8 ms·

I think the challenge for society here is not to simply reject attempts like this, but how to prevent them from being pushed over and over until a specific cont

• thinkingtoilet 1y ago
  Agreed. In this case, there needs to be some sort of 'privacy bill of rights'. Something fundamental where any law like this cannot be passed.
  • quotemstr 1y ago
    Laws don't stop men with guns. Men with guns stop men with guns. Laws not enforced and rights not protected don't matter. As the old saying goes, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
    • mapontosevenths 1y ago
      > Laws don't stop men with guns. Men with guns stop men with guns. Prove it. Every statistic I've ever seen shows the exact opposite of this to be true.
      • logicchains 1y ago
        Here's the proof: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_... . Those kinds of mass killings can only happen when the citizens are disarmed, because it's logistically impossible for a government to seize absolute power when a significant proportion of the citizens are armed.
        • 1718627440 1y ago
          Those kind of mass killings also happen in authoritative regimes, which typically emerge from violent societies.
        • mapontosevenths 1y ago
          > it's logistically impossible for a government to seize absolute power when a significant proportion of the citizens are armed. This is literally, and provably, untrue. For example: The Soviet Union: The Bolsheviks initially proclaimed that "the arming of the working people" was essential to prevent "restoration of the power of the exploiters". It was only later that they restricted private gun ownership. The Nazis: Contrary to popular gun rights narratives, Nazi gun laws actually relaxed restrictions for most Germans while targeting specific groups. Sometimes authoritarianism is the same as populism. Rwanda: Prior to the genocide, the government systematically distributed weapons to local administrators and militia groups while ensuring targeted populations remained defenseless. Myanmar: Armed civilian resistance groups formed, but the were essentially wiped out by the overwhelming advantages in air power and heavy weaponry that an actual organized military had. The firearms were useless. Arguably, worse than useless as those who fought back died in large numbers. Venezuela: The regime armed its supporters while systematically removing weapons from the general population. The population was well armed, they just couldn't fight back against an organized government response.
      • Thiez 1y ago
        Perhaps they meant the police as the men with guns doing the stopping, and the states monopoly on violence. I for one wholeheartedly support the police enforcing gun control laws and dealing with armed criminals.
    • thinkingtoilet 1y ago
      >Men with guns stop men with guns. Really? Why does America, the country with the most guns by far, have the most gun deaths by far? It's very tiring arguing these very obvious points over and over.
      • logicchains 1y ago
        Nazi Germany, Communist China and Soviet Russia have by far the largest number of deaths by _men with guns_, over a hundred million people killed by their own governments. The guns of US citizens have so far prevented this kind of government-led mass citizen genocide from happening. The number of people killed by gun violence in the US is a rounding error compared to the number of people killed by Mao, Hitler and Stalin.
        • 1718627440 1y ago
          Most people killed by these regimes killed people as aliens. If truly want to compare the actions of the USA, you must also count there handling of there aliens (e.g. in wars).
        • mapontosevenths 1y ago
          > The guns of US citizens have so far prevented this kind of government-led mass citizen genocide from happening. No they haven't. Our system of checks and balances has. At no point has there been a civil war in which the US's citizens attempted to fight back against the US military. If there were, the citizens would lose without even presenting a challenge.
          • hollerith 1y ago
            >the citizens would lose without even presenting a challenge. That's not true. The US Army spent 20 years and trillions of dollars trying to impose regime change on Afghanistan, but were defeated by a group (the Taliban) that had very little military capability beyond men with rifles and some explosives to make improvised bombs. (Yes, they also had decades-old weapons with which to shoot down helicopters.) Algeria's war of independence from France in the 1950s and early 1960s is another example where a group with very little in the way of military capability defeated one of the most powerful militaries in the world. I don't necessarily buy the argument that the US should continue with the gun status quo just because all those guns would come in handy in a revolution, but you haven't successfully refuted the argument.
  • layer8 1y ago
    This exists. But courts have to balance conflicting rights, so there is always room for interpretation.
