[mro_name]

I wonder how it can be legal to repeatedly undermine constitution and push or vote for later high-court-nullified laws and be allowed to repeat as if nothing was wrong with that. Like drunk driving forever. We ban counter-constitutional activities outside parliament and authorities. Why not inside?

I am much for 3-strikes here.

[JumpCrisscross]

> to repeatedly undermine constitution

The EU doesn’t have a constitution [1], simply enabling treaties [2].

The solution would be in ratifying a constitution.

> am much for 3-strikes here

Careful. A party in power will seek to nullify issues by putting forward and then defeating sham bills.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Consti...

[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaties_of_the_European_Uni...

[SEMW]

What problem here would be solved by ratifying a constitution?

Like -- ISTM that the relevant property here is the ability of the courts to overturn ordinary legislation for incompatibility with basic human rights provisions. But the EU already has this. the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU (which is pretty much a superset of the european convention on human rights) is incorporated into the Lisbon treaty, and all EU legislation must be compatible with it. EU courts have overturned legislation for incompatibility with the CFR, eg Digital Rights Ireland[0].

The collection of member state treaties is for ~all intents and purposes a constitution, just not in a single document, and without the word "constitution" at the top.

[0] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX%3A...

[JumpCrisscross]

> What problem here would be solved by ratifying a constitution?

Admittedly, a narrow one: clearly delineating unconstitutional behaviour and allowing it to be called out.

> collection of member state treaties is for ~all intents and purposes a constitution, just not in a single document

That morass makes it difficult for the public to cleanly digest when something is blatantly unconstitutional. (Britain has a similar problem.)

[SEMW]

> That morass makes it difficult for the public to cleanly digest when something is blatantly unconstitutional

I'm not convinced that's a relevant issue here. For some parts of EU treaty law, sure, but here the context here is disapplying EU legislation that's incompatible with fundamental human rights. Those parts are all in one document in one treaty: the Charter of Fundamental Rights[0], which was incorporated into the Lisbon treaty.

(besides, whether in the EU, somewhere with a formal constitution like the US, or the UK, the vast majority of the work of figuring out whether something is in breach of treaty / constitutional provisions is always going to be analysing caselaw)

[0] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/charter/pdf/text_en.pdf

[AnthonyMouse]

> A party in power will seek to nullify issues by putting forward and then defeating sham bills.

Presumably the three strikes would be for the politicians, e.g. if you have voted in favor of three bills that courts have subsequently found unconstitutional, you're barred from holding office.

[JumpCrisscross]

> if you have voted in favor of three bills that courts have subsequently found unconstitutional, you're barred from holding office

Would you look at that, everyone who was passing court reform is now barred from office.

You’re looking for a cheat code to effort in government. It doesn’t exist. Power is ephemeral. The person in power is always more powerful than the person who just had it, almost by definition.

[AnthonyMouse]

> Would you look at that, everyone who was passing court reform is now barred from office.

But then the population sees this, still wants court reform (now more than ever) and votes in new politicians to take it up. The new politicians haven't yet voted on anything and so can't be barred this way and the first bill they take up is court reform.

> You’re looking for a cheat code to effort in government.

I'm looking for checks and balances. Something outside of the whims of populism should cause politicians who repeatedly attempt to violate fundamental rights to suffer consequences.

[JumpCrisscross]

> I'm looking for checks and balances

Try a cooling-off period. Switzerland does it for referendums. Absent a super-majority, a bill needs a certain amount of time between initial and final approval.

[account42]

We are looking for checks and balances for politicians acting against the interests of the populace. Without them a government is always one step away from tyranny.

[lucianbr]

The ultimate check is people voting for better politicians. Without this, no system of checks can do anything significant. No checks in the US will limit Trump and the republicans, if they get voted over and over again. No checks in France or Germany or Italy will limit the extreme right, if they keep getting more and more of parliament. Eventually they would be powerful enough to change the constitution, change judges and so on. No system of checks can stop Putin or Xi or the Taliban.

