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EU Committee Says No To Bank Data Sharing
krupert writes to let us know that the civil liberties committee of the European Parliament has voted to revoke the data-sharing arrangement by which US intelligence agencies have access to EU banking data via the SWIFT system. The US has threatened to withhold cooperation on terrorist intelligence if the bank data deal now in place is canceled, which it will be next week if the full European Parliament votes in line with the committee's recommendation. US intelligence agencies clandestinely tapped the SWIFT interbank clearing data from just after 9/11 until 2006, when the secret arrangement was made public. After that, Belgium-based SWIFT pulled their servers from the US and set up shop in Brussels, and the US had to negotiate with the EU to keep tapping the data.
This is a great thing. US has no fucking business to our banking data or any other thing. The fact that US also did this secretly against a Belgian company is just outstanding and shows the level of hypocrisy going on (just like China secretly accessing Google's data anyone?!)
Now if they just would get UK out of EU it would actually be quite an intelligent organization.
I think we are finally beginning to see some of the endings to the technology euphoria that have developed over the past 20 years. As technology and the internet improved and people discovered all of these extra amazing ways to make different processes more efficient, it's becoming more and more obvious that certain processes simply should not be efficient. This includes government ability to collect data as well as corporate ability to do the same. When it's harder to do, it's fine because it doesn't have as strong of an effect and the mere difficult limits its use. The easier it gets the more often it will be abused or over-used because it's possible.
Essentially, just because we can build this network, doesn't mean we should. I'm giving a big nod of the head to the EU over this one.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
...only be available to European governments.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Sudden outbreak of common sense
Isn't the US the one that got attack the 9/11 or I got it wrong? Is it the US then the one interested in a withhold information war? Does not sound like a smart threat unless the plans US to ban every flight coming from Europe... Those kind of threats shows politicians have little class and less brain.
Dear
Not that I trust my government but at least they are my government. It's obvious that the EU does not really care about data from European citizens going to the US but our international firms do. And further it's quite simple: not one bankrecord from the US went to Europe while all bankrecords from Europe went to the US. And that has to get even now.
I think we are finally beginning to see some of the endings to the technology euphoria that have developed over the past 20 year.
Frankly, I think the political and other events of the last decade have vndicated technophoria completely. Our democracy, in the United States, is stronger than it has ever been in our lifetimes. This is a golden age for the people to have a voice and it should be held up in history as such.
We are living through the best of times, and the choices we have before us, about increasing spying and all the other police state crap, serve only to make those choices worse, not better.
I mean, right now, I can get online and ask, or rather, argue, with anyone who either shares my beliefs or disagrees with them. I can take the whole pulse of the whole nation directly from the communities anywhere, without having to have a middle man of media telling me, honestly, what I want to hear, so they can sell newspapers. Sure, there are times when this polarizes, but I think as people get older, as I have, you learn to keep your own blood pressure down and then come to appreciate all the people, regardless of affilitation, and can, at times, glimpse pieces of the world in its most honest glory, for what it is.
It's excellent.
60 years ago, the US government was able to marshall the building of an entire atomic bomb in secret. Could the USA do that today? Could we build something like that today, in secret? I don't think so. The most sinister abuse of our present war, the pictures from Abu Ghraib, went round the internet, all over the place, as did documents leaked and what not. There's just so many things that we can share, and we can know, that we didn't know before. Breakthroughs in communications technologies have always lead to conflicts and wars - the invention of the printing press sparked a number of wars in Europe and the USA, and arguably lead to the reign of terror in France, the American civil war and US Spanish American war, but, the internet is a different sort of animal, and maybe, we can live through or learn to cope with the polarization, and, see the promise of all of this stuff.
Maybe humanity as a whole, is not so bad after all.
Maybe, we as a people, are a bit less evil than we or the critics among us, judge ourselves to be.
Maybe, just maybe, the human race will do just fine.
I wouldn't trade the internet and computers for anything else, for even a second.
The hope is worth the angst.
This is my sig.
