> Despite today’s victory, further procedural steps by EU governments cannot be completely ruled out. Most of all, the trilogue negotiations on a permanent child protection regulation (Chat Control 2.0) are continuing under severe time pressure. There, too, EU governments continue to insist on their demand for “voluntary” indiscriminate Chat Control.
> Furthermore, the next massive threat to digital civil liberties is already on the agenda: Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification. This would require users to provide ID documents or submit to facial scans, effectively making anonymous communication impossible and severely endangering vulnerable groups such as whistleblowers and persecuted individuals.
> further procedural steps by EU governments cannot be completely ruled out
In a democracy, we don't kill our opposition. If they hold views we don't like, e.g. that security trumps privacy, they're going to litigate them. Probably their whole lives. That means they'll keep bringing up the same ideas. And you'll have to keep defeating them. But there are two corollaries.
One: Passing legislation takes as much work as repealing it; but unpassed legislation has no force of law. Being on the side that's keeping legislation from being passed is the stronger position. You have the status quo on your side. (The only stronger hand is the side fighting to keep legislation from being repealed. Then you have both the status quo and force of law on your side.)
Two: Legislative wants are unlimited. Once a group has invested into political machinery and organisation, they're not going to go home after passing their law. Thus, repeatedly failing to pass a law represents a successful bulwark. It's a resource sink for the defense, yes. But the defense gets to hold onto the status quo. The offense is sinking resources into the same fight, except with nothing to show for it. (Both sides' machines get honed.)
Each generation tends to have a set of issues they continuously battle. The status quo that persists or emerges in their wake forms a bedrock the next generations take for granted. This is the work of a democracy. Constantly working to convince your fellow citizens that your position deserves priority. Because the alternative is the people in power killing those who disagree with them.
You have “centralised democracy”, a form of democracy where decisions, once debated and adopted, are implemented uniformly throughout an organisation. They are not debated a second time, and there’s no room for dissenting against decisions already made.
It’s a double-edge sword though: if something you dislike gets votes, it’s never going away.
"> Furthermore, the next massive threat to digital civil liberties is already on the agenda: Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification. This would require users to provide ID documents or submit to facial scans, effectively making anonymous communication impossible and severely endangering vulnerable groups such as whistleblowers and persecuted individuals."
Perhaps this is bad news for "messenger and chat services, as well as app stores" who solicit "users" to exploit them for commercial gain, for example _if_ users are unwilling to accept "age verification" and decide to stop using them. The keyword is "if"
The third parties know it's possible for capable users to communicate with each other without using third party "chat and messenger services" intermediaries that conduct data collection, surveillance and/or online ad services as a "business model". Thus the third party "tech" company intermediaries strive to make their "free services" more convenient than DIY, i.e., communication without using third party intermediation by so-called "tech" companies
But users may decide that "age verification" is acceptable. For many years, HN comments have repeatedly insisted that "most users" do not care about data collection or surveillance or online advertising, that users don't care about privacy. Advocates of "Big Tech" and other so-called "tech" companies argue that by using such third party services, users are consciously _choosing_ convenience over privacy
Perhaps the greatest threat to civil liberties is the mass data collection and surveillance conducted by so-called "tech" companies. The "age verification" debate provides a vivid illustration of why allowing such companies to collect data and surveil without restriction only makes it easier for governments that seek to encroach upon civil liberties. While governments may operate under legal and financial constraints that effectively limit their ability to conduct mass surveillance, the companies operate freely, creating enormous repositories that governments can use their authority to tap into
There's a fairly non-invasive way to do age verification: ID cards that connect to a smartphone app that only provide a boolean age verification to the requesting service. Requesting service can be anonymous to the ID app and the requesting service can only receive a bool.
That most implementation will try to collect far more data is the real concern.
"Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification."
Trilogues should be burned down, closed doors meetings with Ministers writing laws from their own services.
> Recently, only 36% of suspicious activity reports from US companies originated from the surveillance of private messages anyway.
I don't have many opinions on this but this sort of lazy logic would make me nervous. 36% is not a small number and that's before the folks doing this activity find out that private message is less patrolled.
> those trying to pass this legislation get paid to do so
If you think Chat Control doesn't have paid lobbyists on both sides I have a bridge to sell you. Also, paying lobbyists is still sinking resources. And the people taking their meetings are still sinking political capital into a fight that has–to date–yielded zilch.
> while those against it have work hard and pay taxes to fund the former
The principal moneyed interests in this fight are the tech companies. Your taxes aren't funding their fight. The police lobby is less effective if filtered through paid lobbyists versus having a police chief personally pitch lawmakers.
I feel like that would end with the same surveillance loopholes that Google, Microsoft and Apple exploit today.
Users need the ability to choose operating systems and software that is not exclusively green-lit by a first-party vendor. It's not glamorous, but pretending that software isn't a competitive market is what put us into this surveillance monopoly in the first place. "trust" distributed among a handful of businesses isn't going to cut it in a post-2030s threat environment.
It's a problem when the parliament can't propose the laws it has to vote on and the commission isn't elected and continues to be presided by the most corrupt person in the EU. She is blatantly EPP and just keeps proposing the shit they want.
For Americans, imagine if only Republicans ever got to propose legislation and only Democrats could vote on it. That's more or less it.
I honestly like the system as long as its reach is limited and it's stay this way (i.e EU regulations set goals, and states do what they want to reach it). The money lobbyists throw is huge, for very, very little progress.
At least the Commision can't conduct war for 100 days without Congress approval.
I thought Juncker was an idiot but VdL is corrupt to Hillary levels and worse than the disastruous Merker/Juncker duo in every way. I'd like to see her replaced with someone like Macron. That's the type of leadership that the EU needs right now.
Well, that's because she was nominated by European governments, which happen to be largely run by right-wing parties right now. There have been socialist personalities in her place in the past. That has nothing to do with democracy.
The US really, really wants it implemented, and several national police institutions in the EU does too. Plus the politicians that start to drool a little at the prospect.
