EU Will Not Divulge Microsoft Contracts 219
Elektroschock writes "Marco Cappato, a Liberal member of the European Parliament, wanted to inspect the EU's contracts with Microsoft. His request was denied. '...the [divulging] of [this] information could jeopardize the protection of commercial interest of Microsoft.' Apparently the European Council sees no clear public interest in the release of such contractual material, and so 'the Secretariat general concludes that the protection of Microsoft's commercial interests, being one of the commercial partners of the European institutions, prevails on the [divulging] for the public interest.'"
Well that's just a load of BS, lemme tell you... (Score:5, Interesting)
[Blocked] It has been determined that the contents of this comment do not serve the public interest.
-The Secretariate General-
US vs. EU interests? (Score:5, Insightful)
What really fascinates me is that the people high up in the EU governance food chain think that the business interests of a US company is more important to the citizens of the European Union than information about what their money is being spent on.
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except that I think we can guess what some of Microsoft's money is being spent on here.....
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Microsoft pays taxes in every country where it has headquarters... that's at least France, the UK and Germany, and probably most of the other European countries.
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I may be misinformed but in the US, goverment contracts are public except in very narrow situations such as classified military projects and intelligence agencies.
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It's okay. We all learned about this kinda stuff back in primary school - context clues.
Judging from the information at hand, I would say that the message somehow relates to chilled urine.
Does that mean I finally get the first post? (Score:3, Funny)
Guess I won't move to Europe (Score:2)
anytime soon...
What a disappointment!
I guess the request should be accompanied by a request to investigate some misconduct in order to be of clear public interest.
I think the accusation would be enough incentive to open up the contracts. If they don't, it should be considered evidence of misconduct and an attempt to cover it up.
Actually... (Score:2)
...the EU may be correct in this case - depending.
For public projects and the like, sure - the taxpayers have a right to know. OTOH, for military use and various secret services (I don't know if the EU has any of either, but I can see respective militaries and such among member nations pooling VLKs and the like through the EU), there's a lot of things the public doesn't necessarily have a compelling need to know about.
One question though - does the EU disclose contract and/or payment info for any other vend
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I would imagine they would give a response like "please provide more specificity" if they simply felt it was too vague.
FOIA's are that way (you do realize a pretty big trade agreement is the source of all the FOIA-related bills going around country to country nowadays), that was the response I got when I FOIA'd the ACTA agreement before it hit major press coverage...it was only then that I started getting dancing answers about how we can't see that information.
What I'd love to see, is a law stating that you
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What I'd love to see, is a law stating that you cannot refuse to provide information on anything requested from a FOIA, provided that it is specific enough.
"I'd like to have the location of all nuclear missile silos within 25 miles of New York City."
Yeah, that idea needs a bit of work.
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You see though, the problem wouldn't be the FOIA, the problem would be that somehow we are supposedly safer without that information. You think someone can't just find that stuff on the web?
If I google "locations of new york missile silos" you find enough that I'm sure you could dig info on where they are located.
Thus, it's the same viewpoint: not that private citizens should be bound to this, merely our government.
Is the left hand even connected to the right hand? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Is the left hand even connected to the right ha (Score:4, Informative)
So let me make sure I understand ... this is basically the EU equivalent of a United States Senator [Marco Cappato, a Liberal member of the European Parliament] asking the House of Representatives [the European Council] for a contract the House negotiated on behalf of the government and getting denied?
Well yes at least to my understanding that would, unfortunately, be quite accurate.
I'm a EU citizen... I don't like this *at*all*.
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So let me make sure I understand ... this is basically the EU equivalent of a United States Senator [Marco Cappato, a Liberal member of the European Parliament] asking the House of Representatives [the European Council] for a contract the House negotiated on behalf of the government and getting denied?
Actually, I think this is the EU equivalent of a member of the U.S. House of Representatives asking the U.S. Administration (the European Council) for information on how it is spending money.
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The European Parliament would be the equivalent of the House of Representatives. The European Council is a council comprising the heads of state of the member countries.