At the moment, only a committee of the European Parliament voted against it in a test ballot. The real ballot is on Thursday next week. Up to then, the US American administration (including the US ambassador to the EU and Hillary Clinton) put pressure (including various legal and illegal threats) on the Members of the European Parliament to change their mind. They were already successful insofar that the ballot was moved from Wednesday to Thursday. And as I consider the European politicians as corrupt and ready to betray the basic rights of the European people in order to gain more control over them, I guess the Americans will be successful in getting their SWIFT treaty exactly as they want it.
It is reasonable that individual requests for banking data in the EU can be done by the US, but as should always be the case, this should go through proper channels, which means a court decision with human beings taking decisions. Secondly, if a person is investigated and not found to be involved in anything, he should be notified and given compensation. Further, if the US should be given access to EU banking data, then the US should grant the EU authorities access to US data (hah... that will never happen...). From a procedural point of view, this was one of the few real fuckups by the Swedish presidency of the Union. The deal was approved by the Council the day before the Lisbon treaty went into effect. This meant that the Parliament could not have anything to say in the contents (which they would have had if it had been passed the day after). Now, the Parliament cannot amend it, but they can reject it which I think the Council did not think of, now they get what they deserve :)
And for all those who dislike Lisbon, can you tell me what is the problem with parliamentary influence over the additional areas given in the treaty?
"Civis Europaeus sum!"
I miss the clear statement that such data sharing is mandatory bidirectional!1
And I would like to have the same transparency about US state Delaware's mailbox-companies financial transactions!
So lets see if I grasp this correctly. The US is willing to hold hostage certain bits of terrorist information over banking data. Hm.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
--- Problem ---
--- Process ---
---- Scenarios and options ----
A rejection is currently likely. See the debate and voting timetable at Seance en direct.
---- Documents ----
Council Decision 2010/16/CFSP/JHA of 30 November 2009 on the signing, on behalf of the European Union, of the Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program - Agreement between the European Union and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data from the European Union to the United States for purposes of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program
Cracking is slightly different from being handed it on a silver platter, cracking can be intercepted by counter-intelligence.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I wonder whether the Federal Reserve + CHIPS systems, through which similar transfers are cleared in the US, share pertinent data with EU governments?
The United States Government claims all in the name of security, but in doing so, steals everyone elses information whenever possible. They call their justification "The Patriot Act", which allows them to steal all information on any computer in the US. Now its true that in the US, they are not allowed to divulge information about Americans. Foreign nationals, and information about people in other countries don't get any kind of consideration in this manner. The short answer is: all others are ripe for the picking! Banking information, health records, scientific, technical, any other kind of information is stealable by the US government, and since they aren't stealing from Americans, they haven't broken any laws! The rule goes like this: 1. The US gov't. can steal information from Amercians, if the Americans complain, then they are not being patriotic, 2. stealing information from foreigners is ok since they aren't Americans. 3. whenever possible, apply the rule "Might Makes Right". If they argue with you, show them the business end of a shotgun. If they pull out a bigger gun, keep pulling out bigger guns of your own, till you have to start pulling out devices with radiation symbols painted on them. At that point, negotiations may be possible. 4. Apply American laws to foreign nationals whenever possible. Ignore foreign laws even in foreign countries. Cite this line "It doesn't apply to me, I'm an American". 5. Remember at all times: God put Americans in a special place. Foreigners don't count, so moral codes don't apply to them. You can even behave as a Psychopath in their countries, and when in doubt, apply rules 1-4.
Sincerely,
Government of the United States of America
Department of Homeland Security, CIA, NSA, DOD, etc.
"The US has threatened to withhold cooperation on terrorist intelligence if the bank data deal now in place is cancelled" - US threatening Europe. Now, someone's crazy here. And it's not Europe (see also: software patents).
So, the US government has terrorist intelligence in its power, demands access to European bank data and threatens to cut off the cooperation on terrorist intelligence (which may result in death of many people*) if its demands are not meat.
This is a well-known tactics used by several smaller organizations and groups around the globe. Can't recall the name of a prominent one though... Al-Qsomething...
* I don't believe that US' intelligence is useful (e.g. WMD), nor do I believe in terrorism fear-mongering, nor do I want to give up my rights for this -- free society has a price which I am ready to accept.
Withholding terrorism help if they cancel the program? I can just see some government negotiator saying "You know, it would be a shame if something was to... happen."