When have "the people" been last consulted on this? Do you really think Chat Control has high public support? Given how most "democracies" work in our world today (which is to say with no consultation of the people), i think limiting their ability to do further harm might be worth it.
This wouldn't limit the ability of governments to do harm, it would limit the ability of the people to mitigate that harm by giving them only one chance to ever do so.
I don't think "democracy is flawed therefore we need less of it" is a good idea.
The MEPs represent the people. They've just been consulted. They said no.
Looking at what each of my MEPs voted they seemed to pretty accurately represent their own party lines, the right and far right voted for, left and center left voted against. I'm shocked! Shocked! Well not that shocked.
That's pretty much how it works; there's generally no way, in a modern parliamentary democracy to say "no, and also you can never discuss it again". You could put it in the constitution, but honestly there's a decent argument that parts of chat control would violate the EU's can't-believe-it's-not-a-constitution (the Lisbon Treaty is essentially a constitution, but is not referred to as such because it annoys nationalists) in any case and ultimately be struck down by the ECJ, like the Data Retention Directive was.
Constituional cours are a last defense against bad laws though and should not be the first one - they are not designed to be fast enough to prevent a lot of damage being done before they strike something down.
The first defense is that the Council of the EU (formed by government ministers of the member states) and the European Parliament (elected directly by EU citizens) have to agree on the legislation. And while the council is staffed by career politicians, the parliament is a more diverse group that's generally a bit closer to the average person
From the point of view of the individual, the parliament is our first defense. And this is an example of it working
If something in 'Chat Control' is so fundamental that it should lead to the law not even being brought up for discussion (privacy), then that 'right' should be more clearly defined in the constitution, or constitution like structure.
It's when laws can exist, but simply have bad implementations, where you obviously can't jump to an amendment process.
Yeah, this is more or less what I'm saying. Large parts of 'Chat Control' likely _are_ unconstitutional, but that doesn't necessarily stop it being brought (it just makes it likely that the courts will kill parts of it if it ever passes).
> The controversial mass surveillance of private messages in Europe is coming to an end.
I am having a deja vu. Groundhog Day.
The above should be adjusted. This is not an end; it will continue in another form. Another name. Another proposal. The lobbyists behind this will not give up. They are paid to not give up.
I don't think any of those few should have ANY power of us, The People. That includes both EU commission as well as EU parliament. Yes, I know the EU parliament is heralded now as "our heroes". I don't trust any of them at any moment in time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th.... And that's just one known issue. How many more unknown issues are there?
Also, Leyen should go. She is too suspiciously close to a few companies, always promoting things. She did so before her time in the EU too.
No, this is the end of the wording for the initiative, nothing else.
We will see many new initiatives, old wine in a new bottle. Any bet that EU diehard bureaucrats will change tune, not the goal. They are going to use the so called salami tactic.
Death of free speech by many cuts, so to say. It is in the left wing DNA. Have a look at German history regarding "Landes-Verfassungsschutz" units. It is disturbing to read this article here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verfassungsschutz_Nordrhein-We...
And back then already it was the so called center-right party ruled against this left wing initiative - imagine, first thing you do right after WW2 is ramping up a control unit to control freedom of speech.
Please value free speech. Agree to disagree, but remember: those who live by prohibitions will ultimately use this tool against you as well. Consider wisely what is something you dislike personally and simply exercise your right to not listen to certain voices or appeal to prohibition.
Prohibition becomes a tool and everybody knows that people love to use their tools. And since I have a law degree, often times what you plan is not what is finally what courts decide, how they apply the law.
this is the end of the wording for the initiative, nothing else
it is more than that. since 2021 an EU interim regulation (2021/1232), set to expire on 3 april, was allowing companies to voluntarily scan messages. this vote was about the renewal of that regulation. since it has been rejected, the regulation is no longer in effect.
He's rambling about "left-wing DNA" in the Verfassungsschutz, who is famously quite good at turning a blind eye to right wing extremists. Probably because AfD got rightfully classified as far-right-extremists.
Is the snow melting? Do you hear birds? Must be chat control season.
Someone should sell calendars based on when this typically gets proposed as well as dates throughout the year when past instances of check control came up against key procedural hurdles.
> We decide something, then put it in the room and wait some time to see what happens. If there is no big shouting and no uprisings, because most do not understand what it is about, then we continue - step by step until there is no turning back. – Jean Claude Juncker, then President of the EU Commission
They will try this again. And again. And again. They will never stop.
So, in the end a big majority of the conservative/liberal faction (EPP) voted against, and the vast majority of the social democractic faction (S&D) voted for chat control.
Just pointing this out because yesterday there was the myth around that "chat control is pushed by the conservatives", obscuring the actual political dynamics in the EU about it.
EPP proposed it, but then it got amended (ie toned down) so much that they turned on their own proposal. This apparently happens quite a lot. So the way I understand it is they turned it down not because they thought it was bad, but because they didn't think it was bad enough.
> So, in the end a big majority of the conservative/liberal faction (EPP) voted against, and the vast majority of the social democractic faction (S&D) voted for chat control.
EPP wanted indiscriminate scanning instead, not targeted one.
There's also the DDR and Stasi as a counter example if anyone think mass surveillance is incompatible with socialism.
Mass surveillance isn't really a question that projects well onto the left-right scale, and attempting to make it fit a left-right question is more likely to distract than provide a useful understanding.
> They literally just voted it down. Twice in 2 days.
And they will try again tomorrow. Until it passes.
> Also compared to whom?
Why compare? The fact that there are worse regimes than the EU doesn't make the EU even a single bit better. Lesser evil is still evil. Let us strive for good.
> With every new proposal, every vote, they are closer to the totalitarian regime. Proposals can be declined a million times, but the EU regime is always finding sneakier and more manipulative ways to push again and again.
