president and justice commissioner says the exchange of data for law enforcement purposes must take place to the greatest possible extent through established formal channels.

"Direct access of US law enforcement to the data of EU citizens on servers of US companies should be excluded unless in clearly defined, exceptional and judicially reviewable situations," writes Reding.

Reding laid out the seven questions she said needed to be answered:

• Are Prism and other similar programmes aimed only at the data of US citizens and residents, or also – even primarily – at non-US nationals, including EU citizens?

• Is access to, collection of or processing of data on the basis of Prism and other programmes … limited to specific and individual cases, and if so what criteria are applied?

• Is the data of individuals accessed, collected or processed in bulk (or on a very wide scale, without justification relating to specific individual cases) either regularly or occasionally?

• Is the scope of these programmes restricted to national security or foreign intelligence or is it broader?

• What avenues, judicial or administrative, are available to companies in the US or the EU to challenge access to, collection of and processing of data under Prism or other programmes?

• What avenues are available to EU citizens to be told if they are affected by Prism or other similar programmes and how do they compare with those available to US citizens?

• What avenues are available to EU citizens or companies to challenge access to, collection of and processing of their personal data under Prism and similar programmes, and how does that compare with the rights of US citizens?

Pressure over the surveillance programmes was also growing in Washington on Tuesday as a group of US senators demanded the Obama administration reveal how it interprets the laws that underpin them.

A bill that was expected to be introduced in the US Senate on Monday night would, if passed, force the government to disclose the opinions of a secretive surveillance court that determines the scope of the eavesdropping on Americans' phone records and internet communications.

The office of Senator Jeff Merkley said he planned to introduce a bill that would compel the first public airing of the so-called Fisa court's understandings of section 215 of the Patriot Act, which the government has cited as the basis for collecting the phone records of millions of Americans, and section 702 of the 2008 Fisa Amendments Act, cited as the basis for the NSA internet monitoring programme known as Prism.

"I think that Americans deserve to know how our government is interpreting the Patriot Act and the Fisa Amendments Act," Jamal Raad, a spokesman for Merkley, told the Guardian on Tuesday.

As the fallout from the revelations by Edward Snowden continued, the defence secretary, Chuck Hagel, said he had ordered a wide-ranging review of NSA contracts. Snowden, 29, had top-security clearance for his work at Booz Allen, an NSA contractor. Booz Allen issued a statement on Tuesday saying that Snowden had been fired for "violations of the firm's code of ethics".

The Obama administration has said all its surveillance efforts are subject to rigorous Fisa court review and members of Congress are sufficiently briefed on them, even though most legislators did not receive such briefings.

In a heated debate in the European parliament on Tuesday, MEPs complained that for a decade they had yielded to US demands for access to EU financial and travel data and said it was now time to re-examine the deals and to limit data access.

"We need to step back here and say clearly: mass surveillance is not what we want," said Jan Philipp Albrecht, a German Green MEP in charge of overhauling the European Union's outdated data protection laws.

MEPs said the EU privacy overhaul and existing transatlantic data-sharing deals – the Swift agreement on sharing financial transaction data and an agreement on airline passenger name records – were now in jeopardy. "It is time we grasped the nettle here and put our minds to ending the programme," said Martin Ehrenhauser, an Austrian independent member of the European Parliament, citing the Swift and airline data agreements.
 
Those are all excellent questions that I am sure many Americans would want the answer to as well. Obama has been running around talking about ObamaCare and has pretty much ignored this (beyond generalities like balancing rights and safety and what he is doing does that).
 
I'd like to see the answers. Some critics of Echelon speculated that network was based on member states monitoring the populations of others rather than monitoring their own.
 
I tend to doubt the NSA said "no, let's not track this phone call/email/whatever" because it involves a non US citizen
 
It was a case of where the monitoring was done, rather than who actually did it. A lot of personnel at RAF Menwith Hill are American, supposedly NSA staff. The theory was that it sidestepped American law on monitoring US citizens because the base is in Britain.
 