USA wants their unintelligence agencies to have acces to the EU banking information over SWIFT for a period of nine months (if it is so important for fighting terrorism, why don't they want a permanent deal?).
They do not give ANYTHING in return (our agencies don't have acces to their banking data).
They don't give any guarantees about how and when the data will be accesed.
They don't give any guarantees that the information won't be transmitted to 3rd partys, nor do they give guarantees about privacy.
You will only hear three words from any european: go f*** yourselves.
Terrorism is not the target (I am sure, but they are small fry in the big picture of things), taxes are the target. As long as the terrorist file their FBAR reports with the U.S. Treasury department and pay their taxes on time they will be left alone. This is about the Obama administrations new crack down on Americans bank accounts oversees and stopping retiring Americans form moving their assets in to new countries with lower taxes.
With access to the SWIFT information, they don't need to know about the final destination. If an American Citizen sends $100,000 oversees and they do not report it, the fines are $250,000 and up just for not filing and FBAR (accidents and intent are not longer covered). That does not even begin to scrape the surface of other U.S. tax collection efforts that are going on all over the World.
Europe has as much to gain as the US!!?? You gotta be fucking kidding me. Last time someone tried to blow up an airplane was not in Europe (despite the guy flew first here with the bomb and he didn't try) but in the US, and every single attack from terrorist in Europe or US has been preceded by US international policy, and you call me moron? get a mirror if you look for one.
Threating Europe with a withhold of cooperation in terrorism is dumb stupid, it is like if Haiti would threat the US with a withhold of cooperation in humanitarian matters.
To be honest, I do not even fully believe this piece of news, because you gotta be out of your mind to threat a whole continent in such a way if they don't give you private data of their citizens.
Dear
I seriously wonder if this is going to be more then a minor hickup at worst even if it goes thru. Can't they just get one of the "friendly" EU members to make them a copy as the info comes across the wire and pipe it over to them. Shouldn't be rocket science. I'm sure one of them nice countries that lent the CIA a few prison blocks to store them undesirable terrorists for "harsh questioning" etc wouldn't mind offering this service to.
They don't share US data with EU members. Question remains; is that something we really want? I'm not exactlly in fear of some US born or based terrorists coming over to Europe to end life as we know it. Seems fairly unlikely. Even if they where coming I'm not sure swapping banking data would stop them or really help track them down. So it seems to me that US banking transaction data would be a fairly useless request or demand. If we should trade for it, atleast trade it for something useful.
So it's not like they are not going to get their hands on it in the end if they really want to. This just seems like politico theater at its finest, each blaming the other and pretending to be the stand up guys.
"Give us the banking data or innocent people in your european union may die in terrorist attacks."
Fuck... I'm glad we have this global war on terror. I feel safer already. Who's to say that the euros will not reciprocate?
You are the one being disingenuous attempting to associate the RIAA with what I said.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
The US has threatened to withhold cooperation on terrorist intelligence if the bank data deal now in place is canceled
Like US intelligence means something. Fat lot of good their own intelligence did them.
...which was merely a way for the US to quickly expand its markets into a war torn Europe while busting unions to keep labor cheap and subverting at all costs to keep capitalism expanding - not only did the US make money on WWII but it made even more by 'rebuilding' Europe and installing our corporations and military everywhere it could
Sorry to bust your (probably British) bubble but there was nothing unelected about the guys that tried to sell us out.
They were all appointed by democratically elected governments.
Appointed, not elected, yes.
Democratically elected governments? Not here in the UK, that's for sure.
In short, the Brown administration has no popular mandate, not even if you accept the premise that electing individual MPs to the legislature and then determining who forms the executive by which party has the most MPs is a democratic system. The only way Brown's administration has any legitimacy is if you accept the black-and-white premise that a party in our system is entitled to do whatever it likes once elected, even if that directly contradicts what it told the voters before the election that it would do. Reconciling that with any claim of representative democracy is a pretty tough sell.
Or do you want to have an election for every clown in office?
If you mean everyone who has legislative powers, or who leads an organisation that has any statutory authority and/or spends a significant amount of taxpayers' money, then I really don't have much problem with that idea.
