exactly!which is why, however you put it, with parliaments or with referendums, or with any other kind of "democratic" tool, the basis of democracy is information. When people/media have advantages in something, they will be biased, making democracy actually an oligarchy. If I was Swiss, I would try to understand who is selling me this information. Who is behind this wanted "misinformation"? Most of the time it boils down to people having interests in certain companies. Can it be that, let's say, that most newspapers are "getting convinced" by authorities? Just saying, of course.

They had a public debate, as is the tradition before every referendum, and the assertions and assumptions being presented by both the head of the secret service and the politicians backing it up were incorrect. Technical assumptions were incorrect. The technical capability was misrepresented.

One of the main arguments for this initiative was that the secret service would only be allowed to look at the packet traffic of the affected target, but the reality is that in order to capture just that traffic, all packets are captured and filtered out first; also, there is no technology in existence to prevent the secret service to packet capturing everything.

This, however, was never stated or addressed in the public debate.

Also asserted was that the secret service has and will have good oversight of all activities. The committee consists of only five people. And these people are all politicians currently in the government. If you just look at checking which TCP/IP packets were captured, that's already way too much work for five politicians in the oversight committee. This was not addressed at all either.

Using encryption was not addressed. The fact that the secret service would be legally allowed to break into people's systems was not addressed in the public debate. Most of the debate revolved around whether the government spying on its citizens is correct in principle.

Technical capability and what is possible today were never discussed.

How the suspects would be identified was declared secret, with nobody except the oversight committee of those five politicians being allowed an insight into it.

So, I stand with the previous poster that people did not know what we know, and they voted based on incorrect assumptions and misrepresentation or outright omission, whether unintentional or intentional, of technical capability and facts.

Benjamin Franklin's quote seems very appropriate in this case:

those who would trade liberty for little personal safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

Your response really doesn't say this. It's just a bunch of opinion and says "i wish they had presented additional info i believe matters". That falls squarely within the studies i pasted, which show both that people always think this would change result, and that people are pretty much always wrong when they think this, and that it does not change results.

"One of the main arguments for this initiative was that the secret service would only be allowed to look at the packet traffic of the affected target, but the reality is that in order to capture just that traffic, all packets are captured and filtered out first;"

This is not necessarily true of course. You can, in fact, filter on the fly if you want to. Deep packet inspection at link speed is a thing.

"also, there is no technology in existence to prevent the secret service to packet capturing everything."

In what sense, exactly?

You can make this happen at the level that any such thing would be noticed immediately, and would require incredible numbers of people to conspire. You can make it audited by as many independent people as you want.

If you mean "there are always ways around this if enough people conspire", that is a generally true statement about the world, and people already know this. Again, the fact that you think this matters very heavily, and others do not, does not make everyone else ignorant or misinformed.

"Also asserted was that the secret service has and will have good oversight of all activities. The committee consists of only five people. And these people are all politicians currently in the government. If you just look at checking which TCP/IP packets were captured, that's already way too much work for five politicians in the oversight committee. This was not addressed at all either. "

This is a strong opinion/prediction of yours (along with some casual classism and denigration of "politicians" for no reason), and may or may not turn out to be factually correct. This is not a misrepresentation on anyone's part, and is certainly not falsifiable yet. It sounds like an objective presentation was made of the plan. You disagree with the viability and usefulness of that plan. That, again, is not a misrepresentation or omission. It simply means you have a possible difference of opinion with others as to the viability. I don't even see an argument for what "additional" data was missing here, just that you don't like politicians and think they won't be able to keep up.

"Using encryption was not addressed. The fact that the secret service would be legally allowed to break into people's systems was not addressed in the public debate."

But known and objectively presented from all things i can find. I know you can't believe people would be okay with such a thing, but it's entirely within the realm of possibility that people are indeed okay with such a thing.

"Technical capability and what is possible today were never discussed."

This is an opinion.

"How the suspects would be identified was declared secret, with nobody except the oversight committee of those five politicians being allowed an insight into it."

Where's the misrepresentation or missing data?

"So, I stand with the previous poster that people did not know what we know, and they voted based on incorrect assumptions and misrepresentation or outright omission, whether unintentional or intentional, of technical capability and facts."

I strongly disagree, at least based on what you've presented.

These are not misrepresentations, they are simply "presentations that did not present it from your point of view". That is not misrepresentation, because you are not the source of absolute truth. It's misrepresentation if it wasn't presented objectively false or misleading, not subjectively false or misleading. Pretty much any controversial thing that is voted on that a given set of folks disagree with is considered to have been presented subjectively false or misleading by those people.

You also added "incorrect assumptions". You are basically offering opinions that you think others opinion's are wrong. Certainly you must realize you are not necessarily right? You can't simply say "everyone else's assumptions are wrong, and therefore they are ignorant", when your assumptions are based on opinions about the state of the world.

Past that, IMHO, you've not made an effective case that people were ignorant here.

You've instead made an effective case that the studies i cited are correct, among other things.

Thanks for this. I couldn't agree more. The way political discourse works at the moment is worrying. America is in the spotlight for this, but it happens in europe too. Entrenched camps diagnosing each other with all kinds of mental deficiencies without discussing the actual topic at hand.

Probably because it's true in most cases. Most people don't have a deep understanding of even a single issue, let alone multiple.

This could have very well been another "Brexit-like" vote in Switzerland, where people were just scaremongered into voting for the law without understanding all of the implications.

As far as i'm aware, research studies basically show that providing more facts one way or the other only makes people's convictions stronger. It doesn't change their minds that often. It's actually incredibly hard to change people's minds.

Now, you are free to argue this is completely irrational, and i'd 100% agree. But it does mean that people know what you know and understand what you understand and still disagree. Whether that makes sense to do so or not.

See, e.g., http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/psp/37/11/2098/ and pretty much every study since.

Another example: http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v2/n10/full/nclimate1...

"Members of the public with the highest degrees of science literacy and technical reasoning capacity were not the most concerned about climate change. Rather, they were the ones among whom cultural polarization was greatest. This result suggests that public divisions over climate change stem not from the public’s incomprehension of science but from a distinctive conflict of interest"

Like I said, i'd strongly argue comprehension is not the problem. Until people realize that is the case, and stop just dismissing anyone who disagrees as ignorant, nothing will change.

Or maybe you are wrong about the brexit vote too?