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At last! congratulations on explaining that this is the Council, whose members are not directly elected to that office but who are there by virtue of being elected in their own countries.
This might also be the place to point out that Cappato is not a Liberal, but a member of Rosa nel Pugno, a socialist party; more specifically, a party of the radical left.
Just go to http://www.rosanelpugno.it/rosanelpugno/ [rosanelpugno.it] for more proof.
Beef.
Nothing new on the EUSSR front. (Score:2)
Not even half a lifetime after getting rid of one sowiet union, we're getting another.
I dont know, every time I read how the EU managed to get away another piece of our rights I wonder, why do these oligarchist fucks cling on to calling their bueraucratic regime a "democracy" at all? Why dont they just proclaim a open dictatorship so I can move to Switzerland finally? How did the swiss manage to be the ONLY nation on earth where the people control their politicians and not vice versa and keep defending thei
Nothing to see here (Score:2, Funny)
(waves hand) These are not the contracts you're looking for. Move along.
Not in their interest? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not in the public interest to know how much public money MSFT is getting and for what? It's a certainty MSFT doesn't want it getting out how much of a discount government agencies are getting, and what other inducements they're tossing in to sweeten the deal. If it gets out gov agencies are paying $50/seat for Windows, every other enterprise customer will want that deal. I'm not sure how keeping that secret is in the public interest...unless they're worried MS will raise the price if it gets out.
If it were up to me...if the taxpayer buys it, the taxpayer owns it. And that would be true for software, or at least for the licenses. Imagine if the federal government could negotiate for government wide enterprise license deals. If the Navy closed a program, they could take the software licenses they don't need and transfer them to the Marines or another gov agency. I always thought it should be that way. What's MS going to do about it? Not sell to the government? Yeah, that would be smart, drive gov adoption of open source.
Re:Not in their interest? (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not in the public interest to know how much public money MSFT is getting and for what?
That's not what is being claimed. The information IS in the public interest -- the argument is that Microsoft's commercial interest is MORE IMPORTANT than the public interest. Which I think is even worse-sounding that what you said.
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No, it's still in the government's interest not to scare Microsoft away from ever bidding on government business because the government can't keep to an NDA.
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Does government have any business having NDAs with respect to anything?
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why was that sale not bid out to other software vendors after you wrote up the specs for the system? That's the problem. You did not choose a lower priced tool, but a common and expensive one. Nobody will know because the total amount of money paid to Microsoft will never be revealed for anybody to contest.
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Thing is that the CALs are purely a money making scheme in the first place.
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It's in the public's interest to know that the people who brokered your end of the deal were trustworthy and capable of striking a fair bargain.
It's not in the public's interest to abuse that negotiator's view into a company's proprietary information.
Companies will simply stop selling your government the things it needs to be more efficient, or will insist on huge fees to compensate for loss of intellectual property.
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As any EU Council member would point it out, your problem is that you think about yourself as "taxpaying citizen".
Now that's completely wrong. Try "serf" instead.
The EU has been marching towards a new feudalism for a long time. It's no accident that when the EU Constitution (that would give the Council even more power and even less oversight) was voted down, it was quickly renamed to 'treaty' so that the people need not be asked about it (except that Ireland was not playing ball).
The EU serves the interests
Stupidest possible excuse (Score:3, Interesting)
Governments shouldn't be allowed to deny access to information of that sort. Oh, we're just signing this in your name and at your expense. What?! You want to see it? Hahaha!
More and more... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ireland was right to say no ... (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why Ireland said NO to the Lisbon treaty.
When you see the response of other EU nations,
you can *feel* the arrogance. Not just to the citizens,
but to smaller nations.
The EU is losing touch with basic democratic principles,
especially the concept of Accountability.
They have forgotten that they are servants of the people,
and need to be reminded.
Yeah whatever (Score:2)
This has nothing to do with the Lisbon treaty; and in fact the treaty would have made the parliament more powerful over the council, so you're just wrong.