Checks are useful if people mostly vote right, but occasionally make mistakes. If you double down on the mistakes, you get the situation that it would be undemocratic for some rules made 100 years ago to stand in the way of what the majority of the population wants today.

Plus, who knows what are the "interests of the populace". Who can decide that? If the populace votes one way, you saying "they're voting against their interests so they should be prevented from getting what they want" is functionally equivalent to saying "what I want should be done and what others want should not, even if I am in a minority". I know it does not feel that way to you, but try to see it from the perspective of someone who disagrees with you.

In a democracy, the only possible arbiter of what should happen is the majority. Anything else is the tyranny you decry.

[thfuran]

>The solution would be in ratifying a constitution.

That certainly doesn't prevent politicians from voting for unconstitutional laws.

[JumpCrisscross]

> certainly doesn't prevent politicians from voting for unconstitutional laws

At that point you no longer have a legislative body, but an advisory council to whomever it is that decides what votes are and aren’t punishable. (See: Iran, China, the Roman Principate, early parliamentary monarchies.)

[mro_name]

difficult balancing act. Having a legislative body throwing fundamental rights out of the window isn't appealing either.

[JumpCrisscross]

> Having a legislative body throwing fundamental rights out of the window isn't appealing either

They’re not. They’re discussing it. Even if they pass it, it’s subject to court review.

[Aerroon]

Yes, it's subject to court review... Five years down the line. Meanwhile they will force member states to act according to it. If they refuse they will sue them!

This is exactly what happened with the Data Retention Directive: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive

>According to the Data Retention Directive, EU member states had to store information on all citizens' telecommunications data (phone and internet connections) for a minimum of six months and at most twenty-four months, to be delivered on demand to police authorities.

First passed: March 15, 2006

Came into force: May 3rd, 2006

The law was introduced in Romania, but a year later the constitutional court struck it down. In 2011 the European Commission sued Romania for not implementing the law and fined them for it. This forced Romania to sign a new law in 2012, which was also declared unconstitutional in 2014.

>On 8 April 2014, the Court of Justice of the European Union declared the Directive invalid

And the kicker is that the UK has tried to implement a similar law domestically two more times.

[lucianbr]

It's only difficult because people keep voting for politicians willing to throw fundamental rights out the window. I don't think any solution exists in this circumstance. People want to vote for bad politicians but to get good results. Good luck designing a system that does that, and does not just discount what people vote for.

[mro_name]

but I see the problem https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2024-06-26/suprem...

[mro_name]

I mean e.g. the safe harbour scandal that EUGH nullified after a 10-year legal struggle. Was violating EU core values. That's as close to unconsitutional as one may get not having one. Then came privacy shield, another 10-year legal fight and groundhog day. You get the idea.

[ManBeardPc]

Should be a crime at this point. It’s so far away from a democratic process with all the bad faith arguments and closed door discussions that I don’t see how this doesn’t count as trying to destroy the freedom of millions of people.

[chopin]

0-strike. It should be expected that elected officials respect the constitution.

[klausa]

Which constitution are you referring to?

[jdasdf]

This.

Anyone that voted for a law that is later struck down committed an illegal act, and should be liable for it.

[Cthulhu_]

This is a shortsighted kneejerk take to be honest. What about laws you agree with that get rescinded? What if a law that protects your privacy gets struck down, do you think the privacy advocates that made it happen in the first place "committed an illegal act and should be liable for it"?

[dustfinger]

I agree with 0-strikes. Elect officials should be under constant investigation for any form of nefarious behavior and they should be prosecuted as any citzen would be.

[sneak]

Do you understand what would happen to the system if politicians could be prosecuted for proposing laws?

