Bonum Certa Men Certa

When Criminals Make It a Crime to Speak About Their Crimes

Video download link | md5sum 0ec5420818157c7113ab4c89811b739c New Levels of Censorship at EPO Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0



Summary: Gag orders or something akin to NDAs (non-disclosure agreements) are the latest attack on free speech at the EPO; to make matters worse, this is designed to make corruption and crime in the management ranks impermissible to speak about (they make it a taboo or a 'crime' to talk about crime)

THE EPO bribes media and academia and today it openly bragged about it. (warning: epo.org link)



What does it mean for the media when staff representation at the EPO is also being gagged, preventing media from even finding out what's going on inside the EPO?

"What does it mean for the media when staff representation at the EPO is also being gagged, preventing media from even finding out what's going on inside the EPO?"That's the subject of the video above. Based on publications in circulation this week, the censorship has reached new heights. As far as we can recall, even Benoît Battistelli did not do this and this is what António Campinos resorts to after securing (buying) another term.

This is what a report now looks like (just to make a point):

The Central Staff Committee's (CSC) empty letter
The Central Staff Committee (CSC) posts an empty letter in protest



Worry not, however, as there's a canary in this coalmine. Why can the CSC not speak?

In new ommunications entitled "Reward Exercises 2022: "Full transparency" in the Harmonisation Committee" the CSC says: "Our full report on the meeting of the Harmonisation Committee of 27 June 2022 can be found here. It complies with the official instructions given to our observer."

Here's the gag order:

We note that the Office allows the CSC to appoint an observer in the Harmonisation Committee (HC) – even though this is not foreseen in the regulations – to contribute to a transparent rewards exercise. To ensure this transparency, in your capacity of observer, you were invited to attend the HC and were given access to the same confidential information the HC’s statutory members have.

As an observer to the HC, you are also free to report at any time in general terms to the CSC what you observed, including by raising any issue of a general nature. Nevertheless, this capacity of observer does not allow you to share any confidential documents (which served as a basis for the discussion) nor any confidential information with anyone outside the HC (incl. the CSC), neither before nor after the President has taken a decision. In that respect, the obligation of confidentiality applicable to the HC’s statutory members, applies equally to you. Finally, as specifically concerns the rewards statistics report, it is noted that the confidentiality thereof was duly specified beforehand, and not challenged by you either before or during the meeting. This report can therefore not be shared with the CSC.


We saw similar rules when people entered a room to hear the "hearing" about Judge Corcoran. That was a very long time ago.

"We disagree that, under the restrictions set out, the observer is able to ensure any transparency in the procedure at all," the CSC notes. "In this open letter to the President we request reconsideration of his decision to disallow a nominated staff representative to share documents and details of discussions held in said meeting with the rest of the staff representation."

Campinos may be experimenting with a new oppressive approach -- one that ILOAT cannot squash quickly enough, as the video above notes.

Here's what the letter to Campinos says:

European Patent Office 80298 Munich Germany

Central Staff Committee Comité central du personnel Zentraler Personalausschuss

centralSTCOM@epo.org

Reference: sc22097cl Date: 14.07.2022

European Patent Office | 80298 MUNICH | GERMANY Mr António Campinos President of the EPO

By email

OPEN LETTER



Information sharing within Staff Representation



Dear Mr President,

The CSC has been permitted to appoint a single observer to the Harmonisation Committee. In advance of the last meeting of this Committee, our observer was provided with the relevant documentation, along with a statement explicitly forbidding the sharing of the document with the other members of the CSC. In reply to a query from our observer, your services reiterated their position, and stated that the “role [of] an observer is to ensure transparency but does not allow [the observer] to disclose any documents or discussions from the meeting”, and further that the observer is “free to report at any time in general terms to the CSC what [was] observed, including by raising any issue of a general nature”.

In light of this exchange we note the following:

● We disagree that, under the restrictions set out, the observer is able to ensure any transparency in the procedure at all, since the observer is obstructed from effectively informing the CSC. ● We question what information would be considered “general” by the administration. ● We object to our observer being put in the difficult position of potentially disclosing information that the administration later deems to not fit the “general” requirement, and being sanctioned for it.




● We have not been given any justification as to why the documents are not suitable to be shared among the elected staff representatives, especially since they contain merely anonymised statistics rather than any personal or identifying information of individuals.

We are of the opinion that the role of the observer is to report to the CSC the events of the Harmonisation Committee meetings. To effectively do so, the observer must not be impeded with undue barriers. Should any irregularities be identified (for example, unaccounted for funds are identified or disproportionately large bonuses are awarded to a particular subset of staff) the CSC can take appropriate action. Alone, the observer is powerless to act on any findings.

Therefore, we request that the decision to disallow a nominated staff representative to share documents and details of discussions held in said meeting with the rest of the CSC be reconsidered.

Yours sincerely,

Michael Sampels Acting Chairman of the Central Staff Committee


It's clear that Tony 'the f***ing president' (in his own words) Campinos is only getting worse. He gets more oppressive over time. We certainly hope that staff will stand up and oppose this before it escalates further. What next? Banning calls for strike? Remember he's thus far refusing to obey the ILOAT ruling from a fortnight ago. He has not lifted mass-mail restrictions.