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About this reminding... Should we all just send them a postcard, with a big "1789" written on it?
By the way, the system used on Tranai (see Robert Sheckley) is pretty efficient to keep the people's opinion in mind: every public servant has a big seal hanging from the neck. Now every citizen can go to the Voting Booth at any time and press the "like" or "dislike" button by the name of any politician. If there are too many "dislike"-s, then the seal, well, undergoes a very rapid exothermic behaviour, thus mak
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I prefer the syst
And what did you expect? (Score:3, Insightful)
Years ago when the idea of the EU was starting to form into something real, I commented to friends that it had the potential to make something great. I also said that given how governments loved control, it was pretty much guaranteed that they would fuck it up beyond belief. I nailed it (unfortunately).
Compared to what's going on (Score:2)
This is a pretty minor setback. The Parliament and then the Commission have, for example, rejected the three strike BS, as well as software patents in the past, for example.
And on top of that this is just an isolated story without any context. Don't make a mountain out of it. This is probably something that needs looking into though.
Putting Corporate Interests ahead of the People (Score:2, Funny)
Did the Republicans move to Europe?
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Protection of Commercial Interests (Score:2)
Re:What Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything that involves public money and is not a matter of national (or continental, in this case) security should be open to scrutiny.
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Then they could make the excuse that the contracts are a matter of economic security and if your economy turns to crap then so will your national security.
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Signed
Someone who works for a government contractor
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The secrecy may or may not be a bad thing but I doubt that it's there because of some ultra-shady backroom deal, but after the OOXML fiasco, who knows...
"Agreed"???? (Score:2)
This is taxpayer money, all bidding on IT contracts should be open. How else can we ensure the best deal for the taxpayer?
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1. A hostile state, condition, or attitude; enmity; antagonism; unfriendliness.
2. A hostile act.
3. An opposition or resistance to an idea, plan, project, etc.
4. War, acts of warfare.
I see what you're trying to say, but to use a very hypothetical analogy, God may be hostile towards Satan even though God is doing the Right Thing(tm) while Satan is not.
Re:What Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, good god. Just imagine if players in the market were permitted to know current market rates for specific services. It'd be chaos. It'd be terrible. It'd allow vendors to compete on price for government contracts, and result in government potentially picking a less expensive option for using taxpayer money. Heaven forbid. At least we all know that picking Microsoft is the best possible example for slashdotters of a company that should never be put at a competitive disadvantage!
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the REAL issue is what was sold. How many copies, for what terms? What upgrade and support rights?
When the public buys a road they specify how many miles, material, warranty, and when to complete the task.. then offer those terms for public bid. Where is the detailed public bid for Microsoft's contract with enough info to make a value determined by the market.. say from CDW prices.
Re:What Rights? (Score:5, Informative)
They're not talking about BIDS anyhow. (Score:4, Informative)
They're talking about contracts. Signed and sealed deals between MS and the EU. That gives zero competitive advantage to ANYONE, because the deal already went through, and the next time you have to compete with Microsoft on a completely different project.
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[...] next time you have to compete with Microsoft on a completely different project.
Because providing an operating system license for 12000 computers is so completely different to providing an operating system license for 7600 ...
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If you're talking a site license that's 58% than another HELL YES.
What they lose on a per-seat basis, they make up for in bulk.
Not to mention other considerations. Nobody said these contracts were STRICTLY for OS licenses. That was just YOUR assumption, and an indicator that you haven't thought this through, let alone without anti-"Micro$chlock" bias.
Return when you're a little better armed informationally.
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Not exactly, as it's horribly unfair to Microsoft.
I don't think GP was suggesting that Microsoft should be treated differently to any other (potential) government contractor. If someone wins a contract and produces crap, they are liable (depending on terms of contract, I suppose), get a bad reputation and are not hired again. "The market sorting it out", wouldn't you say?
