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

[Per von Zweigbergk]

31 dec 2008 kl. 09.20 skrev Reinier Bakels:

> 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.


I agree that a certain measure of de-abstraction is necessary.  
However, this does not mean single-minded focus on one single issue.  
Pirate Party Sweden has much of its success due to focusing on  
concrete issues, and campaigning based on these issues at strategic  
times. But we never had just a single issue, we always had many  
concrete issues.

However, when it comes to national issues, I think it should be up to  
national pirate parties to decide which questions need to be  
prioritized. The Swedish FRA-law might be important on an  
international level, but it makes a lot more sense in the Netherlands  
to campaign on the basis of what the entertainment industry is doing  
to eliminate the common carrier status for ISPs, since that is what's  
happening more locally. Focusing on concrete issues is very important  
on a national level. Some issues like data retention, IPRED, and ACTA  
might be internationally relevant, but it should still be the domain  
of the national pirate parties to make the call about what questions  
they think are likely to resonate with voters.

I don't think that PP International can make the decision better than  
PP Sweden, for example, about which concrete issues to campaign about  
on a national campaign level. While PPI might be useful to develop a  
common campaign strategy, campaign tactics should be left squarely in  
the hand of national pirate parties.

The domain of PP International should be focusing on purely on  
international issues -- and specifically for pirate parties in EU  
countries, on EU issues.

As such a joint PPI platform for EU should not focus overly on  
national issues like FRA and what's happening with ISP:s in the  
Netherlands, but on EU issues.

For example, our #1 candidate for Europarl from PPSE, Christan  
Engström, has talked about promoting more power to parliament, and the  
PPSE opposition to the Lisbon treaty. This is the type of issues that  
need to be discussed in PPI for a joint EU election platform.

-- 
Per von Zweigbergk
Technical Operations Group, Pirate Party Sweden

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