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Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

digitalcourage.social

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Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#111
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your comment was taken as "no one cares about Germany"/being snarky. But it can also be read as "those who should do not respect the constitution, like anywhere in the world". I assume the latter, am I correct?

'Constitution' arguments are used by ones in power only to server their agenda. Constitution argument won't save us from the surveillance. Most of the time western countries play 'national security' and 'think of the children' to circumvent the constitution and have ~100% success rate.

I don't feel like that's true in Germany. The constitutional court would like a word I guess. They have a pretty big history regarding surveilance and such.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Question is, how do we get ourselves out of this tar pit? Simple: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by Eric Hughes written 9 March 1993 https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html

I don't think there are actionable items in that manifesto, and was written during the RSA munitions debate.

I'd argue the actionable things are already happening: Hackers and cryptographers creating technical solutions that defy governmental control, people trying to sway public opinion (or trying to get people to realize that being surveilled isn't just about their secret it is about a fundamental balance of powers between companies/governments and individuals).

All of those things are pushed by people right now. Maybe the scale isn't right, maybe the effort needs you as well.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#113
post #30

They make it really difficult to fight any of this. You have to, individually - find a representative, their contact info, state your case, hope it's the correct person, hope your mail doesn't go unnoticed, hope that it will be properly read, hope it changes their mind. This is "lobbying" by the people in a disorganised way, trying to fight organised lobbying. This is a barrier that puts lots of people off, even if t…

The only way to stop it is to have positive rights written in law, like right to online privacy and privacy of communications.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#114

Leaked record of a meeting on 11/07/2025: Original: https://netzpolitik.org/2025/internes-protokoll-eu-juristen-... Translated to English: https://netzpolitik-org.translate.goog/2025/internes-protoko...

I am Danish and I fucking hate my government for this. Nationally, the minister of justice Peter Hummelgaard is also pushing for a law which gives the police intelligence agency (PET) the right to basically do mass surveillance of everyone without prior suspicion of any criminal activity. If passed, they will be allowed to build a database of everyone which correlates social media activity with health care data and a…

What is the motivation behind this? Do you have some issue that in Denmark its deemed solvable only through that? Can you provide some context maybe? Is it like cultural thing?

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#115

Leaked record of a meeting on 11/07/2025: Original: https://netzpolitik.org/2025/internes-protokoll-eu-juristen-... Translated to English: https://netzpolitik-org.translate.goog/2025/internes-protoko...

I am Danish and I fucking hate my government for this. Nationally, the minister of justice Peter Hummelgaard is also pushing for a law which gives the police intelligence agency (PET) the right to basically do mass surveillance of everyone without prior suspicion of any criminal activity. If passed, they will be allowed to build a database of everyone which correlates social media activity with health care data and a…

I think that's a great idea. I for one want to enable our governments to track down criminals and punish them for it. If they're not doing everything they can do so in this technological and digital age, then they are breaking their part of that pesky "social contract" I am being upheld to.

And to people like you that oppose this and propose even more authoritarian laws that prevent me as a citizen from protecting myself: You don't speak for all of us.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Danish and I fucking hate my government for this. Nationally, the minister of justice Peter Hummelgaard is also pushing for a law which gives the police intelligence agency (PET) the right to basically do mass surveillance of everyone without prior suspicion of any criminal activity. If passed, they will be allowed to build a database of everyone which correlates social media activity with health care data and a…

> This will be a machine for automatically generating suspects. According to proponents, this is untrue. The intent of that database is that looking into it will still require a warrent, and will thusly require the suspect to already have been identified. I'm no expert, but that sounds reasonably similar to how we treat other investigative means.

How do you prevent a misuse or switching to "let's just start looking into this without warrant until this popular issue(i.e. immigrants, USA, Russia, religios tensions, ethnic tensions) is solved" when the next political crisis hits?

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#117
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

'Constitution' arguments are used by ones in power only to server their agenda. Constitution argument won't save us from the surveillance. Most of the time western countries play 'national security' and 'think of the children' to circumvent the constitution and have ~100% success rate.

I don't feel like that's true in Germany. The constitutional court would like a word I guess. They have a pretty big history regarding surveilance and such.

So shouldn't be a concern then for Germans? Somehow I don't buy that. See for example https://forum.torproject.org/t/tor-relays-artikel-5-e-v-anot... and that's not an isolated event. Before that were jabber chat nodes.

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the failings of most modern democracies is that if a measure doesn't pass, nothing prohibits it from being introduced again immediately. I've seen ballot initiatives simply get copy pasted onto each election by city council until they happen to pass.

The deck is stacked. They only have to win once, and it's law. You have to win over and over every time it's introduced.

It's analogous to information security.-

PS. Maybe there's something there ...

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#119
post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am Danish and I fucking hate my government for this. Nationally, the minister of justice Peter Hummelgaard is also pushing for a law which gives the police intelligence agency (PET) the right to basically do mass surveillance of everyone without prior suspicion of any criminal activity. If passed, they will be allowed to build a database of everyone which correlates social media activity with health care data and a…

I think that's a great idea. I for one want to enable our governments to track down criminals and punish them for it. If they're not doing everything they can do so in this technological and digital age, then they are breaking their part of that pesky "social contract" I am being upheld to. And to people like you that oppose this and propose even more authoritarian laws that prevent me as a citizen from protecting my…

What do you plan to do when definitions of crime start getting fuzzy? Crime is not just petty crimes where it's a clear cut to tell if someone did something bad in definitive terms.

Other crime types exist that are crime only within a structure. The crime of sharing copyrighted files is a crime within a framework of intellectual rights but then training AI on the same files and and producing alternative files bypassing the IP is not a crime. Then you get into political crimes, i.e. it can be a crime to deny the Armenian genocide, denying the Jewish genicide and protesting against the extermination of the Palestinians at this very moment. It can be crime to hide from the US embassy that you are not completely in support of extermination of Gaza people. Your government might cut a deal to save Greenland from US invasion that makes certain things a crime that the current US administration doesn't like.

This all can change as politics evolves. Do you intend to support whatever the current position the current government has?

Re: Many countries that said no to ChatControl in 2024 are now undecided

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Question is, how do we get ourselves out of this tar pit? Simple: A Cypherpunk's Manifesto by Eric Hughes written 9 March 1993 https://www.activism.net/cypherpunk/manifesto.html

I don't think there are actionable items in that manifesto, and was written during the RSA munitions debate.

The actionable items are "write code" and "build systems". The cypherpunk scene is still alive and evolving, but it's fairly niche, and a tough environment for people driven by external validation while 'things are well'. But there are still people around making sure the necessary pieces are in place in case they become necessary.
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