Open Ministry Crowdsources Laws In Finland

The only drawback by buchner.johannes · 2012-03-01 20:04 · Score: 5, Funny

The only drawback there are only 49,000 citizens.

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NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.

Re:The only drawback by buchner.johannes · 2012-03-01 20:05 · Score: 3, Informative

Of course, kidding, 50,000 is 1% of the population.

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NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Re:The only drawback by mikael_j · 2012-03-01 21:24 · Score: 2

And how is this any worse than someone paying people to vote for a politician who will then make the "right" decisions? I keep hearing this as some kind of "ZOMG DIRECT DEMOCRAZY WILL NEVAR WORK!!1" argument but I just don't see how it's any more flawed than parliamentary elections, if anything it's less flawed since you'd have to convince people to all vote for or against a specific issue rather than to just vote for a politician (who they are likely to not care too strongly about compared to a single issue).

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Re:The only drawback by gl4ss · 2012-03-01 21:25 · Score: 3, Interesting

there's a long tradition of internet "addresses" (petitions) for bitching about things in Finland.
on an interesting note, there's this one minister for whom there's this one petition with over 50k signatures.. to fire her. http://www.adressit.com/adressi_paivi_rasasen_erottamiseksi_ministerinvirasta

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world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Re:The only drawback by zero.kalvin · 2012-03-01 22:31 · Score: 2

Haha! you fool I was willing to sell my vote for a sandwich!

Although nobody is yet able to register support... by solarissmoke · 2012-03-01 20:10 · Score: 5, Informative

There is, however, one obstacle that the Open Ministry and the entire citizens’ initiative law is already facing.
The Ministry of Justice should have a website where people can sign the initiatives. To be legally valid, the signing of an initiative requires a bank identifier code or some other form of accepted online signature to prove the signee is who he or she says he is.
The Ministry of Justice has not even commenced the constructing of such a system. It will not be up and running before the end of the year at the earliest.

Copyright and patent laws reform, here I come by Gaygirlie · 2012-03-01 20:11 · Score: 5, Interesting

This thing could very likely be used for the purposes of doing a complete patent and copyright system reform in small steps. I personally do not seek to completely abolish either, but I wish to bring both of them down to a maximum of 10 years so that people who patent stuff will actually have to also start utilizing their patents and not just hoard them, and copyrights won't keep on benefiting the creator for several lifetimes without them having to do any work ever again.

Do we have any Finns around here on /. that agree? I'm just curious.

Re:Copyright and patent laws reform, here I come by jamesh · 2012-03-01 21:14 · Score: 2

This thing could very likely be used for the purposes of doing a complete patent and copyright system reform in small steps. I personally do not seek to completely abolish either, but I wish to bring both of them down to a maximum of 10 years so that people who patent stuff will actually have to also start utilizing their patents and not just hoard them, and copyrights won't keep on benefiting the creator for several lifetimes without them having to do any work ever again.
Do we have any Finns around here on /. that agree? I'm just curious.
Wait a minute... are you trying to subvert these new laws for good rather than evil? I don't think that's what they had in mind.
Re:Copyright and patent laws reform, here I come by G-forze · 2012-03-01 21:24 · Score: 2

Absolutely. I'm a finn and I intend to submit my idea for an intellectual property tax (that I linked to in another story a few weeks ago) once this project is online
Here it is: http://reengineeringtheworld.blogspot.com/2012/02/taxing-intellectual-property-owners-of.html

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"There's someone in my head but it's not me." - Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon

This has been around for a while by hammeraxe · 2012-03-01 20:21 · Score: 4, Interesting

Something similar has been running in Latvia for a while now. People can sign online petitions that are submitted to the parliament if they get enough signatures. The identity verification is done by logging in with your bank details (as there is no official electronic ID as of now). Some of the successful initiatives include tighter tax control for shady offshore companies and stricter control of whether MPs actually obey their vows.

Re:This has been around for a while by shvytejimas · 2012-03-02 01:53 · Score: 2

Lithuania has this clause written right in the constitution (Article 68): 50,000 citizens of the Republic of Lithuania who have the electoral right may submit a draft law to the Seimas and the Seimas must consider it. (Seimas being the parliament)
Currently there's this new wave of citizen initiatives, including websites promoting government expenditure and transparency, blogs (one is actually called 50000.lt after the constitutional article), petition sites, a website which lets you look up your representative and fire him an email right away, and another, which provides an API to monitor parliament resolutions and voting statistics. But combining the petition sites with real electronic signatures to actually enforce the 68th article, now that's a novel idea. There are already bank logins with two factor authentication. And we've had these European ID cards with biometric data which work as a passport in the Schengen area, and each of these cards have a digital certificate on a chip inside, which can be used for electronic document signing (with a government-based certificate authority) so all that's left right now is to combine the two.
Thank you Slashdot for the idea! I'm off to gather some coders and start changing the world.