[dustfinger]

You make a good point, I was not clear at all on the scope of my statement. I am thinking about my own countries constitution. I am not familiar with UKs constitution [1], so I don't really know if "control chat" violates the UK's constitution or not. When I said "nefarious", I was in part referring to undermining a countries constitution, as it is illegal to do so. No, I think that proposing laws that clearly undermine the constitution should be stopped immediately at the time of proposal by the constitution itself. 0-strikes for the proposal. 0-strikes here was not meant to suggest the politician be thrown in jail or anything like that. But, I agree with you in that I was unclear.

Again, my statement above was poorly worded. This is what I meant by prosecuting for nefarious behavior: It is my belief that government behavior would be better kept in check if elect officials were under constant investigation for criminal acts. Society should have gauntness that their nation is being run by good actors. Those running our country should be legally obligated to be working towards making the society that they serve thrive, not using it as a platform for organized crime, influencing the outcomes of their personal investments, or traitorous behavior like ruining a nations economy to empower another nation.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitution_of_the_United_Kin...

[FpUser]

Well, proposed laws would need to pass constitutionality test done by some constitutional court stuffed by legal field experts. If passed, no prosecution can occur.

I could be prosecuted for driving if the result is death of pedestrian for example. I still drive. So why our fucking "servants" are special?

[JumpCrisscross]

> proposed laws would need to pass constitutionality test done by some constitutional court stuffed by legal field experts. If passed, no prosecution can occur

Congratulations, you re-invented the politburo.

[FpUser]

No it is an attempt to bring runaway politicians back to senses.

As for politburo: HR in big corporations already does the task quite well. They just do not like to be called what they are.

[sneak]

They already do that now, there's even a defined procedure for it. They just do it after the law has already passed.

[ruszki]

Hungary had that. It didn't really work.

[K0balt]

Then , presumably, you would need another, lesser court, to vet a bill before it reached the constitutional court.

Unfortunately this just creates another layer of abstraction and each layer adds myriad perverse incentives for power brokering and abuse.

It’s a very thorny problem that humanity has yet to solve, and is probably unsolvable until we can solve the “power opens opportunities for abuse of those powers “ problem.

The only ideal form of government is the benign and just king, which of course does not exist.

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords.

[FpUser]

>"The only ideal form of government is the benign and just king, which of course does not exist."

This might work in very small society where said king can be quickly brought to senses if he pisses off enough people. Anything larger is fucked up no atter what we do.

>"I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords."

No fuck that

[mro_name]

we germans learn in history lessons at school what can happen once a democratic process abolishes enough fundamental rights.

[sneak]

Yeah, meanwhile, you can't buy video games with too much blood in them now because the censorship ship has sailed. Banning the nazi salute and certain types of ideological publishing is treating the symptoms and not the disease. It doesn't fix the issue, and it involves a lot of collateral damage.

Germany has in fact abolished fundamental rights (i.e. free expression) in response to collective fear and guilt about WW2. It's an unforced own goal, just like the USA did to itself after 9/11. The worst possible response. It harms only those who shouldn't be harmed; German nazis will still be nazis quietly in basements, and everyone else in Germany who isn't a nazi is subject to media censorship. It's nonsense.

[mro_name]

that's not what I am talking about.

I talk about that today it's not allowed to abolish democracy which - believe it or not - was allowed and happened 1933.

See e.g. https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/gg/art_9.html

[exe34]

politicians don't propose law in the EU. appointed bureaucrats do. politicians get to vote on them eventually, but it'll get passed one way or another.

[Cthulhu_]

I mean nefarious behaviour, sure, but idk if you mean in any context or just this specific one.

That said, if they commit illegal acts they should be tried and convicted like any other civilians, if not with a more severe punishment because they are our leaders that set the example.

[dustfinger]

I attempted to clarify my statement in my response to sneak. I am concerned that if there are people in government acting nefariously, these bad actors are free to continue unchallenged. If that is what is happening, then I suspect that this flaw exists in many democracies, if not all of them. I am by no means an expert in government, but I believe that with the way things are currently structured those leading our nations are operating without sufficient checks and balances to ensure their good intent. I am talking about investigating every government leader with a utility to ensure they are acting favorably with respect to peace, order, and good government in perpetuity.