Recent Techrights' Posts

Once Again Linux Foundation Makes It Clear It's Being 'Absorbed' by Bill Gates
Linux Foundation devotes about 2% of its budget to Linux
Links 08/10/2024: Australian Fines for Twitter (X), Fake Patent Courts Still Not Scuttled
Links for the day
World Wide Slop
If it quacks like a duck...
[Meme] Driver Issues
Where do you want to drive today?
 
Technology: rights or responsibilities? - Part III
By Dr. Andy Farnell
[Meme] Bill Gates With a Side of "Linux"
Linux Foundation is trolling us with Bill Gates
IBM is a Boys' Club
If IBM collapsed, the Red Hat engineers who work on GNU and Linux would simply work elsewhere (on the same projects)
The Miserable State of GAFAM
Looking for government handouts
Microsoft is Acting Like a Company That's Running Out of Money (But Still Pretends to be Wealthy in Order to Attract or Retain Shareholders)
Azure has had mass layoffs every year since 2020, yet Microsoft keeps telling shareholders that "clown computing" is growing
Dr. Andy Farnell's Article on Societal Disorganised Attachment and the Role of Social Control Media
The article is quite long and typos were still being fixed as recently as last night
Smear Alert: Linus Torvalds Asking for Better Commit Messages Makes Linus a (Grammar) Nazi
Maybe the "mainstream media" is looking for clickbait or maybe it's actively looking to make a scandal - a phony controversy with which to make the job of coordinating Linux unpleasant
Gemini Links 09/10/2024: Climate Doom and Clagrange
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 08, 2024
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 08, 2024
Dr. Andy Farnell's Article on Why Passwords Still Rock
"Seven for a secret never to be told"
The Problem Isn't That New Cars Use Electricity But That They Use Too Many Bits of Electronics
"...and proprietary software wrapped in proprietary APIs and protocols all without a modicum of compartmentalisation," an associate adds
We're Turning 18 in 30 Days
30 days from now the site turns 18
GNOME Foundation Says It's Nearly Broke (Again), It's Getting Rid of More People (Only Women Get the Boot), and It Will Improve Communications and Transparency Even Though It Secretly Ousts People From the GNOME Foundation Board (for Secret Reasons)
It only talks about this months later (under strict gag orders, only public shaming of a person)
Gemini Links 08/10/2024: Guilt by Association, Workers vs Owners
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2024: War Updates, Samsung's Layoffs, and Gemini
Links for the day
Another Dose of Fake 'Articles' About Linux
Don't give visibility to the nonsense of Microsoft
Links 08/10/2024: Microsoft Deleting Office Documents Instead of Saving Them, "Threads Still Sucks"
Links for the day
gemini.techrights.org and techrights.org (Same Server, Not the Same Protocol)
We're reminding readers that everything in this site is fully accessible via gemini.techrights.org in Gemini Protocol
X Has Axed Itself. This is Great News and Further Affirmation of Everything We've Said About Social Control Media.
Don't waste any more time on social control media
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, October 07, 2024
IRC logs for Monday, October 07, 2024
Gemini Links 08/10/2024: Contingency Begets Complexity, Playing With Bezier Curves
Links for the day
Almost Half the Web Users Connecting to Your Site Are Using Linux
almost 1 in 2 Web-connected devices runs Android and about 2% run "proper" GNU/Linux
The Web Has Severe Amnesia Problems, But We Still Remember How Gilberto Gil Promoted Free Software in Brazil
The Digital Tipping Point (DTP) is years behind us now
Synthesised Voices Aren't a New Technology (the Hype Might Be, They Call It "Hey Hi" Now)
I still consider this an extension of the "hey hi" (AI) hype
LLM Hype is Already Descending, Apple Stopped Investing in the Money Furnace
Wall Street is a perverse force in the technology market, incentivising the most harmful (and mostly useless) things
Change Control and What Will Come After Git (If That's Still Possible at All)
It would be wrong to believe (at least misguided) Git can be a "standard" skill 30 or 50 years from now.
On the Web, HTTPS Has Actually Become a Privacy Problem (Broadcasting Usage/Access to the All-Seeing CA Eye). Geminispace Doesn't Have This Problem.
Down to 23 capsules: the rapid demise of Certificate Authority (CA) Let's Encrypt in Geminispace
Links 07/10/2024: Politics, Education, Wars, Financial Crunch
Links for the day
Munich Was Having Real Difficulties Moving From GNU/Linux to Windows
How many are still using GNU/Linux?
Links 07/10/2024:China’s 'Deflation' (Price Decreases), Brazil Still Bars Twitter ("X")
Links for the day
Links 07/10/2024: "Creative Computing" Turns 50, Long War in Middle East Turns 1
Links for the day
Gemini Links 07/10/2024: Luck and Dishonesty, Gaming Getting Worse
Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, October 06, 2024
IRC logs for Sunday, October 06, 2024