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Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

patrick-breyer.de

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Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#71

Post by pyinstallwoes »

arcticbull wrote: post #61
joebob42 wrote: post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

Abortion is especially strange since a supermajority of Americans, across the political spectrum, of both genders, generally agree that some abortions should be permitted [1]. 70% want to keep the status quo. [2] It's even arguably a violation of the religious freedom of Jewish folks to ban abortion [3]. It's not forbidden by the Bible either - the Bible makes it clear that life begins 'at first breath' (Genesis 2:7)…

The stipulation comes at the definition of what life is and what taking life away is. It’s a very difficult thing to define what life is, thus legally it is for lack of a better phrasing “a can of worms.” If you’re programming minded, you may see how such a definition is ambiguous and opens many attack vectors for interpretation. After seeing it this way, I began to understand why it’s so hotly contested.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#72

Post by orwin »

joebob42 wrote: post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

The commission is unelected.

However, they don't write the proposal (i least i don't think so), they just review the proposal and help with the parts that would be striked down by EU court. Doesn't always work btw). I think that this have to come from either a citizen petition, a quarter of the nations, ECB or the parliament itself.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#73

Post by ethbr0 »

neither_color wrote: post #59
mildmotive wrote: post #26

These tyrants have to be stopped. A tyrannical government is far more dangerous to people, including children than your regular criminal. Ironically, by giving the state too much power and therefore increasing the symptoms of corruption, we allow the same sort of crimes to be practiced by corrupt state officials with little means for people enact accountability. China, the country with the most mass-surveillance in t…

It's interesting how EU regulators build good will through stunts like mandating USB-C or forcing open the App Store and GDPR protections and then turn around and do stuff like this.

It's almost like there are multiple people and groups in EU administration, with different goals and priorities.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#74

Post by JacobiX »

denton-scratch wrote: post #37

This looks like a scare-story. Firstly, the EU produces directives and regulations; it doesn't produce "laws". Secondly, the phrase "child pornography" is in quotes, as if there's no such thing. There is such a thing. Thirdly, the imputed "law" requires service providers to scan encrypted messages. That's impossible, unless the proposal is to ban properly-encrypted messages. If that were the proposal, then surely tha…

The EU has many types of legal acts and the European Commission is responsible for planning and proposing law. Also EU regulations are legal acts that apply automatically to all EU countries without needing to be transposed into national law.

For scanning encrypted messages, they can be scanned on device before encryption, like Apple’s approach to CSAM.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#75

Post by PortiaBerries »

DocTomoe wrote: post #47
joebob42 wrote: post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

The very idea of the EU is to move control away from democratically elected governments. It is designed to prevent democratic participation of its people. The one direct democratic structure, the European Parliament, is toothless, and being defanged, and the Commission is an organisation made up by politicians you want to get rid of at home (because of looming political scandals usually). Can't get your dystopian pol…

How can it be a "crazy idea" to leave what you describe in your first 2 paragraphs? Crazy just economically?

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#76

Post by xanaxagoras »

Macha wrote: post #49
joebob42 wrote: post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

Yes Minister covers it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahgjEjJkZks Tell them you're going to have their messages scanned on behalf of the government and nobody wants it. Tell them you're going to introduce measures for online safety and to crack down on child abuse, and everybody wants it. Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer the…

> Unless you're pre-informed on the issues, whoever presents it to you can just pick the side that gets you to the answer they want.

This summarizes a good 75% of modern political discourse.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#77

Post by denton-scratch »

DocTomoe wrote: post #47
joebob42 wrote: post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

The very idea of the EU is to move control away from democratically elected governments. It is designed to prevent democratic participation of its people. The one direct democratic structure, the European Parliament, is toothless, and being defanged, and the Commission is an organisation made up by politicians you want to get rid of at home (because of looming political scandals usually). Can't get your dystopian pol…

I'm a brit that voted exit because of the EU democratic deficit, not because of xenophobia. I expected it to damage the economy for a decade, and I stilll wanted out. I knew that would put me in the same group as the xenophobic racists, but I still voted out.

I also knew it would cause pain; the last people I wanted at the wheel during Brexit was Boris Johnson and the Tories. But I voted Brexit anyway, because I figured that it would be a very long time before we'd be allowed a referendum on EU membership again.

I consider myself European, and I welcomed the UK joining the EU back then. But over the years, I've seen new entrants promptly ignoring the financial rules, the division-of-powers rules, and a bunch of other rules, and not get kicked out, or even sanctioned. I don't want to be in a union of governments with authoritarian racists.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#78

Post by throwaway0a5e »

joebob42 wrote: post #6

I don't understand who wants this. does any of their actual constituency want it? Or is it literally just the actual elected officials getting power hungry? Stuff like abortion, etc where I don't really understand the other side. I've at least met real people who are pro life. I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

>I've never met the people who want these clownish surveillance things but they keep coming up anyways.

They're you, your neighbors, your coworkers, your family. Authoritarians are everywhere.

They won't outright support the surveillance state but they'll say things like "well, government gonna government amirite" when these dragnets get used against people they don't like (usually various breeds of petty criminals and scofflaws who aren't really harming anyone at their scale). And of course they act all outraged when the .gov is using the same mechanisms to go after stuff they do like.

If cognitive dissonance was a physical object I would bludgeon people with it.

Re: Chat control: EU Commission presents mass surveillance plan on May 11

#79

Post by DocTomoe »

denton-scratch wrote: post #37

This looks like a scare-story. Firstly, the EU produces directives and regulations; it doesn't produce "laws". Secondly, the phrase "child pornography" is in quotes, as if there's no such thing. There is such a thing. Thirdly, the imputed "law" requires service providers to scan encrypted messages. That's impossible, unless the proposal is to ban properly-encrypted messages. If that were the proposal, then surely tha…

> This looks like a scare-story.

Let's hope you are right. The EU has a funny history of beating through brain-dead policies. The current EU commission chief, Ursula von der Leyen, is known as "Zensursula" (a portemanteau of "censorship" and her given name) in Germany because she attempted to install essentially the Chinese Firewall for Germany (complete with Stop signs) when she was still doing politics here.

> Firstly, the EU produces directives and regulations; it doesn't produce "laws".

A regulation is technically a law, as it is immediately binding in all EU countries. Directives are quasilaws, as local governments are forced to make them into local laws.

> Secondly, the phrase "child pornography" is in quotes, as if there's no such thing. There is such a thing.

Of course there is. But we have seen again and again that this phrase is being used by wannabe dictators to justify massive limitations of human rights for everyone.

> If that were the proposal, then surely that's what should be in the headline?

Just you wait, right now, very few people know what is in that draft. I'm willing to put money to the fact that it essentially outlaws E2E encryption (and, if we are unlucky, not "only" for messengers - which may be deliberate or by ignorance).

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