Re:Although nobody is yet able to register support by jones_supa · 2012-03-01 21:13 · Score: 2

Probably won't be the thing that holds it back. Bank credentials are commonly used for person identification in Finnish official websites (welfare, taxes, etc). So at least that is possible to implement.

Calculus error by vikingpower · 2012-03-01 21:14 · Score: 3, Informative

The real drawback is that it only takes $250,000 to pay 50,000 citizens $50 each to vote on crazy stuff to put before parliament...

It takes $ 2,500,000 to pay 50,000 citizens 50 each FTFY

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Sellout to special interests by abbamouse · 2012-03-01 21:25 · Score: 3, Insightful

Sounds like a recipe for special interest groups to dominate politics. The same is true of initiative measures in the United States -- they are largely used by well-funded narrow interest groups to advance their agendas at the expense of the public. Indeed, the whole point of the signature requirements is to keep one person (of modest means) from making a difference. As Olson predicted, these schemes lead to the victory of highly committed, well-organized, resource-rich minority positions over the larger but diffuse interests of the public,

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Re:Sellout to special interests by Opportunist · 2012-03-01 23:22 · Score: 2

The propositions don't automatically become law. If you find 50,000 idiots to sign your petition to make Lord Ubuduzul the unquestioned spiritual leader of Finland, it means exactly jack if said proposition gets laughed out the parliament.
For such extremist groups, it's not really a boon. They already can get that kind of attention from politicians. For reference, see the US. If anything, such petitions offer the ability to organize and rally people who don't actually hang onto some minority issues, but have a strong opinion about a certain topic.
Like, say, the currently discussed signing of ACTA. Protest marches are one thing, but do you think these people would actually go out of their way to pursue the defense against it? Are there any "leaders", is there any resource-rich position leader behind it that could organize and dedicate a sizable portion of their time to that struggle? Hell, is it a "minority group" at all that is trying to stop it?

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We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.

Re:That democracy doesn't work. by speedwaystar · 2012-03-01 21:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

you noticed the bit where it said "Parliament has to consider the proposition," not "the proposition automatically becomes law", didn't you?

Re:Although nobody is yet able to register support by Luckyo · 2012-03-01 21:51 · Score: 4, Informative

So I will sign with my banking credentials (pretty much everyone has them here nowadays, they're offered for pretty much any new bank account). You just get a series of links containing "confirm your identity with your bank", click your bank, it takes you to the page of your bank where you enter your banking credentials and confirm that you want to be recognised by that site.

Whole process takes about 30 seconds.

Re:All land between the lines on roads world wide by Luckyo · 2012-03-01 21:54 · Score: 2

You'd still have to have the idea conform to legal framework so it can be presented before the parliament, and then it has to be voted for and approved.

A friendly reminder: This is not US. Finns, and people of Nordics in general base politics around consensus rather then confrontation. This is a very significant difference which makes many "crazy" and by design confrontational ideas nearly impossible to pass.

Re:All land between the lines on roads world wide by Luckyo · 2012-03-01 21:57 · Score: 4, Interesting

In Finland, the most right wing party advertises itself as a "champion of welfare state". They're not really, but even they have to pay at least lip service.

We understand what we pay our taxes for. We have one of the most politically stable, safe, competitive and equal countries in the world. US-style unequal society is viewed with derision at best.

Open development of Open ministry by nonusual+suspect · 2012-03-01 21:58 · Score: 2

Let me add the development of the "Open Ministry" is also open. We welcome all interested developers and pull requests! You can find the source code at https://github.com/avoinministerio/avoinministerio . The tech stack is currently simple Ruby on Rails hosted on Heroku, with few associated tools like MailChimp. At the moment the developers hang out at Flowdock channel https://flowdock.com/, you'll certainly get an invitation by request.