• contravariant 1y ago
  The accepted solution is to have a constitution that says otherwise. Which is a bit complicated here, as the EU has no real constitution and this 'law' (really a regulation) is a blatant violation of the constitutions of countries that did choose to establish secrecy of correspondence.
  • NooneAtAll3 1y ago
    isn't constitution easily changed by parlament?
    • _cenw 1y ago
      Usually not "easily". I know Germany requires 2/3 majority.
      • fsckboy 1y ago
        fwiw, amending the US constitution generally requires a 2/3 majority in both houses of congress to propose the amendment, and then further ratification by 3/4 of the states make the amendment law. it's a fairly long process, and amendments sometime get bogged down and die in the 2nd phase. (there is another process which calls for a convention, but such a convention would have broad powers to change many things and so far the "two sides" (US rules tilt toward two parties rather than more) have been too scared of what might happen to do that)
    • raffraffraff 1y ago
      Ireland's Supreme Court decided in 1987 to make a referendum mandatory before they would ratify EU treaty amendments. Not that it mattered, because they got a "no" vote but their puppet masters wanted a "yes", so they just reran the referendum the following year... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-eighth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-eighth_Amendment_of_t... Only 59% turn out, and the vote won 67%. So in reality less than 40% of the population were for it. I have vague memories of people saying that the treaty was indecipherable. The EU were like, "Here, vote yes for this big bag of 'misc', or else" This wasn't the first time they reran a referendum for an EU treaty. They did it back in 2003! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-sixth_Amendment_of_the_Constitution_of_Ireland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-sixth_Amendment_of_th... If the UK wanted to avoid BREXIT all they had to do was look a few miles to the west for the knack.
• mtillman 1y ago
  I'm convinced the people suggesting this type of thing are influenced or even compromised by their constituent's enemies and NOT the result of poor education on the topic. This policy for example would be most helpful to enemies to the EU. It would lower the cost of acquiring the data for China and Russia as it allows them to mass acquire data in transmission without incurring the cost of local operations. The easiest system in the world to hack is that of a policy maker.
  • _t9ow 1y ago
    > It would lower the cost of acquiring the data for China and Russia Yes, it would lower such barriers for countries that are commonly seen today as Europe's adversaries. But in this case, the U.S. (or rather, U.S. organisations and corporations) might be the primary bad actor pushing for ChatControl. See e.g.: Thorn (organization) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization) "Thorn works with a group of technology partners who serve the organization as members of the Technology Task Force. The goal of the program includes developing technological barriers and initiatives to ensure the safety of children online and deter sexual predators on the Internet. Various corporate members of the task force include Facebook, Google, Irdeto, Microsoft, Mozilla, Palantir, Salesforce Foundation, Symantec, and Twitter.[7] ... Netzpolitik.org and the investigative platform Follow the Money criticize that "Thorn has blurred the line between advocacy for children’s rights and its own interest as a vendor of scanning software."[11][12] The possible conflict of interest has also been picked up by Balkan Insight,[13] Le Monde,[14] and El Diario.[15] A documentary by the German public-service television broadcaster ZDF criticizes Thorn’s influence on the legislative process of the European Union for a law from which Thorn would profit financially.[16][17] A move of a former member of Europol to Thorn has been found to be maladministration by the European Ombudsman Emily O'Reilly.[18][19]" Additionally, it would not surprise me at all if Palantir is lobbying for this either. Many EU countries, like Germany and Denmark, have already integrated Palantir's software into the intelligence, defence, and policing arms of their governments. But at the end of the day, while it is convenient to blame external actors like U.S. corporations, ultimately the blame lies solely on the shoulders of European politicians. People in positions of power will tend to seek more, and I'm sure European politicians are more than happy to wield these tools for their own gain regardless of whether Palantir or Thorn is lobbying them.
• NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
  There are no solutions to that which wouldn't sound absurd. But if you could get past absurdity... Politicians should agree to to be executed if they lose an election. Only those willing to risk their lives should be allowed to legislate. This also gives the voters the option of punishing those who pass onerous laws at the next election. If you need extra zing, this would also apply to recall elections, so they could even be punished early.
