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lucideer
x775
Ultimately, both the EU Council and the European Parliament must agree on legislation for it to pass. The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process, effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments. Both have to agree. In the case of Chat Control, Denmark, as the current EU Council Presidency, revived the proposal (after it previously failed to reach agreement during both the Belgian and Polish Presidency). In order for this to pass at the Council level, at least 15/27 member states must support it. If this were to happen, it would then reach the European Parliament and would have to be approved there as well. However, as support at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions (supported further by Denmark's insistence on an expedited vote scheduled for October 14), it seems prudent to target beyond merely the Council-level.
sampo
> The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process
The EU Parliament doesn't have equal legislative power. EU Commission proposes legislation, and the parliament can only accept or reject. Of course informally they can discuss with the Commission and let the Commission know what they would or would not pass.
> effectively representing the citizens while the Council represents the member states governments
This is true. But you maybe forgot another body, the EU Commission.
EU Council, Council of the EU: Represent member states
EU Commission: Represents the EU
EU Parliament: Represents the citizens
I guess US doesn't have a body like the EU Commission, that is not elected and that represents the interests of the "deep state".
andrepd
> The EU Parliament doesn't have equal legislative power. EU Commission proposes legislation, and the parliament can only accept or reject.
Note that this means that, crucially, the Parliament also cannot repeal laws. Which means that they can just try and try and try again, and if it passes once, it cannot be withdrawn except by initiative of the commission.
It's like the IRA said to Thatcher, you have to be lucky every time, they only have to be lucky once.
cccbbbaaa
> I guess US doesn't have a body like the EU Commission, that is not elected and that represents the interests of the "deep state".
The Commission is the executive branch, so maybe an equivalent would be the Executive Departments?
lucideer
To be clear, I wasn't saying Parliament wouldn't have a say - mainly pointing out that the website's information about MEP's current position on the regulation is incorrect.
like_any_other
> The Parliament acts as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this process
I think that's misleading. Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, only the Council can propose legislation, while the Parliament can only accept or reject the Council's proposals [1]. Meaning that the Parliament can neither change nor reverse course - it is completely decided by the Council. All the Parliament can do is limit how fast that course is followed.
Edit: Sorry, what I wrote about the "Council" should have been about the "EU Commission" instead. The Council may in fact have equal power, as you wrote.
[1] Which I think (but was unable to explicitly confirm) extends to removing old legislation. I.e. the Council only has to get its way once, and then we're stuck with a law, unless the Council proposes to remove it. A ratchet.
sampo
> Correct me if I'm wrong, but as I understand it, only the Council can propose legislation, while the Parliament can only accept or reject the Council's proposals [1].
EU Council (Meeting of EU countries' head of states): Proposes what should be done
Council of the EU (Council of ministers of EU countries): Proposes what should be done
EU Commission: Proposes legislation
EU Parliament: Approves legislation
Nemo_bis
You mean the Council of the EU. The EUCO is a separate body. SCNR.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/decision-makin...
beberlei
Came here to say the same thing, confused how a website like this can be made, the people behind it must have not understood how the EU works.
If Germany is listed as "Undecided" then this is in the Council. The 96 MPs are from a wide spectrum of parties and most of them will already be either for, or against this.
elric
IMO this kind of pedantry detracts from the message. We know that the EC is pushing it, but the EC does not represent the people, that's the job of MEPs. Thus a list of MEPs from countries, colour coded by whether or not the country is known to support the position. And optionally a marker for their personal opinion if known.
munksbeer
> but the EC does not represent the people, that's the job of MEP
The European Council is the heads of each member state. They are literally the people elected by each nation state domestically. If they don't represent the people, then that means national democracy is broken (which I agree with in cases like the UK) but I'm making a more general point.
Yeul
The Dutch Prime Minister is not elected.
The Netherlands is a very complicated country.
elric
I wasn't talking about the council, but the commission. The acronym confusion is unfortunate.
Point is that these people are very far removed from elections and political consequences. They also seem to be the types who have no idea what "normal" people are like.
joks
The whole site has that vibe-coded-website look. I wonder if a lot of the information on the site was essentially hallucinated too.
josh2600
This is actually one of the major fights of our generation.
