The Data Protection Commission sucks eggs and makes its decisions based on a Ouija board and comparing the weight of the stack of brown envelopes received from each of the relevant parties.
This kind of nonsense is unconstitutional and reactionary. If the Irish government is serious about retaining its role as the gatekeeper in the transatlantic fibre then they'll have change course soon and increase the dismal credibility of the DPC.
TheRealPomax 670 days ago [-]
Sorry, how exactly is it unconstitutional? It sucks eggs, wholly agreed, but how is it against any of the fifty articles of the Irish constitution?
Y_Y 670 days ago [-]
Do you disagree? Are you familiar with constitutional law?
I include below part of Article 40.6.1°: which I think is in conflict with the proposed amendment.
> The State guarantees liberty for the exercise of the following rights, subject to public order and morality: –
i The right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions.
The education of public opinion being, however, a matter of such grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State.
The publication or utterance of seditious or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.
TheRealPomax 669 days ago [-]
I'm not, which is why I asked. I'm not Irish and only have a cursory familiarity with its constitution. Thanks for the links!
jmclnx 670 days ago [-]
>The Government’s amendment will gag people from speaking about how the DPC handles their complaint, and from speaking about how Big Tech firms or public bodies are misusing their data.
What is it with English Speaking countries and like the UK, US, Australia, now Ireland ?
If I understand DCP, this is suppose to prevent someone in Ireland from complaining how their personal data is used ? Seems English Speaking Countries are thinking of the dumbest laws in relation to tech.
Maybe I never hear about other countries tech laws due to where I live. Are laws like this and backdoor encryption laws being looked at in Germany, France, Nordic Countries ?
raffraffraff 670 days ago [-]
Ireland is currently bringing in an extremely draconian hate speech bill that doesn't clearly define what hate it, and makes it possible for an individual to make a citizen's arrest if they consider someone's speech hateful. Can you imagine the carnage at the next protest? It doesn't matter what it's about, either side can accuse the other of hate thought crimes, and then things will get physical as they try to arrest each other.
Of course the ICCL (Irish Council for Civil Liberties) aren't kicking up a fuss about thought crime, because they've been pretty much ideologically captured.
cmcaleer 670 days ago [-]
Which is hilarious because an extremely popular rebel song is basically calling British soldiers gay and making fun of them for being British. Are these songs going to be outlawed now? Who knows! Certainly not the lawmakers.
raffraffraff 670 days ago [-]
Exactly this. But also, so many "right-on" people who presume that they're 100% right about everything, are sometimes the very people who say things like "punch nazis", without any sort of definition of who they're talking about. It's never actual Nazis, or even "nationalist socialists" of the common variety. Nope, if you dig into their comments they're simply people who are slightly to the right of them on some issues. So it's fine to call them nazis and incite violence. I say all of this as a fiscally left-of-centre non-flying vegetarian, just in case any of the right-on folks are reading this, assuming I'm a Nazi too.
anonym29 670 days ago [-]
Ireland and the Netherlands used to be on my shortlist for places to go if a massive SHTF scenario happened in the U.S., not anymore with the directions they've each been headed, which you capture well for Ireland here.
CalRobert 670 days ago [-]
Ireland is a remarkably dysfunctional country. But I'm a bit salty after being told I'd have to wait 9 months to find out if my daughter had cancer and that I just needed to "be patient with the system". Mind you, that was going private - public would have been even worse.
But hey, sure it's grand, we've always done it this way.
(She does not have cancer. We were able to determine this by going to Northern Ireland and availing of private consultations in the UK. But it's absurd that it was necessary to do this.)
Of course, we have an agent looking for houses in Utrecht for us now, so maybe I'm just trading one dysfunctional state for another. At least one with better bike infra, though!
Le_Dook 670 days ago [-]
It's the current government that is the major issue with the country right now. They're unpopular, figuratively and literally. In the last election, they got very few of the first votes, and they were only able to get into power with coalition of arguably the worst political parties in the country. They are well aware none of them will get into power next election, and are using their time in power to not only profit financially, but also ruin this country to sabotage any following government.
