European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication • Hacker News Board

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#61

Post by ashtonkem » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:15 PM UTC

You do have to wonder about the long term stability of a nominal democracy where 72% of citizens oppose digital monitoring, while 77% of their representatives vote for laws they emphatically do not want.

Put more bluntly, is this even a democracy in anything other than the trappings?

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#62

Post by SllX » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #32

SllX wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but how sustainable is the EU really, in the long term? I’m still convinced it will either dissolve or devolve into a rump organization within my lifetime.

EU gets a lot of stick but deep below, the boring stuff keeps it together. Brexit showed just the enormous depth of high quality glue keeping all remaining countries together. So I don’t think the EU will be collapsing any time soon, certainly not for rational reasons.

Yeah, but how much of that boring stuff requires the full matter of what the EU has become? That’s why I could see a rump sticking around or getting folded into some other institutions, if full dissolution never quite happens.

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#63

Post by rapnie » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

Tenoke wrote: post #10

Would any email provider protect me from this, get my emails actually delivered and ideally work with my own domain? Not that I see myself switching after 15 years and 6 Gmail accounts but if I am to I'd rather know who I'd use. And no I won't risk setting it up myself and risk missing on some portion of my emails like I've had happen at workplaces before we'd sigh and switch to Google. For Chat tg/signal seem like t…

Would Switzerland need to comply with this regulation? Thinking of e.g. ProtonMail for their EU customers.

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#64

Post by romesmoke » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

sergimansilla wrote: post #15

jude- wrote: post #6

Do they want everyone to switch en masse to end-to-end encrypted communications? Because this is how you encourage that.

It mentions in the article that even apps like Signal would have to install backdoors that they can use.

To be precise, the article says that apps like Signal are to be the target of a follow-up regulation scheduled for coming September. It also emphasizes citizens' strong opposition to this prospect.

Fingers crossed, but is it enough? What can we do to prevent this sh*tload?

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#65

Post by actually_a_dog » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:16 PM UTC

I find it interesting that "derogation" (my new word for the day) means both:

* the act of officially stating that a law or rule no longer needs to be obeyed,

and

* the act of talking about or treating someone in a way that shows you do not respect him, her, or it,

according to [0]. If the shoe fits, I guess?

---

[0]: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/us/dictionary/english/derog...

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#66

Post by Dah00n » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #22

jude- wrote: post #6

Do they want everyone to switch en masse to end-to-end encrypted communications? Because this is how you encourage that.

You think Europe will allow end-to-end for much longer?

Yes. Saying otherwise is hyperbolic. The European Commission uses and recommends Signal themselves.

https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observato...

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#67

Post by exdsq » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

gentleman11 wrote: post #4

This is what people mean when they say “turnkey surveillance states”: you end up 1-3 laws away from almost instant total government surveillance of all citizen activity. The trillion dollar infrastructure was built by you and me for free from their POV (we paid them to do it with taxes), and now they can just say they want to use it

So what do we do?

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#68

Post by bkor » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:17 PM UTC

chuck_throwaway wrote: post #39

Maybe brexit has it right - Europe isn't a good place to be a member of.

UK already has crazy laws around this. Brexit enabled more invasive laws to be implemented.

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#69

Post by em3rgent0rdr » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

gorjusborg wrote: post #33

Can this be true? I'm having a hard time understanding how they can stand for internet privacy and legal mass surveillance simultaneously.

Because politicians want to look tough on child abuse.

Re: European Parliament approves mass surveillance of private communication

#70

Post by agilob » Tue, Jul 06, 2021, 9:18 PM UTC

gorjusborg wrote: post #33

Can this be true? I'm having a hard time understanding how they can stand for internet privacy and legal mass surveillance simultaneously.

A decade ago I watched a documentary about MEP explaining how it happens that crappy law is made in EU. MEPs are too busy to read and understand what they are voting for or against. Law they are discussing often has 100s of pages, a few of such per day. One of the "ACTA" branded regulation was 800+ pages and the document changed daily. MEP have armies of secretaries and interns who as supposed to filter the important content and feed it MEPs directly. In meantime MEPs have meeting with lobbying groups and have their regular duties. They usually vote for what their group is voting for, or, lobbyists.