This is because People behind Desks are not arguing desk cathedra. They don't assert their deskyness is the source of their expertise. Instead they make arguments based on citing laws, and facts and surveys and so on.
It's those arguments which the Minister is avoiding.
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As someone who owns a horizontal piece of wood, behind which I sometimes sit, I can confirm that being located behind a desk is not a method of assuring infallability.
Nor, however, is it a location which ensures that I am wrong until I stand up and step away.
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Now, let us examine the meaning of this new phraseology from a different angle.
The complaint is that People behind Desks are saying things [unspecified] and that those *People* are wrong.
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Just to underline how significant the table stakes were on this decision by the DPC, it- for the first time that I am aware of- wrote to the US Government and asked it to submit observations on its draft decisions.
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The DPC, eventually, brought a proposal to the European Data Protection Board as to what should be done about the misuse of Europeans’ data their investigation had determined had been happening for years.
The EDPB is the group of all the Data Protection regulators in the EU.
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First, a quick look back on the context of this. This came out of the Schrems 1 (Schrems vs DPC) and Schrems 2 (DPC vs Meta and Schrems) Irish High court cases, each of which triggered a reference and decision by the CJEU on the legality of EU data being transferred to the US.
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Today’s EU fine levied on Meta, re transfers of EU personal data to the US contrary to GDPR is large at €1.2bn but significantly lighter than the FTC fine of $5bn against the same firm back in 2019.
In a way, the money is secondary to the orders. ( ftc.gov/news-events/ne )
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They are lawyers, yes, (present company included) but also NGOs, academics and technology experts.
So, by induction we could say the minister’s intent when referring to People with Desks is to equate them to professionals with expertise in the relevant areas.
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We could work by induction- we could examine who the people are who have issued warnings about Real Time Facial Recognition of public places (whether through fixed CCTV cameras on posts or mobile video cameras affixed to Gardaí)
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As he has used the formulation twice in formal statements, it is worth giving what the Minister intends by these words some additional thought.
Who are People Behind Desks?
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The Minister’s War on Desks continues. (Reminiscent of Michael Gove’s statement before Brexit that people were sick and tired of Experts)
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Simon Harris again says it’s very easy for people “behind desks” or on microphones to criticise or second guess the Gardaí.
Says body cams remain on his agenda.
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Dunnes has E-ink signs now, selling toothpaste and painkillers and the like.
It’s a weird choice.
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In January a school in Cork had to contact the Garda after being inundated with complaints based on an anon WhatsApp audio clip stating a child identifying as a cat was using a litterbox. Last year On his podcast Joe Rogan made a similar claim & later was forced to retract it.
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The Editor of the Irish Catholic should be asked the name of this school. Claims about "students identifying" as cats have been a mainstay of the US far-right eco system, they're baseless transphobic hate speech that has already been used to falsely smear a school in Skibbereen.
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It seems there is an inexhaustible supply of credulous rubes right across the English-speaking world who are prepared to believe this story. Versions of which which have been doing the rounds for years now.
read image description
ALT
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Meta is calling a bluff I think it will lose. It can’t offer FB/Insta fully in EU if it won’t comply with our laws? Will it really cut its nose off to spite its face?
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I drew a small picture of Martin Amis for last summer, and less than a year later he died. But this is almost certainly coincidental, and the vast majority of people who I draw small pictures of have nothing to fear, probably.
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I got to see Caspar David Friedrich’s ‘The Sea of Ice’ in the flesh today. It’s a strange, brilliant, violent painting of a shipwreck in the Arctic.
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There is, therefore, no such thing as politically neutral reporting. All reporting is the result of editorial decisions with political consequences.
It is both a comment on, and the exercise of, political power.
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The picture of the men on the road leaving Magowna evoked what it must of felt like for some of my ancestors from Knockanean, Co. Clare.
If I were to research the genealogy of Inch families, we could find examples of how our ancestors sought refuge in other countries.
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As a Genealogist, I decided to see if single men of Inch sought refuge in other countries:
- 1869 ad in Boston Pilot seeking information on Henry Marcom, Inch
Passenger Lists:
- 1912, Peter Collins, Inch
- 1924 Peter Murphy, Inch
- 1930 Martin McNamara, Margowna
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Fine Gael TDs are getting more emails on transgender issues than on the eviction ban, a private party meeting has been told.
Calls for a wider debate within the party on trans issues during what sources described as a “bizarre” and “weird” discussion
More on @Independent_ie
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Ps. Fight the importation of culture wars which distract from mature debate, proper policy development and good legislation. ✨
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Christopher Nolan wishes he could match this plot line.
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The front page Mickey story is nicely metatextual. Art by Vic Neill.
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Something to look forward to for the richest country in the world.
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Our infrastructure investments are getting us closer to a future where every American can turn on their faucet and drink clean and safe water.
It’s about basic dignity.
read image description
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Media incentives are editorial choices. Reporters don’t report everything that occurs with equal attention. Certain outlets have hobby horses and house obsessions. TDs can gain attention if they play to those preferences.
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He seemed to get lost in later works. The Information has some of the same mesmeric prose, turned to address encroaching middle age. The narrator collapsing internally and under siege from without (drivers are “trying to kill my children”).
The Information is his looming death.
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Let’s talk about incentives and reporting.
The TD trying to change the conversation topic said his thing.
Then he got a big picture in the paper.
That’s an incentive.
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Fine Gael ministers received hundreds of emails about evictions, but just 22 about gender and trans issues, before the eviction ban lapsed in April.
One party TD had claimed that trans issues were dominating emails from the public before the ban expired
jrnl.ie/6072239t
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Fine Gael ministers received hundreds of emails about evictions, but just 22 about gender and trans issues, before the eviction ban lapsed in April.
One party TD had claimed that trans issues were dominating emails from the public before the ban expired
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I am sort of surprised to learn that Martin Amis has died. I have a sort of complicated set of feelings about his books. I read most of them when I was young and his voice seemed young too so I just presumed he was still young (like me).
London Fields and Money.
What a pair.
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Weird brain fail there. The committee is the Public Accounts Committee. No appointments were harmed in the making of that transcript.
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Gardaí were called to a People Before Profit stall in Dublin today where it is alleged a man threatened to “slit the throat” of TD Paul Murphy’s wife
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