If you'd like a good example, the vast majority of the politicians in power are landlords or land owners. In recent years we have seen massive inflation in property prices and rent. There's been an erosion of protections agaisnt homelessness, and large payouts for landlords.
Leo Varadkar when in power was caught in broad daylight committing corruption. Giving confidential documents to a friend who owned a health clinic. The criminal investigation was brushed under a rug.
There's hope with a new goverment, it would likely be quite left leaning and many parties involved would be socialist of some form. But to be fair there are massive problems socially with Ireland, same with the Netherlands and in turn a lot of other European states.
pessimizer 670 days ago [-]
> Ireland is currently bringing in an extremely draconian hate speech bill that doesn't clearly define what hate it, and makes it possible for an individual to make a citizen's arrest if they consider someone's speech hateful.
It's also redolent of the silly anti-abortion law passed in Texas that ultimately removed abortion rights in the US. Certainly on-brand for Ireland.
kneebonian 670 days ago [-]
> It's also redolent of the silly anti-abortion law passed in Texas that ultimately removed abortion rights in the US. Certainly on-brand for Ireland.
Texas can't outlaw things for the rest of the country. That's one of the greatest features in my opinion in the US, states are allowed to make their own laws and you can then see how it works out. Texas has no more power to ban abortion in the US than Poland has the ability to pasta in Italy.
brink 670 days ago [-]
Speaking your mind and ending what many people consider to be a life are quite un-"redolent".
Macha 670 days ago [-]
What does Texas have to do with Ireland's "brand"? On the subject of abortion in specific, Ireland abolished restrictions in abortion by popular referendum in 2018 while the US appears to be going in the opposite direction.
669 days ago [-]
pessimizer 670 days ago [-]
> What is it with English Speaking countries and like the UK, US, Australia, now Ireland?
It's a totalitarian reaction to the internet. It used to be enough to wield control over the media in general to control the public, but that can't be done anymore. They have national security, hate speech, copyright and child pornography laws that they can try to replace that with, but they have to be forced through some sort of democratic process in the west that can lead to them being noticed. The last resort is training people to be brownshirts and pinkertons, but there's a reason brownshirts and pinkertons are sent into crowds with clubs - they're not too smart. It doesn't work on the internet.
There's a need to shore up speech laws, anti-encryption laws, and regulation on private speech platforms so they can simply jail or fine people into silence.
Nextgrid 670 days ago [-]
> this is suppose to prevent someone in Ireland from complaining how their personal data is used
This isn't aimed at individuals. Individuals can be ignored and stonewalled without consequences, as most don't have a high-profile media presence nor funds to mount legal challenges. Nothing changes there.
This is aimed at a (few?) non-profit(s?) who have been publicly exposing the incompetence and suspected corruption/favoritism by the DPC and got decent media attention.
For context, Irish DPC is the one that handles most GDPR complaints for mega corporations like Google, Apple and Meta (because that's where they're officially based for their EU operations).
Now the Irish parliament accepted a surprise amendment which makes process of this office opaque and untransparent for everyone else - it's not hard what's going on here.
It's GDPR protection office refusing to be accountable for their slow GDPR resolution process in a country which wants to retain megacorporations that love to break said GDPR.
theonlybutlet 670 days ago [-]
They're on a roll. In the last week they've been called out by NGO's, legal professionals and others for three separate actions, and not in a good way. Contentious clauses in the Hate Speech bill, contentious clauses in the DPC law, and last but not least, a "closed door" high court order for a 12 month mobile communication retention order for all residents on national security grounds.
May say I sound like crazy person but police state type of stuff at this fast rate.
dekken_ 670 days ago [-]
> 12 month mobile communication retention
If you can't control what people think, you just scare them into not speaking.
Sounds like state sponsored terrorism to me.
kneebonian 670 days ago [-]
Something makes me think this amendment was introduced to torpedo the bill it's attached to rather than a actually limit criticism of the DPC, if I am wrong however Ireland should get back to it's roots to solve the problem in my opinion.
This kind of nonsense is unconstitutional and reactionary. If the Irish government is serious about retaining its role as the gatekeeper in the transatlantic fibre then they'll have change course soon and increase the dismal credibility of the DPC.
