Actually the EU Parliament has the power to dissolve the Commission by adopting a motion of censure against the Commission.
By the way, European patent office has already approved 35.000+ software patents from US and Japan alone (ffii.org/2004), however since there is no directive for SW-patents at the moment, they cannot be enforced. Let the directive be approved, American and Japanese companies would drop a lawsuit pile the size of the Moon onto European IT business. Should McCreevy get what he wants, IMHO he should tried for treason. I have NEVER understood why software should be both patentable and protected by copyright.
...Also in Finland. Here you can read from SSN your date of birth, gender (in case you don't know it) and that you were the Nth child to be born that day. In Finland, it takes only about an hour before SSN is assigned to a newborn child. We have an organisation called Väestörekisterikeskus or Population Register Centre, go read there. One of the upsides of this system is, for example, whenever you decide to move, you don't have to file a dozen address changes: all the government agencies get the info from the PRC, for which the filing announcement of address change is mandatory.
I've never thought this system is Orwellian in any way, actually it makes me feel safer about my own identity in society and it is very difficult for anyone to impersonate me, since my SSN is recorded in my bank account details, motor vehicle register, driver's licence, passport, weapon carry permits, ad infinitum.
Also, Finnish ID cards, driver's licenses and passports are incredibly hard to counterfeit.
It's rarely about the system, it's more often about how and to what purposes it's used.
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Actually the EU Parliament has the power to dissolve the Commission by adopting a motion of censure against the Commission.
By the way, European patent office has already approved 35.000+ software patents from US and Japan alone (ffii.org/2004), however since
there is no directive for SW-patents at the moment, they cannot be enforced. Let the directive be approved, American and Japanese companies would drop a lawsuit pile the size of the Moon onto European IT business. Should McCreevy get what he wants, IMHO he should tried for treason. I have NEVER understood why software should be both patentable and protected by copyright.
...Also in Finland. Here you can read from SSN your date of birth, gender (in case you don't know it) and that you were the Nth child to be born that day. In Finland, it takes only about an hour before SSN is assigned to a newborn child.
We have an organisation called Väestörekisterikeskus or Population Register Centre, go read there. One of the upsides of this system is, for example, whenever you decide to move, you don't have to file a dozen address changes: all the government agencies get the info from the PRC, for which the filing announcement of address change is mandatory.
I've never thought this system is Orwellian in any way, actually it makes me feel safer about my own identity in society and it is very difficult for anyone to impersonate me, since my SSN is recorded in my bank account details, motor vehicle register, driver's licence, passport, weapon carry permits, ad infinitum.
Also, Finnish ID cards, driver's licenses and passports are incredibly hard to counterfeit.
It's rarely about the system, it's more often about how and to what purposes it's used.