... I mean this is how all parliamentary systems work. It's more _visible_ in the EU than in others, I think, because the council/commission are more willing to put forward things that they don't really think the parliament will go for (in many parliamentary systems, realistically the executive will be reluctant to put forward stuff where they think they'll lose the vote in parliament).
But there's not really a huge difference; it would just be _quieter_ in most parliamentary systems, and you wouldn't really hear anything about it until the executive had their votes in place, brought it forward, and passed it. I actually kind of prefer the EU system, in that it tends to happen more out in the open, which allows for public comment. And public comment and pressure is a huge deal for this sort of thing; most parliamentarians, on things they don't understand, will vote whatever way their party is voting. But if it becomes clear that their constituents care about it, they may actually have to think about it, and that's half the battle.
We already don't have free speech. There's nothing protecting it (and many laws already to the contrary.) There aren't really any such constitutional protections from what I can tell.
Once laws are passed they aren't revoked. So it's just a matter of political climate. Just wait for people to get a little more negative, a little more paranoid (which has historically been "helped along" in various ways)-- a law only needs to pass once, and then we're stuck with some stupid bullshit forever.
It doesn't really seem like how you'd want to design it.
"fascism" has a pretty well defined meaning, which is not whatever the EU would become if something like chat control ever passes. Towards totalitarianism, sure, but again not all totalitarianism is fascism. I wish people would stop using le mot du jour as a replacement for everything in an subconscious need to increase others' engagement.
So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.
You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.
There are advantages to "government by evolution", as opposed to "government by monoculture"
With the former approach, every country is allowed to try different things, some amazing, some dumb, and learn from the amazing and dumb things that others have done.
In the latter, there's only one governing body, and whatever that body said, goes. There's no science or statistics, just sides shouting their arguments at each other, calling people names.
Both the EU and the US used to heavily lean towards the former approach, but they're slowly but inexorably moving towards the latter.
> So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.
There are many reasons to abolish the EU, but the topic here is chat control.
> You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.
Would they? We don't know. Would the government of Denmark be ready to commit political suicide by insisting again and again on something so unpopular?
The whole premise of the EU is to allow various unelected interest groups to push unpopular regulation to the EU member states without any consequences.
What a joke. Compared to US, implementing chat control is like a pin prick compared to the scale of MAGA fascism. The EU is probably the best example of functional government anywhere in the world right now.
The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances, and its only democratic if you squint and look at it the right way. People need to directly elect the MPs, directly elect some kind of president. They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
I agree there is a strong democratic deficit in the current EU governance structure, but I disagree with a proposal such as
> directly elect some kind of president
We do not need a president with over-powers, and electing directly one does not solve anything for democracy, as the recent history in countries like the US and France shows. The point of directly electing a president is giving that role more power. The current structure in the EU is not so much president-centric either executive or legislative wise, but more like comission-centric, which is what imo has the biggest problem in terms of democracy in the EU.
I get the impression you're coming at it from a US perspective, and it's not that, and doesn't intend to be for now. The president is elected by majority of the MP's who have been elected by the people of their respective countries. Almost like the US electorial system, except it's done internally because people generally only vote for their own best interests and not that of the entirety.
Perfect, no, it can be slow and a lot of red tape, but what system isn't flawed.
The commission is checked by the parliament is checked by the council is checked by the commission. Most other national organizations only have one check - Germany, for example, only has the Bundesrat as a check of the Bundestag.
Checks and balances means some folks should NOT be directly elected. if everyone is <directly elected>, then you have <directly elected> checked and balanced by <directly elected>. Which is to say, not at all. :-P
one if the problems is that most elections are only for one person, so only the majority (the person with the most votes) wins.
give everyone half a dozen votes or more, and and you'll get a more representative sample.
for example instead of electing a president, elect a while leadership team. independent of party affiliation. (i'd get rid of parties completely while we are at it, every candidate should be independent (the expanded version of that gets even rid of candidates, every adult can potentially be elected, but that is a more complex system that needs more elaboration))
You could have a system where everyone is directly elected while keeping checks and balances, if voting were restricted, eg. maybe everyone can vote for a president/prime minister, but only non-teachers can vote for an education minister, and only non-finance people can vote for something like the Fed chief, etc. The point being the checks and balances now happen because other groups keep your group in check by voting.
Absolutely! That does keep some of the checks. You can do better than that though!
It's like on the Apollo missions where some parts were made by two completely different manufacturers and worked completely differently.
Hybrid political systems are best. Of course if we like democracy (and most people do), then that should be the most common kind of component. But I'd still like to have some different paradigms mixed into the system. And that's exactly what most modern constitutions do, for better or for worse.
I'd personally go for a two-chamber system (like congress/senate or commons/lords), with one chamber being elected and the other being chosen by sortition.
Maybe also a 3rd chamber, where the weight of your vote was proportional to IQ (much more palatable in EU than US).
We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?
> directly elect some kind of president.
Why? Nowhere in Western Europe except very arguably France (France, as always, has to be a bit weird about everything, and has a hybrid system) has a directly elected executive. True executive presidential systems are only really a thing in the Americas and Africa (plus Russia, these days).
Like, in terms of big countries with a true executive presidency, you’re basically looking at the US, Russia and Brazil. I’m, er, not sure we should be modeling ourselves on those paragons of democracy.
> They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
The parliament has the same accountability and checks and balances as any national parliament, more or less (more than some, as the ECJ is more effective and independent than many national supreme courts).
i always found it odd that the most powerful person in many european countries, the prime minister, is not directly elected. but the problem is not really there. the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person. and the influence of political parties to decide who gets to be a candidate.
imagine system where we directly elect the whole cabinet. only people with electoral approval should get to be ministers. and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.
> the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person.
Generally, a prime minister is less powerful than an executive president, often much less powerful.
> and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.
On the face of it, that is the PM's primary role in a parliamentary democracy. Now, the complication is that, in many parliamentary systems, the PM has significant power over the ministers (either via the ability to directly appoint them, or via being the head of the ruling party/coalition/or various other means). But generally, the PM is less powerful in nearly all systems than, say, the US president; in particular the finance minister is often a separate semi-independent power within the cabinet.
> Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?
How is that an EU problem? Without the EU, like here in the UK, we had non-elected lobbyists pressuring our elected government to implement age checks, message scanning, etc. And it is still continuing.
You're fighting the wrong fight by blaming the EU for this.
This is a highly solvable problem, one that is solved by not overloading the national elections with to different concerns.
EU has checks and balances that were intended for a trade union, not a nascent superstate. If we don't implement proper checks and balances in a real fucking hurry, we'll wake up one morning and realize the EU has turned into another Soviet union, and by then it'll be far too late to do anything about it.
How badly would you say the council or commission have to mess things up before they saw any voter-initiated repercussions what so ever with a system of accountability that requires voters to consider punishing the council or comission more important than their own national elections?
If accountability is to work, it has to be more than an abstract theoretical possibility.
It isn't abstract. Your government sends representatives to represent its platform and priorities. If you don't agree with the reps you need to elect a different government.
It's a abstract because you will never ever see a situation where voters neglect national elections to adjust the EU council or commission. Maybe it's what needs to happen, but the way thing are arranged it just won't.
That's a system of accountability in name but not in practice.
Even if there was an option in the national elections that didn't want this stuff, convincing a majority of voters to disregard national politics for an election cycle to have an imperceptibly small impact on the council members is such an unlikely outcome the council or comission would de facto be committing genocides before voters would be mobilized, and even then it's unlikely they'd face any repercussions.
It isn't popular, but they have a name and address right? Not talking violence, but the number one way of dealing with these sorts is to usually talk things out. If you're really concerned about, get a group of similarly minded people and make it unambiguously evident that this person is championing something a lot of people are not behind. It becomes much harder to ignore or wave off something when people start making themselves known on your doorstep.
And no, this isn't dog whistling violence. It is simply applying signal. The only other message I can think of is engaging an investigative journalist/PI and starting to figure out who is lobbying the person, and start pressuring them.
That's the parliament. What about the council and the commission? Am I not allowed to hold them accountable? Does my power as a citizen only extend to a fourth of the balance of power?
They keep getting away with these attrition tactics with regards to implementing near Stasi levels communication surveillance. What about the day they're pushing to give the council unlimited powers, or to abolish voting rights, or to purge jews?
The Council and Commission are representatives of your democratically elected national government. You as a citizen of your country get to pick said government.
If the EU were to not exist, your representatives in the Council/Commission (e.g. your national government) would be more powerful because they wouldn't be checked by the Parliament, not less.
Your problem is with your government, they just successfully deflected it to the EU in your mind.
The council is made up of heads of state, so no more undemocratic than your own countries executive, and the commission is selected by the Council and approved by the EU parliament.
Russia and China has elections too, they are a necessary but not sufficient criteria for democracy. Just because there are elections doesn't mean the people can actually hold the government accountable.
> Despite today’s victory, further procedural steps by EU governments cannot be completely ruled out. Most of all, the trilogue negotiations on a permanent child protection regulation (Chat Control 2.0) are continuing under severe time pressure. There, too, EU governments continue to insist on their demand for “voluntary” indiscriminate Chat Control.
> Furthermore, the next massive threat to digital civil liberties is already on the agenda: Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification. This would require users to provide ID documents or submit to facial scans, effectively making anonymous communication impossible and severely endangering vulnerable groups such as whistleblowers and persecuted individuals.
> further procedural steps by EU governments cannot be completely ruled out
In a democracy, we don't kill our opposition. If they hold views we don't like, e.g. that security trumps privacy, they're going to litigate them. Probably their whole lives. That means they'll keep bringing up the same ideas. And you'll have to keep defeating them. But there are two corollaries.
One: Passing legislation takes as much work as repealing it; but unpassed legislation has no force of law. Being on the side that's keeping legislation from being passed is the stronger position. You have the status quo on your side. (The only stronger hand is the side fighting to keep legislation from being repealed. Then you have both the status quo and force of law on your side.)
Two: Legislative wants are unlimited. Once a group has invested into political machinery and organisation, they're not going to go home after passing their law. Thus, repeatedly failing to pass a law represents a successful bulwark. It's a resource sink for the defense, yes. But the defense gets to hold onto the status quo. The offense is sinking resources into the same fight, except with nothing to show for it. (Both sides' machines get honed.)
Each generation tends to have a set of issues they continuously battle. The status quo that persists or emerges in their wake forms a bedrock the next generations take for granted. This is the work of a democracy. Constantly working to convince your fellow citizens that your position deserves priority. Because the alternative is the people in power killing those who disagree with them.
You have “centralised democracy”, a form of democracy where decisions, once debated and adopted, are implemented uniformly throughout an organisation. They are not debated a second time, and there’s no room for dissenting against decisions already made.
It’s a double-edge sword though: if something you dislike gets votes, it’s never going away.
Great comment, thank you. I know that I could simply upvote, but this deserved more.
JumpCrisscross for President
"> Furthermore, the next massive threat to digital civil liberties is already on the agenda: Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification. This would require users to provide ID documents or submit to facial scans, effectively making anonymous communication impossible and severely endangering vulnerable groups such as whistleblowers and persecuted individuals."
Perhaps this is bad news for "messenger and chat services, as well as app stores" who solicit "users" to exploit them for commercial gain, for example _if_ users are unwilling to accept "age verification" and decide to stop using them. The keyword is "if"
The third parties know it's possible for capable users to communicate with each other without using third party "chat and messenger services" intermediaries that conduct data collection, surveillance and/or online ad services as a "business model". Thus the third party "tech" company intermediaries strive to make their "free services" more convenient than DIY, i.e., communication without using third party intermediation by so-called "tech" companies
But users may decide that "age verification" is acceptable. For many years, HN comments have repeatedly insisted that "most users" do not care about data collection or surveillance or online advertising, that users don't care about privacy. Advocates of "Big Tech" and other so-called "tech" companies argue that by using such third party services, users are consciously _choosing_ convenience over privacy
Perhaps the greatest threat to civil liberties is the mass data collection and surveillance conducted by so-called "tech" companies. The "age verification" debate provides a vivid illustration of why allowing such companies to collect data and surveil without restriction only makes it easier for governments that seek to encroach upon civil liberties. While governments may operate under legal and financial constraints that effectively limit their ability to conduct mass surveillance, the companies operate freely, creating enormous repositories that governments can use their authority to tap into
There's a fairly non-invasive way to do age verification: ID cards that connect to a smartphone app that only provide a boolean age verification to the requesting service. Requesting service can be anonymous to the ID app and the requesting service can only receive a bool.