A lot of this was hashed out in the recent past with regard to the blasphemy position, see e.g. ICCL's take here: https://www.iccl.ie/human-rights/vote-yes-freedom-speech/
I include below part of Article 40.6.1°: which I think is in conflict with the proposed amendment.
> The State guarantees liberty for the exercise of the following rights, subject to public order and morality: –
i The right of the citizens to express freely their convictions and opinions.
The education of public opinion being, however, a matter of such grave import to the common good, the State shall endeavour to ensure that organs of public opinion, such as the radio, the press, the cinema, while preserving their rightful liberty of expression, including criticism of Government policy, shall not be used to undermine public order or morality or the authority of the State.
The publication or utterance of seditious or indecent matter is an offence which shall be punishable in accordance with law.
What is it with English Speaking countries and like the UK, US, Australia, now Ireland ?
If I understand DCP, this is suppose to prevent someone in Ireland from complaining how their personal data is used ? Seems English Speaking Countries are thinking of the dumbest laws in relation to tech.
Maybe I never hear about other countries tech laws due to where I live. Are laws like this and backdoor encryption laws being looked at in Germany, France, Nordic Countries ?
Of course the ICCL (Irish Council for Civil Liberties) aren't kicking up a fuss about thought crime, because they've been pretty much ideologically captured.
But hey, sure it's grand, we've always done it this way.
(She does not have cancer. We were able to determine this by going to Northern Ireland and availing of private consultations in the UK. But it's absurd that it was necessary to do this.)
Of course, we have an agent looking for houses in Utrecht for us now, so maybe I'm just trading one dysfunctional state for another. At least one with better bike infra, though!
If you'd like a good example, the vast majority of the politicians in power are landlords or land owners. In recent years we have seen massive inflation in property prices and rent. There's been an erosion of protections agaisnt homelessness, and large payouts for landlords.
Leo Varadkar when in power was caught in broad daylight committing corruption. Giving confidential documents to a friend who owned a health clinic. The criminal investigation was brushed under a rug.
There's hope with a new goverment, it would likely be quite left leaning and many parties involved would be socialist of some form. But to be fair there are massive problems socially with Ireland, same with the Netherlands and in turn a lot of other European states.
It's also redolent of the silly anti-abortion law passed in Texas that ultimately removed abortion rights in the US. Certainly on-brand for Ireland.
Texas can't outlaw things for the rest of the country. That's one of the greatest features in my opinion in the US, states are allowed to make their own laws and you can then see how it works out. Texas has no more power to ban abortion in the US than Poland has the ability to pasta in Italy.
It's a totalitarian reaction to the internet. It used to be enough to wield control over the media in general to control the public, but that can't be done anymore. They have national security, hate speech, copyright and child pornography laws that they can try to replace that with, but they have to be forced through some sort of democratic process in the west that can lead to them being noticed. The last resort is training people to be brownshirts and pinkertons, but there's a reason brownshirts and pinkertons are sent into crowds with clubs - they're not too smart. It doesn't work on the internet.
There's a need to shore up speech laws, anti-encryption laws, and regulation on private speech platforms so they can simply jail or fine people into silence.
This isn't aimed at individuals. Individuals can be ignored and stonewalled without consequences, as most don't have a high-profile media presence nor funds to mount legal challenges. Nothing changes there.
This is aimed at a (few?) non-profit(s?) who have been publicly exposing the incompetence and suspected corruption/favoritism by the DPC and got decent media attention.
Not even at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Schrems ?
It's been massively criticized because it's been dragging their feet when resolving complaints and having... strange... resolutions when they actually managed to resolve anything: https://www.irishtimes.com/technology/big-tech/2023/01/13/eu...
Now the Irish parliament accepted a surprise amendment which makes process of this office opaque and untransparent for everyone else - it's not hard what's going on here.
It's GDPR protection office refusing to be accountable for their slow GDPR resolution process in a country which wants to retain megacorporations that love to break said GDPR.
If you can't control what people think, you just scare them into not speaking.
Sounds like state sponsored terrorism to me.