Over the past week something ususual is happening in Bulgaria and for the first time in many years I feel a glimmer of hope for the people. The people, not the state, because the latter is still as hopeless as it has been over the past two decades. But the people are changing and maybe, just maybe, this will bring about some sort of evolution of the state as well.

There have been planty of protests in the past, but none of them came close to this one. Protests in the past were destructive, not in terms of physical aggression but in sentiment. We wanted everyone to get the fuck off and step the fuck down. Protests were ususally led by people chasing their own profit, wishing to take the place of those they wanted out. They gave poor people a loaf of bread and the people followed them.

The current protests are totally different. The people that took to the streets are not poor - they have jobs, they have families, they have homes. But they want more. Here's what happened:

http://www.euronews.com/2013/06/19/...ve-days-of-protests-what-is-next-for-bulgaria
http://storify.com/Saaabina/10-reasons-bulgaria-s-withme-protests-are-glorious
 
So, would you say that Bulgaria is just now developing a constructive, democratic discourse in its society? All you really get to hear around here is that its the least-developed of all EU countries, but that never gets any in-depth analytical treatment. What exactly does that mean? How low is the development really?
 
Pff, that's too complex a question. I'm not even sure what I think of it.

The situation is not good. The entire power is in the hands of a group of oligarchs, who own politicians, judges and media. Some of these are known, others are not. On the surface, we have a few political parties that keep barking at each other, swap places as governing parties and pledge to make everything better. But we all know that actually they don't matter at all because it's the secret circle of "businessmen" that reign through bribery and corruption. So we're not getting anything constructive on their part. Yesterday an MP from one of the current coalition government parties called protesters "Internet hooligans".

The current protests are a signal that people want things changed. Previous protests in past years focused on demands for higher benefits, lower electricity bills and other basic needs. Now we want laws changed and the election system reformed. Therefore, my logic is telling me that things have improved - we've moved up Maslow's pyramid. But things happen slow here, painfully slow - it has taken us almost 25 years to get this far and it might take decades for society to mature completely.
 
There usually does need to be a marriage of people having a philosophic need for change (control over the government, the need to have the voice of the people heard, etc) with practical complaints that affect everyday life.

Look at the US Declaration of Independence ... nowadays, the focus is on the first portion



When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
Click to expand...


But the majority of the text is specific complaints about the government, with "He" being the King

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
 
Interesting

Norway mass killer Anders Behring Breivik has applied to study political science at the University of Oslo, triggering a debate among some educators who reportedly refuse to teach him.

"We cannot refuse anyone the chance of studying at the University of Oslo," Ole Petter Otterson, an official at the school, told The Local. "We have to follow the technical rules for admission."

On July 22, 2011, Breivik, an anti-Muslim fanatic, killed 77 and wounded 242 in attacks on a government building in Oslo and at a youth camp on Utoya Island.

Breivik is serving a 21-year-sentence at Ila prison. The prison’s director, Knut Bjarkeid, says he encourages Breivik’s application as a way to get a job when he is released, according to TV 2.

But several University of Oslo political science department staff members, who wished to remain anonymous, told TV 2 that they object to teaching Breivik.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg marked the second anniversary of the attack last week with calls to fight extremism, the Associated Press reports.

"There are still many who are burdened with grief, who struggle to concentrate in school or at work, who see that Norway has moved on, but who don't feel they have the power to do the same," he said. "My hope is that this community has room for everyone who was marked for life on July 22. Let us be there for each other, even if July 22 is no longer talked about on a daily basis."



Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/0...ity-to-study-political-science/#ixzz2aZAx3zwj
 
This is interesting. Denying a man the opportunity to rehabilitate and get an education... Don't blame them, but still sucks.
 
Wasn't his attack due to political reasons, so letting him study political science seems... odd.

They say they can't deny him the chance of studying, but isn't the idea of prison being that you forfeit your rights? How are they going to provide him with lectures etc.. I assume someone visiting the prison, which is going to be further costs.
 
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