If signal/whatsapp/e2ee are desecrated, only criminals will have encryption for a short period of time until we all come to our senses and realize that some semblance of personal privacy is a human right.
IMHO, we should fight for the maximum amount of privacy possible within the context of a civil society.
In every generation there is a battle, sometimes quiet, other times a dull roar, and occasionally a bombastic. This battle is who can oversee who.
Surveillance should be the last resort of a free society.
mvieira38
> "whatsapp"
Please don't include it in this conversation. That app is spyware and collects enough metadata on you for actual conversations not to matter, proven by them being bold enough to introduce personalized advertising inside the "e2ee" app
immibis
Also it uploads all your decrypted chats to Google every week.
msgodel
It sounds to me like the Europeans need to have an actual fight (that is with bullets and artillery) with this weird EU pseudo government thing. It sounds like a loss for them to me.
Tainnor
The UK left the EU and is pushing very similar sorts of dangerous nonsense legislation when it comes to the internet, so this is clearly not just a EU thing.
miroljub
Many Europeans just wait for the Russia to come and save us from the totalitarian regimes once again.
kvgr
There is no alternative is there. Russia bad for obvious reasons. EU rules getting more and more tight. Lets see what happens with digital euro and forced investing in EU markets. Eu is ruled by gerontocrats and detached leftists. The extreme right is not solution. Most of EU MPs from small countries are literal nobodies, just bench warmers.
phendrenad2
The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself. We will effectively be rewinding time to the 1980s, when the only news sources were controlled by oligopolies, and dissident voices were simply not given a platform.
That might be fine in a world where every country is on-board, but now that the internet exists, countries with anonymous free speech will come out ahead.
Here's a darker thought: The pre-internet US and UK had a crime problem. Crime was spiking through the 1980s and 1990s. People were disaffected, jaded, they felt that the halls of power were captured by corruption and their voice didn't matter. This is the environment that gave us the original Robocop movie, a hyper-violent celebration of the commoner over both criminals and corrupt government institutions.
The internet economy revitalized the western world and helped us pull out of the crime doom spiral. Without that miracle, we were probably on track for ruthless Duterte-style governments, if not something worse like fascism.
Anyway, I predict that the EU will stop short of actually passing this into law. They're not stupid, and they just want "good boy points" for trying (not from the voters, of course, but people with real political power).
themafia
> The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself. We will effectively be rewinding time to the 1980s, when the only news sources were controlled by oligopolies, and dissident voices were simply not given a platform.
No, in the 1980s, dissident voices had platforms. They weren't "mass media" platforms but they definitely had radio shows, periodicals and various publishing channels to disseminate their publications and broadcasts. They were incredibly important in those days, and those sources held some amount of power, in that they could expose a story, and effectively force the rest of the media to cover a subject or event they otherwise would have ignored.
This is worse in every way as it /completely/ locks them out the modern market of ideas that is the internet and ensconces prior restraint into law in a way that violates the civil liberties of every citizen, whether they are the publisher, or the consumer.
We have lost control of the internet. Those who have control intend to turn this world back into a fiefdom with their newfound power. They are otherwise working to keep the rest of the population in fear and distracted. I'm genuinely afraid our past luck will fail to hold out. They've spent 20 years to get to this point. I don't see them giving up.
wraptile
> The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself.
This would just end anonymity for normal people. All of the bots and bad actors will have no problem with comitting a crime because they are literally criminals.
munksbeer
> The end of anonymity online basically means an end to the internet era itself.
In no way do I support this surveillance society, or legislation, but I just wanted to make a casual point. I'm from a country where the internet first came through universities, and I was privileged to be there at the time. Those early days when it was just university students (and other staff) communicating over IRC were, nostalgically, wonderful. And everyone knew who everyone on IRC actually was in real life. Sure, there were the usual flame wars and some trolls, but it felt personal and, just good.