Also, forcing government to make contracts more open should also force them to understand their own systems better: if it is known to all that they are stuck in an expensive contract simp
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I don't think GP was suggesting that Microsoft should be treated differently to any other (potential) government contractor. If someone wins a contract and produces crap, they are liable (depending on terms of contract, I suppose)
Yep. Although it's so expensive to hold them to that liability that it's hardly ever done.
get a bad reputation and are not hired again
Nope. When I was assessing bids under EU contract rules I had to do it according to a strict points scheme, and was specifically not allowed to take past performance of the company into account. I was only permitted to assess the bid based on the actual contents of the bid. That was a few years ago now, but I don't think it's changed.
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last I checked Microsoft is a near monopoly with upwards of 85% of the desktop market. (note they tried to keep Google from getting that amount in search with Yahoo) How is discussing contract terms that represent 85% of the market not competitive. Unless Microsoft is using large contracts sold cheaply to sway other people that can't choose, network effects.
In houses or cars bidding is sealed during sales, but you legally have to post the sale value when you register the property. Then you can see what a
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Yes, it would be unfair to Microsoft. But to be fair, they're not really used to that little thing called competition.
If a company can do the job just as well (or better) for less money, isn't it in the interest of, well, everyone (sans the corps who lose bidding) for that to happen?
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Really? So the public should be able to view your tax returns?
Re:What Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's not the same thing. What he meant by "anything" was "any expenditures". The government should only have income from the taxation of it's citizens. We all "know" it's coming from us, so tax returns do not have to be disclosed to everyone.
ALL expenditures not DIRECTLY related to national security MUST be open to scrutiny. To do otherwise invites corruption into the system.
Already done (Score:3, Informative)
Really? So the public should be able to view your tax returns?
We already have that in Scandinavia, you can search them online or visit the tax office and request them.
The newspapers usually make quite a deal out of it, showing the highest earners for each county and so on.
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The subtitle of this story is: "How much Microsoft was paid to put a backdoor into MS Windows for the EU to use."
Re:What Rights? (Score:4, Informative)
I'm sorry but exactly what kind of enforcement agencies those the EU have?
AFAIK the only intelligence agency is Europol, and all it's investigation are performed by member nations it has no executive rights anywhere as far as I know...
My guess is that EU got a really dirt cheap deal for some software... And promised not to tell others... Like everybody else...
Re:What Rights? (Score:5, Interesting)
*THAT* is likely to be the correct answer. Microsoft plays very fast and very lose with their pricing when threats to their monopoly are encountered. My guess is that their prices dipped to near-zero while they were being prosecuted in European courts in order to help influence opinion about Microsoft... and/or possibly fluctuations may be observed around the time that OOXML was up for ISO vote as well.
Re:What Rights? (Score:4, Informative)
My guess is that their prices dipped to near-zero while they were being prosecuted in European courts in order to help influence opinion about Microsoft...
Are you insinuating that there're any links what so ever between what the European court and the contracts the EU counsel have to buy software?
:)
The judges who convicted MS in the antitrust case were not politicians and they were not publicly elected!
To insinuate that the European court could be bribed by offering cheap contracts to EU counsel is absurd.
(I assume the contracts we're talking about is the software delivery contracts Microsoft has with EU, where EU is a customer).
The real reason it interesting is because the European Union probably did a study as to whether or not an opensource solution would be better. And they probably found that Microsoft suddenly would offer their software for close to nothing... And then the politicians decides that they'll get Microsoft since the price is not that much different... Only problem he doesn't see is the lockin...
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This was interestingly the case he, Capatto asked whether also about the open source study that was withdrawn. The Council says it had no copy and he should rather go to the historic archives in Luxembourg. That is odd.
"...has not keep any copy of the Study. The Secretariat general suggests to ask a copy to the interistututional committee on informatics' archives."
Marco Capatto is also pro-Free Software [europa.eu]
And other MEPs are asking questions as well: Georgios Papastamkos (PPE-DE) to the Commission: Commission's [europa.eu]
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That's a possibility, but MS has denied that the NSA KEY had anything to do with the NSA, and you've got to trust them.