[nabla9]

> I am much for 3-strikes here.

You want something over democratic control.

Democratically elected representatives are sovereign decision makers. They can vote and decide whatever they want. Constitutions interpreted by high courts can strike laws down only afterwards.

Democracy should lead to stupid laws if people are ignorant, stupid and easily led.

If we had direct democracy, this bill would have passed decades ago.

[betaby]

> If we had direct democracy, this bill would have passed decades ago.

And repealed also decades ago.

[nabla9]

It seems likely that in direct democracy European constitution would have replaced decades ago and ECJ would be neutered.

[peoplefromibiza]

> If we had direct democracy, this bill would have passed decades ago.

this is an important point, rarely discussed.

Here on HN I noticed a strong adversion for EU and its politician, but I really doubt that here on HN many are aware of the opinions of the general population in EU.

Much worse laws would be in place if we had direct democracy, I am 100% confident that death penalty would be the first big come back, but also stricter immigration laws (intra-EU too) and a generalized increase in the length of penalties for petty crimes, just because people in EU are old and they believe a police state will make them safer.

edit: QED the comments show how people would make the EU a worse place. Lucky us they can't.

They simply took what's in their interest (for example immigration laws, like really EU was flooded by migrants, spoiler: it is not!) and discarded the things they don't think would happen, because people are like that: they do not think of unwanted consequences and when they happen (like the ban of intra-eu immigration, which would most likely happen, being entirely legal and very easy to stop, unlike the illegal immigration from outside the EU) it means that someone else (in this case I assume the progressists, that they would call communists) worked against it because they hate them and hate their people and traditions.

It's incredible how easy it is to prove that trusting the average Joe on long term planning of an entire sub continent leads to catastrophes.

EDIT 2: it's also incredible how disconnected people are on political matters, they have a split brain, that thing that Orwell named doublespeak.

The most extreme libertarians that scream about being deprived of their freedom to have encrypted chats where they exchange swastikas with their friends, are the most conservatives on all the social matters and are the same people that vote the same politicians that then propose the chat control for the sake of the children.

[nabla9]

Case in point

2009 Swiss minaret referendum. Amendment to article 72 of the Swiss Federal Constitution reads: "The building of minarets is prohibited."

It's completely nutty to put random token issue into the constitution. Its' just gigantic fuck you for Swiss citizens with ex-Yugoslavi or Turkish roots. It breaks all legal principles and does not work serve its intended purpose of "stopping creeping islamization". They even failed to define term "minaret". Minarets are not required in Islam and fundamentalist Wahabbi/Salafi sects don't even accept them.

All that said, I support 100% the right for the Swiss people to be idiot edgelords. That's what democracy is all about.

[account42]

> but also stricter immigration laws

Sounds good.

[fallingknife]

> stricter immigration laws

Good

> generalized increase in the length of penalties for petty crimes

Good. If you disagree spend some time in SF.

> death penalty

Debatable

[nabla9]

You are good citizen like me.

result I like after 5 seconds of thinking -> good

bad outcome -> I don't think people think that way. At least not good people or majority of people.

principles -> elitism.

[sneak]

It’s because we aren’t actually nations of laws. There are certain groups in every nation (yes, even the ones you like or perhaps respect) who operate outside of the law as if it doesn’t exist.

The most popular “e2ee” messengers in use (WhatsApp, iMessage) are already clientside backdoored in this manner. Most people in most societies are already under this type of surveillance. This is just to tidy up the small loopholes like Signal etc.

[worldsayshi]

> The most popular “e2ee” messengers in use (WhatsApp, iMessage) are already clientside backdoored in this manner.

Do you have a source for this?

Can this be concluded by looking at the app traffic?

[sneak]

iCloud Backup backs up the entirety of someone's iMessage history (or their endpoint iMessage sync keys, which equate to the same thing) each night to Apple without e2ee.