That most implementation will try to collect far more data is the real concern.
The timing of having Meta dropping encrypted chats on Instagram is...interesting.
"Next up in the ongoing trilogue, lawmakers will negotiate whether messenger and chat services, as well as app stores, will be legally obliged to implement age verification."
Trilogues should be burned down, closed doors meetings with Ministers writing laws from their own services.
See you soon folks!
> Recently, only 36% of suspicious activity reports from US companies originated from the surveillance of private messages anyway.
I don't have many opinions on this but this sort of lazy logic would make me nervous. 36% is not a small number and that's before the folks doing this activity find out that private message is less patrolled.
Yeah, that number is actually really high. I’m wondering how noisy those reports are
Political engineering angle: "These people will not rest until they are able to read your child's messages."
It seems like an almost never ending hamster wheel of chat control being introduced, voted down, then introduced again in the next session.
That's the problem with modern democracies (it happens in the USA too). They only have to win once and it's law. We have to win every time.
> They only have to win once and it's law. We have to win every time.
Passing legislation takes about as much effort as repealing. (The exception being if the legislation spawns a massive bureaucracy.)
Chat Control 1.0 was de facto passed. It's now being unpassed. We don't have to win every time. Just more.
> Passing legislation takes about as much effort as repealing.
While true, those trying to pass this legislation get paid to do so, while those against it have work hard and pay taxes to fund the former.
> those trying to pass this legislation get paid to do so
If you think Chat Control doesn't have paid lobbyists on both sides I have a bridge to sell you. Also, paying lobbyists is still sinking resources. And the people taking their meetings are still sinking political capital into a fight that has–to date–yielded zilch.
> while those against it have work hard and pay taxes to fund the former
The principal moneyed interests in this fight are the tech companies. Your taxes aren't funding their fight. The police lobby is less effective if filtered through paid lobbyists versus having a police chief personally pitch lawmakers.
Need to amend constitutional rights to privacy then these laws can be struck down in courts.
I feel like that would end with the same surveillance loopholes that Google, Microsoft and Apple exploit today.
Users need the ability to choose operating systems and software that is not exclusively green-lit by a first-party vendor. It's not glamorous, but pretending that software isn't a competitive market is what put us into this surveillance monopoly in the first place. "trust" distributed among a handful of businesses isn't going to cut it in a post-2030s threat environment.
It's a problem when the parliament can't propose the laws it has to vote on and the commission isn't elected and continues to be presided by the most corrupt person in the EU. She is blatantly EPP and just keeps proposing the shit they want.
For Americans, imagine if only Republicans ever got to propose legislation and only Democrats could vote on it. That's more or less it.
I honestly like the system as long as its reach is limited and it's stay this way (i.e EU regulations set goals, and states do what they want to reach it). The money lobbyists throw is huge, for very, very little progress.
At least the Commision can't conduct war for 100 days without Congress approval.
I thought Juncker was an idiot but VdL is corrupt to Hillary levels and worse than the disastruous Merker/Juncker duo in every way. I'd like to see her replaced with someone like Macron. That's the type of leadership that the EU needs right now.
You are mostly right except vdl is very, very far from the most corrupt person. It can be much worse.
> She is blatantly EPP
Well, that's because she was nominated by European governments, which happen to be largely run by right-wing parties right now. There have been socialist personalities in her place in the past. That has nothing to do with democracy.
I think the more fitting imagery would be https://en.meming.world/images/en/4/4a/Moe_Tossing_Barney_Fr...
The alternative is a dictatorship.
The US really, really wants it implemented, and several national police institutions in the EU does too. Plus the politicians that start to drool a little at the prospect.
Given the current US-EU relations I'm more surprised we're not telling them to go fuck themselves on this.
We need a double-jeopardy-like constitutional amendment for legislation. Legislation once-tried and failed cannot be tried again.
That would be antithetical to democracy. The people must be allowed to introduce any legislation they want, as often as they want.
Otherwise it would be trivial for a government to intentionally fail to pass anything they disagree with, and thus act as a de facto dictatorship.
Not to mention how would one even define "the same legislation"?
When have "the people" been last consulted on this? Do you really think Chat Control has high public support? Given how most "democracies" work in our world today (which is to say with no consultation of the people), i think limiting their ability to do further harm might be worth it.
> Do you really think Chat Control has high public support?
Yes, I can absolutely see a majority in certain countries (e.g. Hungary) believing this is a fair compromise between security and privacy.
This wouldn't limit the ability of governments to do harm, it would limit the ability of the people to mitigate that harm by giving them only one chance to ever do so.
I don't think "democracy is flawed therefore we need less of it" is a good idea.
The MEPs represent the people. They've just been consulted. They said no.
Looking at what each of my MEPs voted they seemed to pretty accurately represent their own party lines, the right and far right voted for, left and center left voted against. I'm shocked! Shocked! Well not that shocked.
I would say "end of chat control, for now"
Those guys only ever have a "maybe later" button.
That's pretty much how it works; there's generally no way, in a modern parliamentary democracy to say "no, and also you can never discuss it again". You could put it in the constitution, but honestly there's a decent argument that parts of chat control would violate the EU's can't-believe-it's-not-a-constitution (the Lisbon Treaty is essentially a constitution, but is not referred to as such because it annoys nationalists) in any case and ultimately be struck down by the ECJ, like the Data Retention Directive was.