I'd love to go back to those internet days - bit of course I'm aware that is an elitist attitude, because I was part of the "in group" at the time.
phendrenad2
I just missed those days. But what most people miss about it was not necessarily that everyone had their name attached (or easily findable). What people miss about those days is the quality of discussion online. Because it wasn't a random sampling of the population, it was a sampling of the most tech-savvy academics from around the world.
I don't know about you, but I think I prefer the knock-on effects of internet-for-everyone.
marcus_holmes
I think they'll pass it into law, and then find it's effectively unenforceable, same as all the other similar laws (the UK is busy discovering that age verification laws promote VPN use that circumvent all enforceability of any UK internet laws).
The authoritarian mindset that thinks that making something illegal will stop people from doing it, doesn't really grok how that just doesn't work.
SchemaLoad
Crime was spiking in those decades because everyone was getting pumped full of lead. Not because they didn't have anonymous reddit.
seydor
people still have a need to speak freely. There are alternatives to the mainstream internet, and maybe we ll be better there
thrance
Not a defense of chat control, which I am very much against, but can you really claim that the internet gave "dissident voices" a platform?
Media is arguably even more tightly controlled than in the 1980s, legacy media is owned by a few billionairew, right-wing influencers are all paid hacks, with a lot of them relaying pro-Russia propaganda. Meanwhile, genuine independent journalists are buried under algorithmic nonsense promoting ragebait and hate.
The internet very much failed to deliver a new era of feee speech. Instead, our conversations are now hosted on a few platforms and controlled by the oligarchs that own them, who are able to editorialize out dissenting voices and promote their own disgusting viewpoints.
tomgag
I'm Italian. On my side, I did what I could do: I emailed Italian politicians explaining why they should reject the proposal. A drop in the ocean, and far from impactful, but if it can change the odds even by an epsilon, why not?
https://gagliardoni.net/#20250805_chatcontrol
Big politics is not my thing, so for me the big effort was: 1) understanding who, among the zillions of politicians we have, could have a direct role in the decisional process and how; 2) searching and collecting the email addresses; and 3) funnily enough, picking the right honorifics (for example, I was not aware that "Onorevole" is reserved only to certain figures in Italian politics).
I shared the resulting effort on my website, in the hope of making life easier for fellow Italians who want to do the same.
amarino
Thank you for sharing this, it saved me quite some time and I coincidentally found a great resource (your blog).
Centigonal
In the US, we have government programs like PRISM and unchecked oligopolies that surveil us and use that information to identify dissent, sell us ads, and alter our behavior. In the EU, there are these initiatives to surveil us in the name of safety.
Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
ragmodel226
This is a defeatist and damaging attitude. It detracts from the core issue at hand, which is EU government forcing code being run in private messaging apps over data before it is encrypted. It defeats the security model of end to end encrypted messaging, and leads to a society that cannot trust its communications against government interference ever again.
One can criticize analysis of mass surveillance of metadata and encrypted channels, but this is something else.
protocolture
Australia already has this capability and is likely using it for 5 Eyes nations. Questioning the desire to surveil seems on topic when this is pretty much everywhere already.
ragmodel226
Australia can’t get technical capability notices for anything that matters, maybe some local trash only. (Don’t use Australian software or products folks).
American tech will tell them to pound sand, and you got another international incident in the media.
fc417fc802
> In the US, we have government programs like PRISM and unchecked oligopolies
In the US we also enjoy probably the most expansive protection of speech in the world at present. Our own government created Tor. Yet simultaneously the majority of the population willingly hands over the minute details of their daily lives to half a dozen or more megacorps for the sake of some minor conveniences. It's beyond perplexing. I suspect we may be the most internally inconsistent civilization to have ever existed.
immibis
It's consistent when viewed from a perspective of accountability evasion. They don't need to make actual anti free speech laws, because you already don't have free speech without the laws. And by not making the laws, they get to claim they give you free speech.
SilverElfin
In the US, violations of civil rights that are performed by officials (like legislators) can be prosecuted under something called color of law. I think it is rarely done, if ever, but the justice department could do it. Maybe Americans need to start pushing their own representatives to call for such a case in situations where individual rights are violated.
