Treasons 2

Just in case anyone thought we’d run out of complaints against this European Commission of lackeys and scoundrels, here are a few more Post-its to stick on the fridge before the holidays, so we can kick off September with a bang.

But first, as a bonus, a review.

Today is July 18, and yesterday I went to see Nolan’s "Odyssey". My measured opinion is that if hehad cast the Muppets for it, the result would have been a less ridiculous movie.

"Odyssey" is the living proof that with a $250 million budget, the best director around, and a stellar cast, you can still produce an unwatchable piece of crap that’s also a deadly bore.

At one point I said to myself, “Jesus, is this ever going to end?” Exactly 36 minutes had passed. The movie runs two hours and 52 minutes.

Now:

1. I can admit the appalling casting choices because woke sells;
2. I can overlook the mixed-race, teenage "sky-blue-eyed Athena", the black-skinned "Helen with white arms", and the bald, black-bearded, "blond Menelaus" because after all we need not be literal;
3. I can take it in stride that Agamemnon is dressed as Batman throughout the entire movie;
4. I can put into context an Odysseus incessantly whining as if Troy were Vietnam, even though I burst out laughing at the line “our Bronze Age is coming to an end,” (and it wasn’t the first time);
5. I can look past the absence of the Lotophagi, the Phaeacians, Nausicaa, and the trick on the Cyclops;
6. I can temporarily suspend judgment on the absence of the gods, if only to conclude later that it all turns into a second-rate Disney fairy tale
7. I can consider it a stylistic choice that, despite the costumes, the characters and dialogue are better suited to a bourgeois drama from the period when Woody Allen thought he was Ingmar Bergman than to a tragic myth from the first millennium B.C.;
8. I can grit my teeth at a Telemachus who calls Odysseus “Dad”;
9. I can bite my tongue about the Greeks rowing in helmets and armor throughout the entire movie to show that they’re warriors—otherwise Pete Hegseth will say this is *The Gay Love Boat*, not *The Odyssey*;
10. I’ll only spare the perimenopausal nymph, Calypso, and not because Charlize Theron, even at eighty, will still be the most terrifyingly magnetic and captivating woman on the planet, but because she’s the only one on screen who actually acts and has stage presence.

But what I absolutely cannot accept is taking the greatest story ever told and turning it into a movie that’s not only boring but completely devoid of any pathos.

But go see it for yourselves, and make up your own minds. Oh yeah, the set design and cinematography are beautiful. Too bad that if you find yourself noticing those, it means the movie isn’t there.

And now let’s move on to serious matters.

In the last episode, I listed as treason the extension of exceptional investigative and surveillance powers (including facial recognition) to Frontex, the European agency responsible for external border controls.

As for internal borders, however (which the Schengen Agreement was supposed to dismantle) too many member states continue to invoke emergency conditions so they can do as they please. Take Germany, for example, which (ever since Schengen came into existence) has requested six-monthly exemptions on security grounds almost non-stop. Just how absurd these security demands are is immediately apparent: traveling from Italy to Germany via Austria? Border check as soon as you enter Germany. Traveling from Austria to Germany? No check at all.

And Germany isn’t even the only one, even though it’s the example I stumble upon every time. A Commission worthy of the name would have taken action years ago, because Schengen is one of the greatest achievements of European integration, and we’re throwing it away just to appease a bunch of racists in Parliament and in the electorate.

And that’s just regarding the borders. But we mustn’t forget that Europol, too, is piling up one exception after another just to carry out mass surveillance on European citizens and, not content with these, has built a shadow system of databases and applications to flout the limits on data retention and processing set by the GDPR and continually reaffirmed by the European Data Protection Supervisor. In this case as well, a Commission worthy of the name would give the European Data Protection Supervisor the political and financial backing to pay Europol a visit armed with a large stick; but heaven forbid that von der Leyen and her Commission of lackeys should do anything to enforce European laws in Europe.

Still on the subject of border relations, there is the increasingly surreal relationship with the United States. The cornerstone of the scandal is the request for Europe to share its citizens’ biometric databases with the United States, so that EU citizens can continue to enjoy the great honor of traveling to that barbarian country without a visa.

There are a few problems:

• the first is that you can process my biometric data only when I hand you my passport, not otherwise;
• the second is that once biometric data is accessible to the US, goodbye, data protection limits, they’ll profile us to the hilt and then some, and then, of course, the inevitable data breach will land the data in anyone’s hands;
• the third is that we already have an agreement allowing us to travel to the U.S. without a visa, and Trumpland is, as always, changing the rules of the game.