Constituional cours are a last defense against bad laws though and should not be the first one - they are not designed to be fast enough to prevent a lot of damage being done before they strike something down.
The first defense is that the Council of the EU (formed by government ministers of the member states) and the European Parliament (elected directly by EU citizens) have to agree on the legislation. And while the council is staffed by career politicians, the parliament is a more diverse group that's generally a bit closer to the average person
From the point of view of the individual, the parliament is our first defense. And this is an example of it working
If something in 'Chat Control' is so fundamental that it should lead to the law not even being brought up for discussion (privacy), then that 'right' should be more clearly defined in the constitution, or constitution like structure.
It's when laws can exist, but simply have bad implementations, where you obviously can't jump to an amendment process.
I mean, they're _not_ the first defence. This is a story about the parliament rejecting a bad law.
That constitution sure did stop Giuliani from having the cops shake down all those black guys.
At the end of the day you still need people to actually believe it, for whatever "it" is.
Yeah, this is more or less what I'm saying. Large parts of 'Chat Control' likely _are_ unconstitutional, but that doesn't necessarily stop it being brought (it just makes it likely that the courts will kill parts of it if it ever passes).
> (it just makes it likely that the courts will kill parts of it if it ever passes).
Years after harm was done and lives were ruined no less.
For today or for this month.
The value of persistence!
It's never going to stop. They'll keep trying until they get it because they're sick people.
The fact that they could pull a stunt like this shows that the EU is no democracy. Shame on the politicians who tried to rob people of their rights.
How have you came to such conclusions?
If anything it proves the opposite.
Look at how laws are passed in russia for example for comparison and let me know what similarities you see.
> The controversial mass surveillance of private messages in Europe is coming to an end.
I am having a deja vu. Groundhog Day.
The above should be adjusted. This is not an end; it will continue in another form. Another name. Another proposal. The lobbyists behind this will not give up. They are paid to not give up.
I don't think any of those few should have ANY power of us, The People. That includes both EU commission as well as EU parliament. Yes, I know the EU parliament is heralded now as "our heroes". I don't trust any of them at any moment in time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qatar_corruption_scandal_at_th.... And that's just one known issue. How many more unknown issues are there?
Also, Leyen should go. She is too suspiciously close to a few companies, always promoting things. She did so before her time in the EU too.
To get "End of Chat Control" EU should actually pass laws prohibiting it, this whack a mole will eventually lose.
> The Hard Facts: Why Chat Control Has Failed Spectacularly
The ostensible reasons for mass surveillance fail. That's very interesting.
I feel like someone ought to dramatise this seemingly endless struggle in a seemingly endless series of movies.
-The Spying Menace
-Attack of the conservatives
-Revenge of the marketing conglomerate
-A new hope
-Chat Control strikes back
-Return of the Pirate Party
Etc,etc.
No, this is the end of the wording for the initiative, nothing else.
We will see many new initiatives, old wine in a new bottle. Any bet that EU diehard bureaucrats will change tune, not the goal. They are going to use the so called salami tactic.
Death of free speech by many cuts, so to say. It is in the left wing DNA. Have a look at German history regarding "Landes-Verfassungsschutz" units. It is disturbing to read this article here: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verfassungsschutz_Nordrhein-We...
And back then already it was the so called center-right party ruled against this left wing initiative - imagine, first thing you do right after WW2 is ramping up a control unit to control freedom of speech.
Please value free speech. Agree to disagree, but remember: those who live by prohibitions will ultimately use this tool against you as well. Consider wisely what is something you dislike personally and simply exercise your right to not listen to certain voices or appeal to prohibition.
Prohibition becomes a tool and everybody knows that people love to use their tools. And since I have a law degree, often times what you plan is not what is finally what courts decide, how they apply the law.
Freedom rights are fundamental.
this is the end of the wording for the initiative, nothing else
it is more than that. since 2021 an EU interim regulation (2021/1232), set to expire on 3 april, was allowing companies to voluntarily scan messages. this vote was about the renewal of that regulation. since it has been rejected, the regulation is no longer in effect.
You’re painting an EPP/ECR initiative as left wing? That’s inconsistent with the facts.
He's rambling about "left-wing DNA" in the Verfassungsschutz, who is famously quite good at turning a blind eye to right wing extremists. Probably because AfD got rightfully classified as far-right-extremists.
So to him they are probably left-wing.
Here's a mirror link: http://archive.today/CJlNk
See you next year!
Is the snow melting? Do you hear birds? Must be chat control season.
Someone should sell calendars based on when this typically gets proposed as well as dates throughout the year when past instances of check control came up against key procedural hurdles.
Never forget:
> We decide something, then put it in the room and wait some time to see what happens. If there is no big shouting and no uprisings, because most do not understand what it is about, then we continue - step by step until there is no turning back. – Jean Claude Juncker, then President of the EU Commission
They will try this again. And again. And again. They will never stop.
They are not your friends.
Until next time.
Related discussion : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47529646
Good.
Now let's start preparing for the next one.
So, in the end a big majority of the conservative/liberal faction (EPP) voted against, and the vast majority of the social democractic faction (S&D) voted for chat control.
https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/189270
Just pointing this out because yesterday there was the myth around that "chat control is pushed by the conservatives", obscuring the actual political dynamics in the EU about it.
EPP proposed it, but then it got amended (ie toned down) so much that they turned on their own proposal. This apparently happens quite a lot. So the way I understand it is they turned it down not because they thought it was bad, but because they didn't think it was bad enough.
> So, in the end a big majority of the conservative/liberal faction (EPP) voted against, and the vast majority of the social democractic faction (S&D) voted for chat control.
EPP wanted indiscriminate scanning instead, not targeted one.
There's also the DDR and Stasi as a counter example if anyone think mass surveillance is incompatible with socialism.