Is there something like this in the EU, so that officials feel personal risk and liability for their actions in pushing this anti democratic policy?
thallium205
The punishment can include the death penalty too.
chr15m
The price is liberty is eternal vigilance.
Just as you must work each day if you want money, you must oppose tyranny each day if you want liberty.
They will always want more power over you and you will always have to fight them because of that.
nosioptar
I'm unaware of Sealand[0] engaging in surveillance against its citizen.
thaumasiotes
With only one citizen, it would seem that the government of Sealand must necessarily be watching everything he does at all waking hours.
JumpCrisscross
> Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
The one where citizens don’t regress into comfortably lazy nihilism as a first response.
dachris
Power wants to stay in power.
In a healthy society, citizens should always be wary of those in power and keep them on their toes, because power corrupts (and attracts already problematic characters).
Not driveling when they get thrown some crumbs or empty phrases ("child safety", "terrorism").
ncr100
The Catholic Church is not for surveillance, afaik.
Join Vatican City!
jlengrand
*EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy.
This alone tells me which way I should weigh in on this law. They know what they're doing.
andrepd
The notoriously opaque EU institutions would sooner insist on reading your every message than actually be transparent themselves. This is beyond satire.
arresin
Does it persist when they leave office?
101008
I was very pissed at this, and when I read this part I couldn't continue, it boiled my blood.
> *EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. You and your family do not. Demand fairness.
amarcheschi
If it hasn't been changed, not only politicians but law enforcement officers too would be exempt
This is one of the many abuses by Leo(s), part why I don't love and trust police in italy: https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatti_del_G8_di_Genova#p-lan...
I thought there was an English Wikipedia page but there isn't, translate it
jaharios
A lot of actual pedophiles will be exposed if it was used on politicians, we don't want that.
echelon
While we're talking about corrupt politicians, why is this all happening all at once?
America, Great Britain, and the EU are all creating tracking, monitoring, and censorship regulations. All at the same time.
We're turning the internet into the 1984 inevitability it was predicted to become.
We need a Bill of Rights against this. But the public is too lay to push for this. Bolstering or eroding privacy rights will never happen in the direction we want, only the one we don't. It's so frustrating.
vaylian
There's lobby organisations that try to influence politicians in different countries: https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...
api
For over a decade now there’s been a huge global shift toward authoritarianism, and to some extent it’s grassroots. My speculation is that this is a time of unprecedented change and that scares people. We also have aging populations due to lower birth rates and older people tend (on average) toward nostalgic reactionary politics.
Aerroon
I think the UK (and EU) have been at this for a while. The UK pushed for the Data Retention Directive in the EU in the mid 2000s that required ISPs to save all the websites you visit. This was eventually ruled to be illegal, but it was still in force for several years.
These guys have been at it for a while.
moffkalast
I would not be surprised if it's the US pressuring everyone else. Thiel is probably salivating to get a deal for Palantir to implement it.
That said, the UK doesn't need much convincing in this regard I suppose, they've always had their fair share of extreme laws along these lines and Leyen has personally dreamt of this for ages.
Teever
Authoritarians will always try and pull this kind of shit. It's just what they do. The bigger question you should be asking is where's the coordinated pushback?
Where are the celebrities and public figures taking a stand against this?
Where are the grassroots organizations organizing protests and promoting sousveillance programs against the authoritarians who want to take away our rights and privacy?
The reason why this is all happening at once is because there's no resistance to it.
Until there's meaningful resistance you're just gonna see authoritarian policies keep snowballing.
hungmung
Security is worth half a shit these days and Five Eyes can't remotely access everybody's phone without it getting noticed by people. So they need to keep transport insecure.
undefined
r33b33
They are gearing for WW3 and population control.
This is obvious.
Get out of EU.
Now.
fc417fc802
We already tried requiring CP rings to collect ID in the US. It doesn't seem to have worked out the way you're suggesting. It was called the Epstein client list if you're curious.
cloudhead
This.
zwnow
What a surprise, they are also paid a handsome pension after having worked in EU parliament for a few years, 4 I think. Most of us have to work for 40+ years and dont even get good retirement money
einarfd
That they exempt politicians is basically admitting that the security problems that detractors bring up is true, and is something that should be used against them.