As the service has been just launched we just squash bugs and keep service up and running, and hopefully we'll survive the Slashdot effect (which surely will be toned down by Finnish only website). On the (open) roadmap there are things like

o higher engagement with users by following ideas and discussions, and perhaps
o multi-lingual site (though the nature of online discussions usually work out better in one main language).

Join us, help us! Hack the law!

Re:There is one major drawback, though by hjrnunes · 2012-03-01 22:14 · Score: 2

But how does that not happen with a pure representative system? A lot of people seem to assume the only laws voted for in parliaments are laws that the majority of the population supports. I don't see that. I see quite the contrary: laws go to parliament first, and then the partisan groups start the public "education" campaign to mobilize the people to their positions. Hardly any law representatives come up with is proposed by the People, they come instead from interest groups and lobbies and more often than not they damage public interest. So, look at it as a lobbying system for the People.

Re:Although nobody is yet able to register support by nospam007 · 2012-03-01 22:22 · Score: 2

"You just get a series of links containing "confirm your identity with your bank", click your bank, it takes you to the page of your bank where you enter your banking credentials and confirm that you want to be recognised by that site.
Whole process takes about 30 seconds."

Sounds like a wet dream of the phishing industry.

Re:Switzerland? by BlackPignouf · 2012-03-01 22:28 · Score: 2

Does it work? Yes, quite well.

Some recent examples :
*) Deportation of criminal foreigners
*) Interdiction to build minaret
*) No prescription for child molesters
*) Life sentence for rapists

So yeah, it works great for laws that concern 0.01% of the population but scare 90%.
What's next in Switzerland : lynching for cannabis users?

Re:Although nobody is yet able to register support by tapanitarvainen · 2012-03-01 22:40 · Score: 3, Informative

"You just get a series of links containing "confirm your identity with your bank", click your bank, it takes you to the page of your bank where you enter your banking credentials and confirm that you want to be recognised by that site. Whole process takes about 30 seconds."

Sounds like a wet dream of the phishing industry.

Not really, since the credentials aren't reusable: you have a list of key-value pairs, each used only once, in random order. Moreover, payments require separate confirmation (second key-value match), so even man-in-the-middle attack with identification-only site wouldn't allow stealing your money (well, not that easily anyway).

And next: The European citizens' initiative by Beleglin · 2012-03-02 00:30 · Score: 2

This will be complemented in EU level with the European citizens' initiative starting 1.4.2012:

http://ec.europa.eu/citizens-initiative/public/welcome

The European citizens' initiative allows one million EU citizens to participate directly in the development of EU policies, by calling on the European Commission to make a legislative proposal.

Re:Switzerland? by Kjella · 2012-03-02 01:03 · Score: 3, Informative

Since you seem to be omitting some details:

*) Deportation of foreigners convicted of serious crimes like murder, rape or other grave sex crime, robbery, human trafficking, drug trade, burglary or abuse of benefits. It not like you get deported for jaywalking or shoplifting.
*) Building minarets is forbidden by law, yes. (in English an interdiction is typically issued by a court, parliaments make law)
*) No statute of limitations for child molesters (no prescription is a bad translation)
*) Life sentence for non-treatable, extremely dangerous rapists. It does not apply to all of them.

I think only 2) would fail under the US constitution, 3) and 4) are mostly already so and 1) would probably be possible.

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Re:the public is not to be trusted by 21mhz · 2012-03-02 01:05 · Score: 2

requires the moderation of level heads before being rushed into legislation.

So not the Congress, then.

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My exception safety is -fno-exceptions.

Re:All land between the lines on roads world wide by blind+biker · 2012-03-02 01:18 · Score: 2

That's true. As a Finn, I feel something akin to scorn for a political system that allows part of its population to go without healthcare. Heck, there are millions of *children* without healthcare in the US, and some in the US are even *proud* of that?!

Deeply fucked up, and worthy of scorn.

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"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.

Re:We used to have this in English speaking countr by im_thatoneguy · 2012-03-02 10:30 · Score: 2

We still have this at least here in Washington State it's called "initiatives". If you get X votes it shows up on the ballot.

Unfortunately it's used by a single person to constantly screech to a halt all governance in the state. Every time we decide to do something he goes around and finds enough votes to freeze it until voters approve/disapprove it.

Look we have a representative democracy for a reason. You have to be willing to make compromises and barter what you want with other representatives. If you only ever get what you want then you demand schools double their hours but never provide the funding.

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Open Ministry Crowdsources Laws In Finland

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