(You really don't have any choice, if you use their software. Not that trusting them is sane, but if you use their software you have no choice.)
Re:What Rights? (Score:4, Interesting)
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'Commercial sensitivity' trumps democratic accountability. That's not right, is it?
That might explain (Score:2)
Why systems keep failing, buildings keep costing hundreds of millions more than estimated...
It's like 700 million's worth of protection for corruption, incompetence, nepotism etc etc etc.
Re:What Rights? (Score:4, Interesting)
In Sweden contractual information has to be made public when dealing with the government, punsihable by criminal law.
Sucks to live in the UK.
Re:What Rights? (Score:5, Interesting)
The US government is actually quite open, more open then you realize. Only when it comes to military/security information US is quite about it. Just tune to CSPAN 1,2,3,4,5... and you can watch most everything that is happening with the legislative area of our federal government, and every law passed or failed. Know what the debate was etc... It is that most of us are to lazy to actually look at the information and say it is a closed government. No they won't tell the general public about their brand new airplanes that can fire a laser at a top secret satellite to have it bounce back and kill a target half way around the world. But for the laws that get passed there is actually good transparency and I bet if you needed to you can find out how much they are paying Microsoft for their licenses.
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I live in the US, so I think you are referring to a whole different country. I won't even attempt to describe what I see/hear every day to which you seem oblivious, maybe I will just post a link to yesterday's news [bloomberg.com]
their brand new airplanes that can fire a laser at a top secret satellite to have it bounce back and kill a target half way around the world.
Not only you don't have a clue at what is going on with the US government, you also watch too much (bad) sci-fi.
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No only do the citizens not have a meaningful opportunity to criticize legislation before it is approved, it is also not uncommon that the legislators don't read the bills before they vote on them, and it's not unknown for there not to be any time for anyone on their staff to read them. How many legislators do you think read the DMCA before it was voted on? The answer is NONE! It was written by special interests, the damn thing is over 2000 pages long (that may be hyperbole...I haven't seen a written cop
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the damn thing is over 2000 pages long (that may be hyperbole...I haven't seen a written copy)
Indeed. I just downloaded a PDF version and it's 59 pages.
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General government stuff is open, yes, but the Bush administration has been wearing down "CLASSIFIED" rubber stamps by the case. That's one of many ways that we are not as "open" as we used to be.
Even back in the day, it might have been like:
"General government [redacted] is open, yes, but the [redacted] administration has been wearing down [redacted] by the case. That's one of many [redacted] that we are not as [redacted] as we used to be."
No longer - now it's Classified So We Can Get The Terrorists And Sa
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They need to protect businesses equally, and if it appears they may be protecting a certain business over others, it does make it look as if there might
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Very good argument, I wish politicians thought like that... unfortunately if they admit to what they paid someone could find the trail of kickbacks.
Don't think Microsoft buys politicians? I was in the room during a campaign when they tried.
Re:What Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that governments have rights is absurd. People have rights. The people have delegated certain tasks to government for their own convenience, and have accepted limits on some minimal subset of their rights so that society can best protect the rest. Note that "society" is not the same as "the government"; the government is just a mechanism used by society to accomplish certain specific things.
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Thank you, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, for your authoritative declaration of the way things MUST be!
Re:What Rights? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Sure. That's what we thought we were getting. But we made some assumptions based on the zeitgeist. The Constitution is way too short to ensure that it comes out right. And for the past eight years, we've seen every loophole abused or filled with mud.
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Blame public education. Somehow in the US (at least in the area where I am at) they have managed to convince many kids that the Constitution grants people rights. Even the most recent election featured many politicians openly stating that the Constitution granted rights to people when it did nothing of the sort. They would then extend this line of thought and talk about how they were going to "give more rights to the people".
It is this ignorance of the US Constitution which politicians rely on. The Cons
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It was in the EULA at the hospital when you were born. Don't come crying to *me* because you didn't read it. Well, you were crying, but for other reasons.