Now, personally, I won’t set foot in the U.S. again until they’ve gotten over this bout of fascism that began in 2001. Which means I presumably won’t be going back there ever again. But even if I wanted to, I don’t see why I should compromise fundamental data and throw personal data protection out the window just to save the cost of a couple of visits to the consulate.

Let’s remember that the U.S. is also that “democratic” country where, to enter, you have to give the authorities access to all your social media accounts so they can make sure you’ve never said anything they don’t like (like for instance that Trump is an idiot and that Congress is a herd of sheep). Stuff like that makes you long for the Soviet Union’s KGB.

Regarding access to biometric data, the U.S. has set a deadline of December 31, a deadline that is, to all intents and purposes, an ultimatum, and the outlook is bleak, especially if one recalls the “wonderful” negotiation through which von der Leyen secured permanent 15% tariffs from what is supposed to be an ally.

The European Parliament is currently on recess, but as soon as it reconvenes, it will need to make its voice heard on this issue—and on all others concerning the United States.

Still on the subject of the United States, there is the now-surreal issue of the free flow of data between Europe and the United States—the so-called EU-US Data Protection Framework—which, according to the European Commission, guarantees that the U.S. substantially meets the protection standards required by the GDPR.

The agreement on the free flow of data between the U.S. and the EU, whatever its name, has always been a farce. So was the Safe Harbor, which was struck down by the European Court of Justice’s Schrems I ruling. So was the Privacy Shield, essentially a carbon copy of the Safe Harbor hastily put together by the von der Leyen Commission (the first one) and struck down by the Schrems II ruling.

And so is the current EU-US Data Protection Framework, which we expect to see struck down by Max Schrems’s third appeal to the European Court.

The situation is simple: U.S. law grants intelligence agencies virtually absolute discretion in accessing personal data, particularly that of non-U.S. citizens. This access is only nominally subject to judicial oversight, as required by European law, because FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) courts effectively limit themselves to rubber-stamping whatever is presented to them, as if they were in a Hollywood crime drama.

Not only that, but since requests for access to data are secret, the right to recourse required by European law is purely theoretical—in the sense that a European citizen doesn’t even have the right to be heard or to have their own lawyer, but the verdict, strictly without justification, is communicated to them after the fact.

As if that weren’t enough, the so-called independent court that rules on these matters currently consists of a single member (a Republican, since Trump fired all the others) and is so “independent” that it’s effectively an extension of the State Department.

According to von der Leyen, this pathetic sham guarantees that Europeans’ personal data, once in the United States, will retain the same level of protection they have in Europe under the GDPR. I don’t know what von der Leyen is smoking, but it’s clearly too strong for her.

There’s no point in rambling on about digital sovereignty if we don’t first acknowledge that European personal data in the hands of U.S. companies has less effective protection than if it were in the hands of Chinese companies.

And finally, there’s the issue of Israel, and more generally, the EU’s role in foreign policy. Specifically, I’d like to know whether the EU even has a foreign policy or whether we simply do whatever Washington tells us to do.

Because if we all agree that Putin is bad and evil because he invaded Ukraine (blithely ignoring why he did it and who funded the situation to reach that point), then where are the sanctions against Israel for the genocide in Palestine, and against Israel and the United States for the aggression against Iran?

Because either we clearly state that condemnations and sanctions are imposed—or not—depending on the moment and who’s involved, and in that case, I may be fine with it. Even Andreotti used to say that laws are applied to enemies and interpreted for friends. But if in September I still hear the same old litany of values, dear Commission, then I reserve the right to give you the finger.

Specifically, I would like the EU to take at least one small step and revoke the trade cooperation agreement with Israel, in light of the blatant genocide in Palestine. It wouldn’t be much, but it would be a gesture, given that the Commission prides itself on defending the absolute values of human rights and the self-determination of peoples when it comes to white Ukrainians, yet then mysteriously adopts a strict realpolitik when it comes to the fifty shades of brown in Palestine, throughout the Middle East, and along the refugee routes fleeing U.S.-backed wars.

There you go. I’d say that if we start checking off the list on September 1st, then by the 8th (when Season 11 kicks off) we’ll be all warmed up and won’t risk strains or muscle spasms.