If you enable e2ee for iCloud/iCloud Backup, all of your iMessage traffic will still be escrowed, simply from the other end of all of your conversations because they still have iCloud e2ee turned off (because it's off by default).

If the endpoint sends the plaintext post-decryption to the middle transit service (Apple) in a way that is readable to that middle service (iCloud Backups contain complete iMessage history and are encrypted to Apple keys), then it's not e2ee. This is called "plaintext escrow".

Same goes for WhatsApp. It backs up its message history to iCloud or Google Drive, which are, in the usual case (99.9%+ of users) non-e2ee.

[Cthulhu_]

"clientside backdoored" is a vague statement, but they may mean e.g. Snowden's revelations that the NSA has secret backdoor access to the big tech companies.

[matthewdgreen]

> The most popular “e2ee” messengers in use (WhatsApp, iMessage) are already clientside backdoored in this manner.

No they are not. This is nonsense. The charitable interpretation is that you’re confusing the systems on iMessage that can voluntarily detect nudity and report it to you (but not the police or Apple) with the systems being proposed in TFA which have mandatory reporting to provider+police. The uncharitable interpretation is that you’re just making stuff up because it sounds good. Please don’t do either, it makes everyone worse off.

[sneak]

It's well documented that the complete iMessage history (if the "Messages in iCloud" feature is disabled) or the endpoint iMessage sync keys (if "Messages in iCloud" is enabled, the default), are included in the non-e2ee iCloud Backup which is non-e2ee and readable by Apple.

Approximately nobody has enabled e2ee for iCloud Backups (and approximately nobody wants to; they'd rather Apple be able to restore their photos and conversations when they've lost their phone and forgotten their password).

Each and every night when plugged in every iPhone by default makes sure that Apple receives an Apple-readable copy of all of the photos and iMessages (or iMessage cross-device sync keys) on the device.

It's not e2ee if the endpoint device escrows the plaintext. Apple and the FBI can read 99%+ of all iMessages in the world in near-realtime.

(This is because, in the usual case, the backup includes the "Messages in iCloud" cross-device endpoint synchronization keys, and Apple of course runs the sync servers that see the encrypted traffic. If you have Messages in iCloud turned off, the backup simply contains all of the iMessages directly, and Apple presumably only gets them once each 24h period when the iCloud Backup runs at night when plugged in and on wifi.)

The only case in which iMessage is e2ee is when both iMessage endpoints either have iCloud disabled, or both iMessage endpoints have iCloud Backup disabled, or both iMessage endpoints have iCloud Advanced Data Protection (backup e2ee) enabled. The moment you add an iPhone not so configured to the iMessage groupchat, the whole thing falls apart, because the defaults are to escrow the plaintext in a non-e2ee fashion.

[talldayo]

Apple's lack of reliable security is practically all they're known for at this point. They can't even protect your notifications from warrantless surveillance[0], nor can they refuse to supply your encryption keys if they're demanded[1].

You wanna talk about making stuff up? How are you possibly able to say that the iPhone doesn't have clientside backdoors when you don't have any source code to back that claim up? You are the one making stuff up because it sounds good; Apple's concerted efforts to undermine their own security features is well-documented and even exists by Apple's own admission.

[0] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/12/apple-admits-to-...

[1] https://itsecurity.blog.fordham.edu/2021/12/08/data-can-be-o...

[matthewdgreen]

Saying “everyone knows these products are backdoored” and then supporting your claim with “well, they’re closed source” is a ridiculous thing to do. Please stop.

[talldayo]

Please stop? I just cited two credible sources on either side of the backdoor. It's one thing if you don't want to acknowledge what's happening, it's another thing to publicly deny it. If you've got any concrete evidence that Apple does not furnish backdoors in their products, now is a good time to show it. Otherwise I see no rational reason for anyone to assume Apple products are totally secure.