No, we could not continue to run our current form of government effectively under such a system, and yes, a lot of consolidation and centralisation of authority with directly elected (and therefore personally accountable) people would be required. I really don't have much problem with that idea, either.
Almost everything that has gone wrong with our government at any level in recent years could have been prevented if there were a direct feedback loop between those making the rules/spending the money and those they supposedly represent. Note, for example, the sharp contrast between the actions of the guys you claim were elected, and the actions of those who are in fact directly accountable to the people they are supposed to represent.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
HAHA you seriously think Cuba has an international spy ring and is a threat of any sort...
I can tell you're not very realistic. Good luck with that.
Your cynicism is what gives the powerful their power. Ultimately, you've decided that you aren't a big fan of the system, but, its not so bad that you would actually get off of your rear and do something about it. Fortunately, on all political stripes, left or right, there have been people in the USA that have done exactly that.
This is my sig.
Of course the USA respectfully and nicely accepts this disappointing yet semi-democratic decision.
NOT!
They threaten Europe with not sharing terrorism related information.
So we expect a false flag soon?
They say they need the data about normal bank transfers to find terrorisms ...... but what about the fact that these "terrorists" never used such ways to transfer, nor have a need to do that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawala
giving the us access to the european swift system to "fight against terrorism" is utter bullshit and only a facade to do easy economic espionage against european coroporations
Reciprocity is easy to understand: it isn't there in the current agreements. As in: the US can look at any financial transaction in the EU it likes, the EU cannot do the same thing with financial transactions in the US. If I were on a EU committee like the one described, I'd nix any data-sharing agreement on that ground alone. Can you imagine the US allowing a foreign power to rifle through its citizen's private financial records without getting the same powers in return? No? Then why should the EU?
"Subsidiarity" is a code-word coined by the EU bureaucracy which basically means that responsibility for something should be put at the lowest possible level: if something can be handled at national level, the EU has no business with it. Sort of like the division of powers between individual states and federal government (guess where they found the inspiration for this one). The same idea applies between nations / states. If some state / nation is capable of fishing for terrorists, then it ought to do so instead of sending off the raw data to another entity for processing, analysis, and monitoring. So why not let the EU trawl through its own stuff (e.g. according to algorithms we provide) and put an agreement in place that they alert us the instant they find anything? That's how policing works (and often doesn't work).
The "trust" angle is what makes things difficult. Basically the US are developing ways of data-mining financial transactions for traces of unlawful activity (terrorist, drugs-related, or otherwise). That's currently a research area (not in the least because our opponents are very much moving targets and you therefore need to tweak such searches all the time) and it simply doesn't want to let 23 other parties (all EU member states, the EU commission, and one or two EU agencies) know the exact nature of its analyses. That makes absolute sense because with so many parties involved there are bound to be leaks, so the US might as well publish its algorithms on the web if it did. If it does, then any terrorist organization worth its salt will move quickly to hide the exact patterns the search is looking for, rendering the whole exercise rather pointless.
The next question of course is why the US doesn't want to make its internal financial transactions available to the EU on the same basis. That would remove the pain for the EU. Legal obstacles apart, it's not as if the EU and its members are likely to abuse that. The problem however is that if the EU gets such rights, then *every* other party that's ever approached with a request for data will demand the same. Would you like all your financial transactions to be visible to e.g. China, Russia, India, Japan, Korea, Australia, Indonesia and any other nation we need data from? No? You don't want China to know that you flew to Taipei or that your company sold stuff there? I wouldn't either. So it's best not to put anything like that on the table. Ever. Right?
So there's the catch-22. We can't afford to offer the EU reasonable (for them) terms for data-access, and if they grow a pair they won't just give us the data either (which they seem to be currently doing).
Anyone got any bright ideas?
I read that company money transfers will be excluded from surveillance.
So the achilles heel is really that the financial information will give great blackmail opportunities against people who did not pay their taxes but hid their money.
Hey don't blame me, IANAB
What if currency notes are RFID enabled?
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
Yeah, I hear it's a great place to live if you're a white, christian, non-slavic person of northern european descent with a lot of money.
Actually I think having a lot of money would wave most of the other "requirements". Many places are nice to live in if you have a lot of money.