Darn n00borns.
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If that's true, they should have thought of that before they put those trade secrets in what should be a public document then. When a government keeps secrets, that government is obviously betraying the interests of the people it was intended to serve. The sole exception to this - active strategic or tactical information being held by a military in a time of war - doesn'
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I don't really see the problem here, granted some of us might have wanted to know more about the contracts. However it is the right of governments to decide what they make public and not.
They define those rights. "There is no problem because we say so" is not a justification.
And I don't see how the differing views of Americans warrants bearing anything special in mind. I'm from the EU, and outside opinions are just as relevant and welcome as anyone else's. If not more so.
Re:What Rights? (Score:5, Insightful)
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So, in theory, a government that keeps its people in the dark about everything it does is just exercising its "right" to decide what not to make public?
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It isn't a right, it's a policy. And in a democracy or a democratic republic, it takes time and a few million friends to change the policy. You can't do it just by saying you interpret the founding fathers a different way.
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While I can appreciate the EU "sticking it to the man" which can help some of us, in the grand scheme of things using MS products while attacking MS makes them look like hypocr
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And for my American friends remember that we have a different view on things like this, usually European governments are MORE open than the US.
I wonder how this "discussion" will develop..
Hooray for the increased openness of socialism. It's so effective people actually believe it's the governments "right" to decide what to make public.
Military targets (Score:2)
So, tell me, where is the public information on military targets in the US? Or how about some information about the contracts with the military or the CIA? I'm not saying they have the right to hide everything, they do however have a certain discretion not to publish everything all the time.
If the terms stated that the contract was not to be made public - perhaps they had to stand by it?
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What does IT spending have to do with military targets? Before you go spouting off about how much you Europeans value "openness" and how superior you are, you should understand that this would never fly in the US, unless it was specifically related to national security. For example, I wanted to understand how government makes large software acquisitions, so I contacted my local public university, and asked for details about their Blackboard procurement. I met with the procurement team that bought the sof
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However it is the right of governments to decide what they make public and not.
Why? I mean, if the government is feudalism you might justify that by saying that the nobles were more important than the rabble. In a democracy, the government works for the people not the other way around. That means the government doesn't have the "right" to do anything against the wishes of the people.
And for my American friends remember that we have a different view on things like this, usually European governments are MORE open than the US.
Something you apparently don't value, because you think the government should be allowed to be less open if it decides to. Lack of openness in the US government is a problem that needs to be rectified,
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However it is the right of governments to decide what they make public and not.
Have free citizens who let themselves be governed really accepted to give their money to a group of people who don't have to tell the citizenry what they spend it on?
I bet my cousins would do some really great contracting work of an undisclosed nature for me. Send me a check, please.
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"it is the right of governments to decide what they make public and not"
That is insane - the exact opposite of every advance that has been made in government since the Enlightenment. If you give the government the right to total obscurity, that is tantamount to total lack of accountability, and they will use it to hide their corruption completely. In no time at all you will have a dictatorship.
Re:Pitfalls of socialism. (Score:4, Interesting)
How the hell you link this to socialism is beyond my comprehension. I don't think you know what the word means.
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Many companies? Maybe many companies should, but actually doing so is almost unheard of. This has nothing to do with socialism and everything to do with embedded power and interests in social structures.
Also, try suing a company to get it to reveal its contracts with another company. There isn't even the expectation of openness there - I'm not sure where you were trying to go with your second paragraph.
Re:European Parliament (Score:5, Informative)
When has the European Parliament and the public interest ever coincided?
Hum let me think ...
When it voted against the 3-strikes law for downloaders? [iptegrity.com]
When it voted against software patents? [ffii.org]
When it voted for restrictions on the use of radioactive weapons? [beagle17.gnn.tv]
The EU Parliament [europa.eu] can really hardly be criticized, except for the fact that it doesn't have that much power, which in my opinion is a real pity. Go troll elsewhere. [4chan.org]
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It's government for the people alright, their own and their closest friends that is.