After all exempting some police, that work on investigating child molesting, from the scanning, that is understandable.
Exempting prime minster Mette Frederiksen, on the other hand. Means either that they understand that it undermines security, or that she or some other top politicians are child molester. So which is it?
rvz
> *EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. You and your family do not. Demand fairness.
That is what a scam looks like.
In fact it should be the opposite: Government officials should have even far less privacy since you're paying your taxes to them and you need that transparency on where the money is going.
As corrupt as they already are, this just tells you that EU politicians just want even more corruption.
lordnacho
Can't make this shit up.
The Danish government (currently holding the rotating chair) also raised the pension age for everyone. Other than themselves.
But also, how does this get implemented? What's stopping me from using, say, Signal, which being OSS would likely have a single line I could comment out and compile for myself?
How would I get busted for that? Or I could get clever and have AI generate some random chat text to send to the government while I send the actual text to my friends?
rdm_blackhole
This is only the first step in the process. First they will force all messaging/email providers to implement the scanning. Those who refuse or decide to leave the EU as Signal said they would do, would end up being unlisted from Google Play or the Apple (EU) app store.
Then the second phase is coming by 2030. Read about the ProtectEU (what a fucking ridiculous name) proposal which will mandate the scanning on device and basically record everything you do on your device.
This will be forced on Apple and other manufacturers directly.
pakitan
> Read about the ProtectEU (what a fucking ridiculous name) proposal which will mandate the scanning on device and basically record everything you do on your device.
Where can we read about that? The official documents are quite vague and I don't see anything as specific as mandatory device scanning.
cbeach
ProtectEU sounds incredibly dark. Do you have a source for the information regarding on-device scanning? I had a look but only found the bureaucrat-speak overview and they didn’t discuss details.
throwaway274592
ProtectRegime
whatevaa
You would get labeled a "potential criminal". See some comment from police labelling Graphene OS users as criminals.
Steganography exists and is undefeatable, though very low bandwith.
rdm_blackhole
Even if you compile your own version of Signal, will your friends do it too? Will your grandma/grandpa do it as well? It only takes one person in the chain to be compromised by using the "real" app and then all your efforts would be defeated because now your messages have been exposed by this other person unknowingly.
bqmjjx0kac
Do phones have trusted execution environments? I suppose you could require the recipient provide attestation that it's running the expected binary. Of course, this is pointless if the hardware manufacturer shares their root keys with the government.
JoshTriplett
> the "real" app
The backdoored app will hopefully not be called Signal, since Signal themselves would never do this. I hope they own a trademark on it and could enforce it against anyone who would try to upload a backdoored version under their name.
shark1
It's like any other crime. They cannot stop you from stealing, for example. By doing it, you will not be a lawful citizen.
AlecSchueler
You mean "an illegal?"
amarcheschi
It doesn't say how AFAIK, although it's been a few months from when I read the original proposal. If I'm not wrong it would delegate that to service providers - the organizations managing the apps, telegram, meta, whatever the name of the foundation for the signal app is ecc
dachris
Hopefully it doesn't get implemented, but obviously they could force OS providers to implement this in Android and iOS.
ncr100
So stop them.
CM30
Yeah this really annoys me, because it appears to show that any pretense that the law applies to everyone equally is disappearing fast.* If it at least affected politicians you could write it off as "idiotic idea that wasn't thought through in the slightest", but here it's clear that they have some idea how stupid and dangerous the law is, and see themselves as worth exempting from it instead.
chr15m
Rules for thee but not for me.
mustaphah
The EU: proudly defending human rights… unless you're trying to send a private message.
rossant
Sometimes, very bad things are done in the name of "child protection". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402
isoprophlex
God fucking damn it not again
This is, what, the fifth time in ten years they try to pass shit like this?