Presumably that's why many people are always try to get 'a lot of money'. If you have it, it's certainly one less thing to worry about.
So how's that working out for you?
Just because you don't agree with it doesn't make it undemocratic.
Irrelevant. You can draw no inference - up or down, red or blue, for or against - about the views of those who do not vote. While apathy is bad in and of itself, the only logical thing to do is to treat them as invalid data and ignore them.
But those two thirds against them were divided among several parties, none of which individually got more. Otherwise, you'd be making the same complaint[1], but against a different party. If there were three other parties with equal shares[2], they'd have over three quarters voting against each of them[3]. That hardly means they have more support than the winner.
Arbitrary and irrelevant geographical distinction. Until we take the U out of the UK by getting rid of Skirtland, Irateland and Wails it's all one general election. I bet Labour won Yorkshire and the Tories had a landslide in Surrey.
I agree with this point 100%.
You may not like first past the post. I like PR (I assume you support this, given that your comments above are typical of those that do) even less.
Just take a look at Belgium (they call it compromise, I call it horse trading) and Italy (PR is what helps keep Burlesquephony in place). In both cases you get a self-perpetuating kleptocracy that's incapable of any reform because it's always better for the politicians to shore up the coalition and keep their snouts in the trough.
[1] Or maybe not. I suspect if your party had won you'd think the system was just fine.
[2] There aren't, but whatever. There are in fact more than three, though some only operate in a limited area and some are "single issue" loons. But I was talking best case (from their POV).
[3] 33% vote for the winner. That leaves 67% to divide between the other three, giving 22% and a gnat's fart each, ergo each one has 78% against them.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Just because you don't agree with it doesn't make it undemocratic.
No, it doesn't. But it's not just me who doesn't support the current government, is it? It's me and two-thirds of the other people who voted.
In any case, you seem to be jumping to all sorts of incorrect conclusions about my political views.
For one thing, there is no such thing as "my party". I am the textbook example of a floating voter, choosing the candidate/party at each election that most closely matches my views. I have voted for every one of our major parties at least once in some election at some level, and none of them much more than the others. And for the record, I don't much like any of them, and I suspect overall the most popular vote I have made is "I am deliberately spoiling this ballot to vote for none of the above but show that I am willing to turn up".
As far as determining who forms the administration, there are certainly advantages to having a single group in charge of setting the legislative agenda, to provide a clear focus. If no political faction commands an absolute majority at the election, then obviously such a directing group would have to be based on either some form of "most powerful minority" system or some form of coallition.
However, to have any claim at democracy (representative or otherwise) any minority-based system would by definition need some sort of ratification/oversight by another group that was representative of the general population, so you can't have anyone forcing through a law that most people actively disagree with. Yes, that would mean that much less legislation could go through and what did get through would often be a compromise. No, I have no problem with that, at least not compared to what we have today where a great deal of what becomes law isn't even close to representing the balance of public opinion. We make way, way too many laws in this country, and having a system so complicated that even the experts can't understand it properly is hardly conducive to justice and the effective functioning of our society.
As for "arbitrary and geographic", you can have the votes back for non-English MPs when we can have the devolved powers and distributed taxes back. At present, the Scottish administration gets to spend far more of UK taxpayers' money than the English one on areas that directly benefit the people, such as reducing prescription charges or subsidising education. Meanwhile, Scotland's MPs get votes in Westminster on issues that only affect the English (because the corresponding issues are devolved to the national governments in other nations). I don't have strong views on devolution or integration within the UK, but right now what we have is an entirely one-sided deal. In short, my distinction is not arbitrary at all: I draw the line where the direct connection between representation, taxation and legislation is broken.
>>>But those two thirds against them were divided among several parties, none of which individually got more. Otherwise, you'd
>>>be making the same complaint[1], but against a different party. If there were three other parties with equal shares[2],
>>>they'd have over three quarters voting against each of them[3]. That hardly means they have more support than the winner.
Hint: Learn about electoral system in the UK before making a fool out of yourself in public.
The UK has a "small electoral districts" + "winner takes all" system.
So, there are a number of issues:
* not all districts have the same number of voters.
