[pp.int.general] PPI platform for EU Election 2009

[Reinier Bakels]

> Reinier Bakels wrote:
>> It may help to concentrate on present issues first. #1 imho is the 
>> concerted action by record companies and their organisations (IFPI, RIAA) 
>> to get more money from copyright. They campaign, and that calls for a 
>> counter-campaign. The prime agument against their policy imho is the 
>> obvious fact that they strive to "rent seeking": make more moeny by 
>> influencing the legislator.
> So, considering our core issues (Civil Rights and Liberties, Restrictions 
> of Ideas and Information, Information Society, and Government 
> Accountability and Transparency), do you suggest that we only focus on the 
> /c word/ thing? What would you do, then, with the rest of core issues?
The answer is already in the above text: I suggest to focus on concrete, 
topical issues, such as the FRA law in Sweden. This is more likely to be 
effective than a debate on abstract themes such as "civil liberties". 
Besides, I wonder whether "government transparancy" really is a PP core 
issue. This is quite a separate, complicated theme. And it is more national 
than the typical information freedom issues.

The risk of abstract themes becomes apparent e.g. because the FRA law by its 
porponents is certainly considered essential to PROTECT Swedish civil 
liberties, for instance against terrorist attacks. Of course we will argue 
that the argument is wrong. But imho it is easier to address the privacy 
issue directly. There iss an abundance of arguments that do not need the 
"civil liberties" reason: 1) many people do not understand that privacy 
infringement is not a matter of actual damage: it is merely the feeling of 
being watched that must be avoided 2) the risk of mistakes is not 
negligeable, so many people will be faced with "false positives" 3) 
experience shows, that sooner or later "data accidents" wil occur, so that 
private information will be "on the street". This example also shows the 
tension between privacy and information freedom: the right to know 
"everything" (transparent government!) is limited by privacy considerations. 
In the concrete case of FRA, obviously the general public does not have the 
right to see your and my private communication.

While we have all been educated in university (and elsewhere) in abstract 
thinking, at times it is very helpful to reduce the level of abstraction! 
That also helpsto convey a political message. That is what "real" 
politicians often do. For instance, in the debate on IPRED1/2 former EU 
Commissioner Frattini talked about child labour and health risks from 
counterfeit medicines. Of course these examples are tendentious, but imho a 
counter attach is easier than with thevery abstract arguments brought 
forward by the Dutch partliament in which attorneys very thorooughly 
questioned the competence of the EU in this matter.

reinier