4 ms·

Spyware in Europe: EU to allow intrusive surveillance of journalists

77 points by msla 3y ago

msla 3y ago
Another link: https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-releases/article/eu-member-states-show-dangerous-disregard-for-media-freedom-principles https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-... > The Council reached an agreement on 21 June 2023 on the much-needed European Media Freedom Act, a legislation proposed by the European Commission on 16 September 2022 with the intention to introduce safeguards against political interference, media concentration, and to protect journalists and their sources against surveillance. Since then, the IFJ and EFJ have been advocating for strong and effective regulation to respond to the numerous threats posed to media freedom in the EU. > However, earlier this month, France introduced a new exception to the general ban on deploying spyware against journalists. It reads that the provisions on effective protection of journalistic sources “is without prejudice to the Member States’ responsibility for safeguarding national security”.
- jasonvorhe 3y ago
  If the West is so hellbent on cracking down on everything we allegedly stand for (democracy, free press, free speech, etc) all that other fun illusionary stuff) why not skip the war with China and Russia and just settle with what we have and shake hands with them ?
  - mhoad 3y ago
    You might want to actually go and read a few things about how they differ before making such uninformed statements.
    - rmbyrro 3y ago
      Uninformed statements aren't necessarily idiotic, and even if they were, we don't need to call it as such to express disagreement.
      - mhoad 3y ago
        This is very much civility for the sake of civility which is not without problems but is the culture here. Editing the post to remove the word idiotic and replace with uninformed.
    - hulitu 3y ago
      There are people who know them from reality, not from some book sponsored by the CIA.
      - mhoad 3y ago
        What are you even talking about? Be specific rather than tossing around vague insinuations.
  - LatteLazy 3y ago
    Realpolitik. China and Russia that supply us with gas and cheap plastic and do as they're told are fine. A china or Russia that don't do as they're told must be dealt with. No amount of democracy or freedom or lawful behavior changes that. That's why we did nothing to make Russia open and democratic and part of a global future, when they literally begged us to.
    - jasonvorhe 3y ago
      Multi-polarity is already happening, there's not a lot the West can do to change that.
      - LatteLazy 3y ago
        I don't know, it isn't going great for Russia. The US has pretty successfully isolated them and they're stuck in a pointless meat grinder war-for-nothing in Ukraine. We will see what happens with China, personally I don't fancy their chances either. They're boxed in pretty effectively in most directions and reliant on US trade (and debt). We will see...
  - Eumenes 3y ago
    The intelligence agencies and military need to stay busy and gain practical experience, if there is some sort of real conflict. Civilian life doesn't really afford them that opportunity. There are many anecdotes throughout history of comfortable empires falling from lack of experience in the field. Proxy wars and espionage campaigns are good practice, probably the best you'll get in the 21st century (so far).
    - jasonvorhe 3y ago
      Sure, they're basically building up their own enemies only to then either suffer the blowback or fight and disarm them.
WeylandYutani 3y ago
There was a recent case in the Netherlands were a lawyer used his client privilege to help a drug dealer run his empire. edit: From a maximum security prison. It was hilarious. If you want to do spying you don't exclude anyone or it's pointless. Journalist is a great cover for spies- ask the CIA.
- justinclift 3y ago
  Sometimes, you just need to allow those holes to be there, even though it means putting in extra effort to catch the bad actors in a different way. Otherwise, what's the point of having journalists around that try to uncover corruption of government / military / security services?
  - WeylandYutani 3y ago
    Those holes will be exploited by our American and Chinese enemies. Naivety will get the EU killed.
    - justinclift 3y ago
      Heh Heh Heh I guess you're not really considering that allowing or encouraging corruption internally can also kill a government? Note that China has been through multiple "purges" of corrupt officials. (Strangely, it seems to happen whenever they have a new leader who needs to remove competitors. ;)) So the corruption potential seems to be present everywhere. It's just that in the west we've (thus far) recognised the problem, and journalists are part of that solution. Removing that solution due to fear seems to be a bad direction for long term survival as well.
- AndyMcConachie 3y ago
  There's no way to prosecute the drug war and maintain civil liberties. I choose civil liberties and the drug war can go to hell.
- mhoad 3y ago
  As far as I knew they have a long standing policy to specifically not use journalists, peace corps or religious figures for non official cover specifically because it was considered pissing in the pool for everyone else. I’m pretty open to being wrong on this one but do you have any case studies to point to that say otherwise?
lakomen 3y ago
The EU is progressively turning into a totalitarian construct. Especially when it comes to digital laws and spying on its citizens. But when the base is faulty (Lisboa treaty) you can't expect the construct not to be faulty. Their actions give wind to right wing extremist parties throughout Europe.
- CrisMystik 3y ago
  What's the problem with the Lisbon Treaty?
- tut-urut-utut 3y ago
  The whole purpose of EU is to be able to blindingly push all such totalitarian, anti European, pro capital and pro US decisions that would have almost no chance to pass in most of the national parliaments.
- toyg 3y ago
  It's not like the new law says governments must spy on journalists; it just doesn't try hard enough to protect them. That's like saying that because the US is utterly failing to ensure privacy of communications over the internet, it's a "totalitarian construct". The truth is that, sometimes, in a democracy there just isn't enough political capital out there to pass a law that looks "obviously" right.
  - phendrenad2 3y ago
    The two most prominent EU member states amended the law specifically to remove the prohibitions on states spying on journalists. So this is still newsworthy.
    - toyg 3y ago
      Absolutely. But it's ludicrous for people to say this means the EU is becoming "totalitarian". This is how we cheapen words, like we used to do with "Nazi" before Godwin's Law saved us from the worst of it.
  - 3y ago
entriesfull 3y ago
It's almost as though these "Democratic" countries don't want their rich and powerful held accountable for crimes. /s