* not all districts will have the same level of participation. This gives you the same effect as above even if districts where reallocated all the time to track population to keep them equal sized.
* and if there are more then 2 candidates for one district, you get a situation where a relative majority in the district can win the whole district.
While the system has some positive aspects, being a mirror image of popular vote is not one of these.
As much as I love living here as an ex-pat in Switzerland, you ought to read up on the recent French and German government's public use of stolen secret bank details of "suspected" tax fraudsters using Swiss banking laws to "suspectedly" hide their untaxed revenues. The very same banking laws that were recently reinforced as essential elements of Swiss constitutional law, but which were completely ignored wrt. American arm-twisting, and now Euro-state "thefts/leakages".
The referenda are a great idea in theory, but not always executed intelligently in practice. They had a referendum not so long ago that would legally require referenda to be acted upon within a fixed time frame. I may be wrong, but it was approved, and ironically, has not been acted upon either.
Not to mention the repeated approval through referenda by the populace for decriminalisation of cannibis and it's continuing illegality.
And last, but not least, the airforce is having major re-supply issues too. And I suppose the food is good, so long as you're well off and not a vegetarian. And it dropped to minus 34 celsius in Le Brevin last week. But apart from those things, yes, everything you said is right. Just don't expect to build any minarets if you move here. And 2/3s of the population speak dialects of Swiss-German that can never be written and some of which are almost impossible to learn, even by other Swiss, so social integration can be a bitch. But apart from those things, and exporting weapons of war to any old sod with the cash, and not being able to retrieve political hostages from Libya for years at a span, it's a great place, yeah....
Hint: learn some reading comprehension before making a cunt of yourself in public.
I'm perfectly aware of that. Where did I say otherwise?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I thought we were talking about the system, not the result?
Don't see the relevance at all. All of the UK votes in a UK general election. All of it.
What you did is selected a specific region to support your party political rant that nobody supports Labour. I selected specific regions to prove the opposite. You can prove anything by arbitrarily choosing what data to include.
What do you mean by actively disagree? Are you assuming (again) that anyone not for is against? What about those who don't care or are unsure?
Are you assuming that if less laws get through, it'll be the better ones? How touchingly naïve.
And what makes you think a compromise would be better? The NHS wasn't built that way. Thatcher's reforms didn't work that way.
Compromise usually means the status quo. Or where one of the parties wants to tax foo, and the other wants to tax bar, all taxes go up.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
I thought we were talking about the system, not the result?
We are, but I don't see how you can argue that a system that results in laws being passed that don't have popular support is democratic by any definition of term.
All of the UK votes in a UK general election. All of it.
Some parts of it get more votes than others, though. Scottish voters get to vote for Westminster MPs, who can then vote even on matters that only affect English people because the relevant powers are devolved in Scotland. In contrast, English people do not get to vote for a representative in the Scottish Parliament. Ditto for Wales, and to some extent for Northern Ireland, though of course they have problems of their own. Consequently, nations other than England currently have significantly more representation in government than the English do. How else do you think they get to have all these direct benefits and we don't, when it's all funded from the same tax pot?
What do you mean by actively disagree? Are you assuming (again) that anyone not for is against? What about those who don't care or are unsure?
By actively disagree, I mean actively disagree: the person is not merely ambivalent about a measure, they specifically do not want it.
To give an obvious example, you may have noticed that we recently went to war in Iraq, despite the reservations of just about everyone and the outright opposition by many, according to just about every opinion poll even at the peak, not to mention the literally millions of people who marched in protest in London. If you don't believe in guessing the views of those who don't show up, presumably you saw the march where millions more people turned out to support the war?
Are you assuming that if less laws get through, it'll be the better ones?
In recent history, most new laws have been bad laws. Even if they had the right intentions, they were rushed through and poorly thought out in the details. So yes, I pretty much do assume that if fewer laws got through things would be better. I'm not convinced that we wouldn't be better off if we just did a mass-unwind on all legislation passed for the past X years, for some fairly large value of X.
And what makes you think a compromise would be better? The NHS wasn't built that way. Thatcher's reforms didn't work that way.
