> This is not about catching criminals. It is mass surveillance imposed on all 450 million citizens of the European Union. I think it is also about catching criminals. And they should change their wording to make it more correct, otherwise they will certainly lose this fight.
I agree. The opponents (I am one for sure) are often saying 'This is not about catching criminals'. And they are correct in the sense that it goes much further than catching criminals alone. But there are a lot of people who are no experts in the matter (even among the politicians deciding this matter) and they will discard reasoning which start with 'it's not about catching criminals', because in many cases that is…
Wiretapping requires probable cause and a court order in order to be used chat control does not. It will report thousands daily and no one will be blamed or punished for false reports which turned out did not have probable cause. It was a reactive tool in the police's arsenal, it was not proactive like this is supposed to be.
Wiretapping requires/required significant manpower investment in order to surveil a single potential criminal which rightfully forced the police to prioritize their resources. Chat Control is automated and will enable the same amount of police to police more people.
Wiretapping was not retroactive. This system will create records that can be stored for a long time for very cheap.
This is not restoring wiretapping, this is supercharging wiretapping.