Mass surveillance isn't really a question that projects well onto the left-right scale, and attempting to make it fit a left-right question is more likely to distract than provide a useful understanding.
Yes. I would place it on the authority–liberty axis.
While your examples were on the economic left, they were clearly authoritarian.
Greens based as always
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We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47529682 and marked it off topic.
[flagged]
"What did the Romans ever do for US?" :P
They literally just voted it down. Twice in 2 days. Also compared to whom?
> They literally just voted it down. Twice in 2 days.
And they will try again tomorrow. Until it passes.
> Also compared to whom?
Why compare? The fact that there are worse regimes than the EU doesn't make the EU even a single bit better. Lesser evil is still evil. Let us strive for good.
"They" being the member states. The EU is the institution preventing them from implementing it, not enabling them.
You're inverting roles here.
Just look at the UK and how crazy they've gone now that the EU can't shoot their ideas down anymore.
> With every new proposal, every vote, they are closer to the totalitarian regime. Proposals can be declined a million times, but the EU regime is always finding sneakier and more manipulative ways to push again and again.
... I mean this is how all parliamentary systems work. It's more _visible_ in the EU than in others, I think, because the council/commission are more willing to put forward things that they don't really think the parliament will go for (in many parliamentary systems, realistically the executive will be reluctant to put forward stuff where they think they'll lose the vote in parliament).
But there's not really a huge difference; it would just be _quieter_ in most parliamentary systems, and you wouldn't really hear anything about it until the executive had their votes in place, brought it forward, and passed it. I actually kind of prefer the EU system, in that it tends to happen more out in the open, which allows for public comment. And public comment and pressure is a huge deal for this sort of thing; most parliamentarians, on things they don't understand, will vote whatever way their party is voting. But if it becomes clear that their constituents care about it, they may actually have to think about it, and that's half the battle.
We already don't have free speech. There's nothing protecting it (and many laws already to the contrary.) There aren't really any such constitutional protections from what I can tell.
Once laws are passed they aren't revoked. So it's just a matter of political climate. Just wait for people to get a little more negative, a little more paranoid (which has historically been "helped along" in various ways)-- a law only needs to pass once, and then we're stuck with some stupid bullshit forever.
It doesn't really seem like how you'd want to design it.
Obviously you can revoke Laws.
And not being able to deny the Holocaust doesn't mean you don't have free speech
"fascism" has a pretty well defined meaning, which is not whatever the EU would become if something like chat control ever passes. Towards totalitarianism, sure, but again not all totalitarianism is fascism. I wish people would stop using le mot du jour as a replacement for everything in an subconscious need to increase others' engagement.
So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.
You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.
There are advantages to "government by evolution", as opposed to "government by monoculture"
With the former approach, every country is allowed to try different things, some amazing, some dumb, and learn from the amazing and dumb things that others have done.
In the latter, there's only one governing body, and whatever that body said, goes. There's no science or statistics, just sides shouting their arguments at each other, calling people names.
Both the EU and the US used to heavily lean towards the former approach, but they're slowly but inexorably moving towards the latter.
> So in summary: because the law was avoided today, the EU needs to be abolished? Weird take.
There are many reasons to abolish the EU, but the topic here is chat control.
> You can see it the other way around, without the EU, Denmark and others would have already implemented ChatControl in their country. This is driven by member states (Denmark), not the parliament, after all.
Would they? We don't know. Would the government of Denmark be ready to commit political suicide by insisting again and again on something so unpopular?
The whole premise of the EU is to allow various unelected interest groups to push unpopular regulation to the EU member states without any consequences.
Isn't the UK a perfect control group? Didn't the EU push back on similar legislation, until Brexit?
> insisting again and again on something so unpopular?
Didn't the UK do exactly this?
What a joke. Compared to US, implementing chat control is like a pin prick compared to the scale of MAGA fascism. The EU is probably the best example of functional government anywhere in the world right now.
The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances, and its only democratic if you squint and look at it the right way. People need to directly elect the MPs, directly elect some kind of president. They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
I agree there is a strong democratic deficit in the current EU governance structure, but I disagree with a proposal such as
> directly elect some kind of president
We do not need a president with over-powers, and electing directly one does not solve anything for democracy, as the recent history in countries like the US and France shows. The point of directly electing a president is giving that role more power. The current structure in the EU is not so much president-centric either executive or legislative wise, but more like comission-centric, which is what imo has the biggest problem in terms of democracy in the EU.
> People need to directly elect the MP
They do.
> directly elect some kind of president
I get the impression you're coming at it from a US perspective, and it's not that, and doesn't intend to be for now. The president is elected by majority of the MP's who have been elected by the people of their respective countries. Almost like the US electorial system, except it's done internally because people generally only vote for their own best interests and not that of the entirety.
Perfect, no, it can be slow and a lot of red tape, but what system isn't flawed.
People directly elects MEPs. And the Parliament literally right now just put a check on the Council.
Many EU nations are not presidential, and personally I prefer parliamentary republics than presidential ones.
The commission is checked by the parliament is checked by the council is checked by the commission. Most other national organizations only have one check - Germany, for example, only has the Bundesrat as a check of the Bundestag.
Checks and balances means some folks should NOT be directly elected. if everyone is <directly elected>, then you have <directly elected> checked and balanced by <directly elected>. Which is to say, not at all. :-P
one if the problems is that most elections are only for one person, so only the majority (the person with the most votes) wins.
give everyone half a dozen votes or more, and and you'll get a more representative sample.
for example instead of electing a president, elect a while leadership team. independent of party affiliation. (i'd get rid of parties completely while we are at it, every candidate should be independent (the expanded version of that gets even rid of candidates, every adult can potentially be elected, but that is a more complex system that needs more elaboration))
You could have a system where everyone is directly elected while keeping checks and balances, if voting were restricted, eg. maybe everyone can vote for a president/prime minister, but only non-teachers can vote for an education minister, and only non-finance people can vote for something like the Fed chief, etc. The point being the checks and balances now happen because other groups keep your group in check by voting.