You'll have to trust me on this, but you are really trying to convince the wrong person if you are arguing that the way the NHS is run is good. In my recent personal experience, it is poorly organised and ludicrously inefficient compared to the private alternatives. Indeed, it is practically the textbook example of a big organisation that now survives in spite of the way it operates rather than because of it.
Thatcher's reforms didn't work that way.
I'm not old enough to know exactly what you mean there, but as far as I can see Thatcher is another fine example of allowing one very strong personality's wishes to dominate everyone else.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
The number of Scottish MPs was reduced from 72 to 59 following the establishment of the Scottish Parliament, in order to bring us more in line with the average. Scots make up about 8.6% of the population, and we're represented by 9.1% of MPs.
We're still over-represented to the tune of 3 MPs; 56 would bring us closest to the correct proportion. The sparsely populated areas of Scotland tend to be over represented; the already large constituencies in the highlands would be vast otherwise, and the island constituencies don't lend themselves to being increased in size.
I think the issue of Scottish MPs goes some way to prove your initial point. One of the sticking issues surrounding the whole topic of the West Lothian Question has been that Scotland returns a large number of Labour MPs to Westminster. This is more due to the vagaries of the first-past-the-post system than actual voting intentions. It's not particularly democratic.
If you look at the results of the constituency part of the 2007 Scottish Parliament election (which is conducted using FPTP), the SNP actually received more votes than Labour, yet Labour was handed an absolute majority of constituency seats. Obviously you can't draw a direct comparison between this and the 2005 General Election (different constituencies, different voting intentions etc.), but the huge discrepancy between the vote numbers and seat numbers sets alarm bells ringing. Fortunately the Scottish Parliament voting system has the list vote to return proportionality to the system.
Of course the other aspect of the West Lothian Question is that despite the perceived unfairness of it all, there is no real appetite for change in England. Nobody wants devolution. Nobody really wants to change the voting system (and Labour's recent, admittedly cynical, attempts to raise the issue have been shouted down). The solution seems to be a hack-job in the House of Commons where Scottish MPs would lose their right to vote on certain issues*, the bare minimum required that doesn't restore balance to the system as much as complicate it further. More broadly, the solution seems to be to change the government, rather than change the system of government, as if the Tories would behave any more responsibly.
* MPs in Westminster can vote on Scottish issues, and they can legislate on issues under the Scottish Parliament's remit. They tend not to, unless requested to by the Scottish Parliament using a Sewel motion, as it would make a lot of Scots very unhappy indeed and would bolster the cause of the SNP. Indeed, they have the power to disband the Scottish Parliament entirely. This is a power that federal governments such as those in the US, Germany or Australia don't have, but has been used more than once in the UK, to disband the Northern Ireland Parliament and Assembly.
Clearly, Old Europe hate us for our freedoms. Specifically, they hate us us for the freedoms we take with their citizen's personal information.
How shocking.
Of course, underlying a lot of this discussion should be the fact the Swiss banks are bleeding, because the wealthy tax cheats from the U.S. are closing up accounts, and moving them offshore to a 'different' tax haven. This has less to do with privacy than it does with business, or catering to the wealthy. True, the U.S has gone a bit over the edge with its paranoia over terrorists and is dealing with the consequences of selling its soul to international corporations. We have allowed our manufacturing base to disappear, and our economy is based on endless consumption of Chinese made objects. While we have exported our jobs, skills and environmental problems abroad, we have become a nation of undereducated, unappreciative whiners with an absurd sense of entitlement. Our government has become a finger pointing club where representative spend their time blaming or discrediting their opponents, rather than negotiating or cooperating with each other for the good of the people they claim to represent. Freedoms have become secondary to security, in a county founded on the rights and responsibilities of the individual, because of endless fear mongering in attempts to distract people from the fact that the infrastructure of the country is collapsing around them. We can spend money to fight foreign wars, but not to heal sick children or seniors. We can bail out huge banks, but not help small businesses find loans to grow and survive. We have sadly, lost our way, lost the voices of our great newspapers or journalists to remind us of our loss of direction, and are drifting along in an orgy of consumerism and self indulgence. The great news is we can talk to each other about it all the time on our cell phones, which are probably an even greater source of 'loss of privacy' than international banking information....