77 points by msla 3y ago

msla 3y ago

Another link: https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-releases/article/eu-member-states-show-dangerous-disregard-for-media-freedom-principles https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-... > The Council reached an agreement on 21 June 2023 on the much-needed European Media Freedom Act, a legislation proposed by the European Commission on 16 September 2022 with the intention to introduce safeguards against political interference, media concentration, and to protect journalists and their sources against surveillance. Since then, the IFJ and EFJ have been advocating for strong and effective regulation to respond to the numerous threats posed to media freedom in the EU. > However, earlier this month, France introduced a new exception to the general ban on deploying spyware against journalists. It reads that the provisions on effective protection of journalistic sources “is without prejudice to the Member States’ responsibility for safeguarding national security”.

jasonvorhe 3y ago
If the West is so hellbent on cracking down on everything we allegedly stand for (democracy, free press, free speech, etc) all that other fun illusionary stuff) why not skip the war with China and Russia and just settle with what we have and shake hands with them ?
- mhoad 3y ago
  You might want to actually go and read a few things about how they differ before making such uninformed statements.
  - rmbyrro 3y ago
    Uninformed statements aren't necessarily idiotic, and even if they were, we don't need to call it as such to express disagreement.
    - mhoad 3y ago
      This is very much civility for the sake of civility which is not without problems but is the culture here. Editing the post to remove the word idiotic and replace with uninformed.
  - hulitu 3y ago
    There are people who know them from reality, not from some book sponsored by the CIA.
    - mhoad 3y ago
      What are you even talking about? Be specific rather than tossing around vague insinuations.
- LatteLazy 3y ago
  Realpolitik. China and Russia that supply us with gas and cheap plastic and do as they're told are fine. A china or Russia that don't do as they're told must be dealt with. No amount of democracy or freedom or lawful behavior changes that. That's why we did nothing to make Russia open and democratic and part of a global future, when they literally begged us to.
  - jasonvorhe 3y ago
    Multi-polarity is already happening, there's not a lot the West can do to change that.
    - LatteLazy 3y ago
      I don't know, it isn't going great for Russia. The US has pretty successfully isolated them and they're stuck in a pointless meat grinder war-for-nothing in Ukraine. We will see what happens with China, personally I don't fancy their chances either. They're boxed in pretty effectively in most directions and reliant on US trade (and debt). We will see...
- Eumenes 3y ago
  The intelligence agencies and military need to stay busy and gain practical experience, if there is some sort of real conflict. Civilian life doesn't really afford them that opportunity. There are many anecdotes throughout history of comfortable empires falling from lack of experience in the field. Proxy wars and espionage campaigns are good practice, probably the best you'll get in the 21st century (so far).
  - jasonvorhe 3y ago
    Sure, they're basically building up their own enemies only to then either suffer the blowback or fight and disarm them.

WeylandYutani 3y ago

There was a recent case in the Netherlands were a lawyer used his client privilege to help a drug dealer run his empire. edit: From a maximum security prison. It was hilarious. If you want to do spying you don't exclude anyone or it's pointless. Journalist is a great cover for spies- ask the CIA.

justinclift 3y ago
Sometimes, you just need to allow those holes to be there, even though it means putting in extra effort to catch the bad actors in a different way. Otherwise, what's the point of having journalists around that try to uncover corruption of government / military / security services?
- WeylandYutani 3y ago
  Those holes will be exploited by our American and Chinese enemies. Naivety will get the EU killed.
  - justinclift 3y ago
    Heh Heh Heh I guess you're not really considering that allowing or encouraging corruption internally can also kill a government? Note that China has been through multiple "purges" of corrupt officials. (Strangely, it seems to happen whenever they have a new leader who needs to remove competitors. ;)) So the corruption potential seems to be present everywhere. It's just that in the west we've (thus far) recognised the problem, and journalists are part of that solution. Removing that solution due to fear seems to be a bad direction for long term survival as well.
AndyMcConachie 3y ago
There's no way to prosecute the drug war and maintain civil liberties. I choose civil liberties and the drug war can go to hell.
mhoad 3y ago
As far as I knew they have a long standing policy to specifically not use journalists, peace corps or religious figures for non official cover specifically because it was considered pissing in the pool for everyone else. I’m pretty open to being wrong on this one but do you have any case studies to point to that say otherwise?

lakomen 3y ago

The EU is progressively turning into a totalitarian construct. Especially when it comes to digital laws and spying on its citizens. But when the base is faulty (Lisboa treaty) you can't expect the construct not to be faulty. Their actions give wind to right wing extremist parties throughout Europe.

CrisMystik 3y ago
What's the problem with the Lisbon Treaty?
tut-urut-utut 3y ago
The whole purpose of EU is to be able to blindingly push all such totalitarian, anti European, pro capital and pro US decisions that would have almost no chance to pass in most of the national parliaments.
toyg 3y ago
It's not like the new law says governments must spy on journalists; it just doesn't try hard enough to protect them. That's like saying that because the US is utterly failing to ensure privacy of communications over the internet, it's a "totalitarian construct". The truth is that, sometimes, in a democracy there just isn't enough political capital out there to pass a law that looks "obviously" right.
- phendrenad2 3y ago
  The two most prominent EU member states amended the law specifically to remove the prohibitions on states spying on journalists. So this is still newsworthy.
  - toyg 3y ago
    Absolutely. But it's ludicrous for people to say this means the EU is becoming "totalitarian". This is how we cheapen words, like we used to do with "Nazi" before Godwin's Law saved us from the worst of it.
- 3y ago

entriesfull 3y ago

It's almost as though these "Democratic" countries don't want their rich and powerful held accountable for crimes. /s