9dev
They only need to succeed one time. People are generally preoccupied with a lot of other things right now, so maybe this is their lucky shot…
zubspace
It's a shitty system, if one side just needs to succeed one time while the other side needs to succeed over and over again.
What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same. Once a mass surveillance proposal like this is defeated, it shouldn't be allowed to be constantly rebranded and reintroduced. We need a firewall in our legislative process that automatically rejects any future attempts at scanning private communications.
pessimizer
> What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which are kinda the same.
This very much exists in a lot of parliamentary rules authorities, but it's usually limited to once per "session." They just need to make rules that span sessions that raise the bar for introducing substantially similar legislation.
It can easily be argued that passing something that failed to pass before, multiple times, should require supermajorities. Or at least to create a type of vote where you can move that something "should not" be passed without a supermajority in the future.
It is difficult in most systems to make negative motions. At the least it would have to be tailored as an explicit prohibition on passing anything substantially similar to the motion in future sessions (without suspending the rules with a supermajority.)
I don't know as much about the French Parlement's procedure as I would like to, though.
CM30
I wonder if it'd be possible to fix a lot of these issues by having a constitution with damn near impossibly strict standards for changing it that rely on the entire population agreeing (or close to it)?
So there might be a right to privacy or freedom of speech enshrined in law, and the only way to change it would be for 90+% of the population to agree to change it. That way, it'd only take a minority disagreeing with a bad law to make it impossible to pass said law. Reactionaries and extremists would basically be defanged entirely, since they'd have to get most of their opponents to agree with any changes they propose, not just their own followers.
nickslaughter02
It exists. Except these mfs will not put the proposal to vote if they know it will not pass. Instead they try again and again to gather the votes.
impossiblefork
They actually did succeed once, with the data retention directive. That got annulled by the CoJEU.
KennyBlanken
cough Patriot Act cough
...which Republicans swore up and down was temporary and yet, oddly, kept getting renewed wirth no evidence whatsoever it was necessary to stop a planned terrorist attack or that it would have stopped the WTC attacks themselves.
I bet 90% of the population or more has no idea that the Patriot Act was dumped and replaced with the nearly identical FREEDOM Act. Which took multiple tries to pass because they knew if they just kept hammering away, they'd eventually get it passed.
Yeah, they called a wildly invasive domestic spying bill the "freedom" act....
r_lee
Yeah I have a feeling this thing is gonna be exactly like that. Even if this doesn't pass, they'll just rename and repackage it and try again until everyone gets fatigued enough and doesn't have energy to oppose it anymore
dlcarrier
It's not even a partisan issue; spying on the constituency is one of few issues that has broad bipartisan support.
You could vote for a libertarian, but good luck.
undefined
ath3nd
They generally don't and won't stop until there are real repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being canceled in society over voting for it.
mantas
The problem is people behind the curtains will just pick another figure head. And we can’t even get the names who want to get rid of privacy. Since names of people pushing it were redacted for their privacy :D
morkalork
When the people orchestrating something like this can hide behind a veil of anonymity as well as bestow exemptions from monitoring upon the political class, it looks deeply wrong and conspiracy worthy. :D indeed.
miroljub
> They generally don't and won't stop until there are real repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being canceled in society over voting for it.
I wouldn't call login political career or being cancelled and voted out "real repercussions". They can pretty much retire and enjoy the rest of their lives with all the lobby money and EU rents.
Real repercussion would mean prison time and losing their property, but we all know that won't happen anytime soon.
ncr100
Yup.
Having empathy for your neighbor, and working with those whom you disagree, are precursors. This gives power.
Then using power to enact consequences for businesses and governments (the people therein), fixes the problem.
idiotsecant
The fascist, autocratic impulse is a big in the human firmware and will never go away. We exist constantly balanced on the razor edge precipice because we are capable of little else. Self-governing humans are not a stable system.
swayvil
Serfs and lords is pretty stable. But ya I get yr point.
idiotsecant
Is it? Every human society has been an incredibly brief enterprise, on the scale of, for example, geologic time.
swayvil
The arrival of AI has made mass surveillance pass a certain threshold. Now we're just a step away from aristocrat heaven.
ncr100
Yup super easy to moderate, monitor, and manipulate.