This sounds like the opposite of what should be happening? Like an anti-technocracy aiming for an electorate as little informed as possible?
Why exclude teachers from picking the education minister? If we're restricting votes, shouldn't they be the only ones doing so instead?
Absolutely! That does keep some of the checks. You can do better than that though!
It's like on the Apollo missions where some parts were made by two completely different manufacturers and worked completely differently.
Hybrid political systems are best. Of course if we like democracy (and most people do), then that should be the most common kind of component. But I'd still like to have some different paradigms mixed into the system. And that's exactly what most modern constitutions do, for better or for worse.
I'd personally go for a two-chamber system (like congress/senate or commons/lords), with one chamber being elected and the other being chosen by sortition.
Maybe also a 3rd chamber, where the weight of your vote was proportional to IQ (much more palatable in EU than US).
> People need to directly elect the MPs
...
We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?
> directly elect some kind of president.
Why? Nowhere in Western Europe except very arguably France (France, as always, has to be a bit weird about everything, and has a hybrid system) has a directly elected executive. True executive presidential systems are only really a thing in the Americas and Africa (plus Russia, these days).
Like, in terms of big countries with a true executive presidency, you’re basically looking at the US, Russia and Brazil. I’m, er, not sure we should be modeling ourselves on those paragons of democracy.
> They have no accountability, no checks and balances.
The parliament has the same accountability and checks and balances as any national parliament, more or less (more than some, as the ECJ is more effective and independent than many national supreme courts).
> We do? What did you think the European Parliament elections every four years were for?
Probably it is not taught as part of the curriculum in Russia.
Ah, looks like they're American, based on their profile.
From an EU perspective, there's not much difference between russia, and the US at the moment.
i always found it odd that the most powerful person in many european countries, the prime minister, is not directly elected. but the problem is not really there. the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person. and the influence of political parties to decide who gets to be a candidate.
imagine system where we directly elect the whole cabinet. only people with electoral approval should get to be ministers. and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.
> the problem in my opinion is the concentration of power in one person.
Generally, a prime minister is less powerful than an executive president, often much less powerful.
> and the prime ministers or presidents job is to only manage that group.
On the face of it, that is the PM's primary role in a parliamentary democracy. Now, the complication is that, in many parliamentary systems, the PM has significant power over the ministers (either via the ability to directly appoint them, or via being the head of the ruling party/coalition/or various other means). But generally, the PM is less powerful in nearly all systems than, say, the US president; in particular the finance minister is often a separate semi-independent power within the cabinet.
> The EU is fundamentally flawed. There are no checks and balances
You're missing a [citation needed] on that.
Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?
> Non-elected representatives from my country keep pushing for chat control via the council. How do I, as a citizen, hold them accountable?
How is that an EU problem? Without the EU, like here in the UK, we had non-elected lobbyists pressuring our elected government to implement age checks, message scanning, etc. And it is still continuing.
You're fighting the wrong fight by blaming the EU for this.
This is a highly solvable problem, one that is solved by not overloading the national elections with to different concerns.
EU has checks and balances that were intended for a trade union, not a nascent superstate. If we don't implement proper checks and balances in a real fucking hurry, we'll wake up one morning and realize the EU has turned into another Soviet union, and by then it'll be far too late to do anything about it.
Ask your government why they're sending those representatives. As a citizen you vote for your government, right?
How badly would you say the council or commission have to mess things up before they saw any voter-initiated repercussions what so ever with a system of accountability that requires voters to consider punishing the council or comission more important than their own national elections?
If accountability is to work, it has to be more than an abstract theoretical possibility.
It isn't abstract. Your government sends representatives to represent its platform and priorities. If you don't agree with the reps you need to elect a different government.
It's a abstract because you will never ever see a situation where voters neglect national elections to adjust the EU council or commission. Maybe it's what needs to happen, but the way thing are arranged it just won't.
Why "neglect"? You're voting for a government that does the things you want.
Vote against the ruling party in your smaller national election
That's a system of accountability in name but not in practice.
Even if there was an option in the national elections that didn't want this stuff, convincing a majority of voters to disregard national politics for an election cycle to have an imperceptibly small impact on the council members is such an unlikely outcome the council or comission would de facto be committing genocides before voters would be mobilized, and even then it's unlikely they'd face any repercussions.
It isn't popular, but they have a name and address right? Not talking violence, but the number one way of dealing with these sorts is to usually talk things out. If you're really concerned about, get a group of similarly minded people and make it unambiguously evident that this person is championing something a lot of people are not behind. It becomes much harder to ignore or wave off something when people start making themselves known on your doorstep.
And no, this isn't dog whistling violence. It is simply applying signal. The only other message I can think of is engaging an investigative journalist/PI and starting to figure out who is lobbying the person, and start pressuring them.
The article you're commenting on is reporting how directly elected representatives defeated the motion.
Why do you keep lying?
That's the parliament. What about the council and the commission? Am I not allowed to hold them accountable? Does my power as a citizen only extend to a fourth of the balance of power?
They keep getting away with these attrition tactics with regards to implementing near Stasi levels communication surveillance. What about the day they're pushing to give the council unlimited powers, or to abolish voting rights, or to purge jews?
The Council and Commission are representatives of your democratically elected national government. You as a citizen of your country get to pick said government.
If the EU were to not exist, your representatives in the Council/Commission (e.g. your national government) would be more powerful because they wouldn't be checked by the Parliament, not less.
Your problem is with your government, they just successfully deflected it to the EU in your mind.
The council is made up of heads of state, so no more undemocratic than your own countries executive, and the commission is selected by the Council and approved by the EU parliament.
Russia and China has elections too, they are a necessary but not sufficient criteria for democracy. Just because there are elections doesn't mean the people can actually hold the government accountable.
The parliament holds them accountable like it just did in the article you're comme nting on.
Again, why are you aggressively lying here? Why are you misrepresenting workings of EU despite them following every single democracy out there?