Watchlist? Easy.
Mislead? Easy.
We need to isolate this bad behavior ASAP.
mantas
As Juncker, ex president of European Commision said, you keep trying till it passes at some point. Good luck revoking it later…
uncircle
Ah, the marvels of modern democracy. No serious way to enact change, politicians still do whatever the hell they want, and we still believe that voting for someone else will change things.
It’ll soon be like the UK, that if you campaign against this kinda stuff, the party in power publicly calls you a paedophile. Because only people with something to hide want privacy.
Privacy is a losing proposition. Governments have the perfect trojan horse (child safety) so it’s only a matter of time before massive surveillance is the norm.
calvinmorrison
it effects lots of organizations. the left contingent of the PCUSA basically did the same for a decade to change rules. When they finally got the language passed it caused a large rift.
The difference is that one is not obligated to be part of a presbytery and can leave. The presbytery doesn't have guns.
myaccountonhn
No serious way to enact change? That's not true at all.
quetzthecoatl
the western democracy was lost not with trump/farage etc but with the entrenched liberals who decried democracy redefining it as populism and institutional entrenchment as true democracy. This is fallout from it. The populist movements happened because the liberals who once stood for working class people abandoned the poor and working class. Nobody cared then and some even mocked the working class. Now everyone here/reddit/etc cares because suddenly they are affected and its an issue that they identify with and not just the working class. Good times. You won't be able to do anything. They will walk all over you just like when they walked all over the working class.
croes
People don’t want change.
If really someone gets the power who wants to change things they fight them too.
People want that everything stays the same. Problem is climate change and other problems make change inevitable.
charcircuit
You can keep trying to revoke it until it passes too.
mantas
Yeah, right. I wonder if revokers would have same privacy as those who try to pass it…
brikym
Well it's pretty difficult to organize any opposition once they're reading all the messages.
brikym
What do they gain? The only reason I can think of it's that it's deep state control. If there was a conspiracy like that would they be acting much differently?
palata
> The only reason I can think of it's that it's deep state control.
Then you lack imagination :-). Let me give one example: "I am a fundamentally good guy, and I want to protect the people. If I was given access to all the communications of everybody, it would be easier for me to do my job and to improve the security for everybody".
Of course, (as you know) this is flawed, be it just because you can't guarantee that a surveillance system will only ever be used by fundamentally good guys in the eyes of their people. Or said differently, if you create a backdoor for the good guys, you also create a backdoor for the bad guys.
But it's easy to be well-intentioned and not understand that it's impossible to build cryptography only for the good guys. No need to invent a deep state when the simplest explanation is "the people who believe it are uninformed".
kratom_sandwich
Who are the organizations fighting chat control which one could support with a donation?
kratom_sandwich
Kind of answering my own question, but in Germany there seem to be:
Can anyone comment on the reputability of these initiatives?
lostmsu
Pick any decentralized IM project
nickslaughter02
You cannot fight this with technology. What will you do when they make connecting to instant messager servers without scanning illegal? VPN? They are already going after VPNs.
"VPN services may soon become a new target of EU lawmakers after being deemed a "key challenge""
https://www.techradar.com/vpn/vpn-privacy-security/vpn-servi...
lostmsu
You don't need to ask anyone to connect to a decentralized IM. This all the way till encryption is banned for personal use.
dachris
Really ironic that Britain left the EU, but is even further ahead down this road. British humour I guess.
nickslaughter02
Can you imagine the UK having a vote in all of this? Terrifying.
vaylian
The chat control bill also has age verification to identify child users.
dan_can_code
I think the point was that the law is not in effect just yet.
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A little context here since this website is highly misleading:
- EU Council holds more power in Europe than EU Parliament
- EU Council is pushing this regulation
- this website misrepresents the positions of most members of EU Parliament - it shows "Supports" despite most of them being "Unknown"
Overall, while people should be encouraged to contact their MEPs, I suspect many are already very informed on this & strongly opposed. Whether Parliament will end up having enough power to stop it is a different question.