  • raincole 1y ago
    Yeah let's ensure only the craziest, most desperate for power type to be the regulators. Hitler knew if he had lost, he would have been executed. Didn't stop him from going war.
    • inglor_cz 1y ago
      One could argue that Putin won't stop the current war against Ukraine for the very same reason. He is obsessed with Gaddafi's undignified end in a ditch and cannot be seen as weak. The GP's idea is very bad. Quite to the contrary, losing power should not come with disastrous personal consequences.
      • NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago
        If they can't be punished for continuing to push bad laws, then they will continue to push them... because they benefit from those when they inevitably pass. So there are no solutions. You live in a world where Putin still exists, is still doing these godawful things, but the suggestion that if a politician loses an election his life is forfeit makes you fear that the things that already happen would happen. Or something. It's sort of sad.
  • nathan_compton 1y ago
    I think it would be better if they agree to be executed if they win the election, after serving their term. Maybe a less extreme version of this is that if you become president you are stripped of all property and become the ward of the state after your term is over, enter a monastery sort of situation, for the rest of your life.
• gmuslera 1y ago
  If only we could show them how this kind of things may go wrong. I don't know, the case of some leader of a nation they are having trouble with, abusing of a similar access with their data. But they will probably think that is only bad when others do it to them.
  • mapontosevenths 1y ago
    > If only we could show them how this kind of things may go wrong. We can. This has already happened with the fairly recent SALT TYPHOON hacks. China (ostensibly) abused lawful wiretapping mechanisms to spy on American (and other) citizens and politicians. The news at the time wasn't always explicit about the mechanism, but that's what happened. China wouldn't have been able to do this if those mechanisms didn't exist in the first place.
    • brabel 1y ago
      Wait, isn’t that the law working exactly as planned?
    • gmuslera 1y ago
      The elephant in the room here is US.
• delusional 1y ago
  > prevent them from being pushed over and over Solve the problem it's trying to solve, then it won't be proposed again.
  • iLoveOncall 1y ago
    The problem it's trying to solve is mass surveillance...
    • delusional 1y ago
      You mean like the mass surveillance already implemented by Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon? That's already here. I think you should consider that this law might be aiming at some other goal.
      • happyopossum 1y ago
        > You mean like the mass surveillance already implemented by Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon? No, GP is referring to mass collection and analysis of all of your communications. Google, Apple, et. all don’t have that capability today. Hell, apple can’t even read my text messages, nor do they know I’m writing this - and I’m doing it on an iPhone.
        • RajT88 1y ago
          You only believe that because you have chosen to believe it. Take Facebook end-to-end encrypted messages for example. There are certain links it won't let you send, enough though it is supposedly E2EE. (I've seen it in situations like mentioning the piratebay domain name, which it tries to auto-preview and then fails. Hacking related websites as well I've seen the issue with.) It likes to pretend it is a mysterious error, but if you immediately send a different link, it sends just fine. I don't use chat apps much these days, so I'm not sure if others see similar behavior, but I'd wager some do. Facebook is about the least trustworthy provider I'm likely to use, FWIW, so I expect a certain amount of smoke and mirrors from them.
      • 1y ago
• tomkarho 1y ago
  The only way I see to prevent the constant pushing is that every single time some council or committee presents something like this every single of one of their private communication gets leaked for everyone to peruse at their leisure from whatsapp to bank statements. They want to erode people's privacy? Let them walk their talk first and see how that goes.
  • Alejandro9R 1y ago
    I like this idea frankly. Where are the hacktivists when we need them?
    • goneri 1y ago
      You can become an "hacktivist" by taking 15 minutes of your time to write an email to your MEP. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home https://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/home
      • 1gn15 1y ago
        I think "hacktivist" here means hacking into the politician's inboxes and leaking the contents, like "politicians want to do this to you; let's see how they like it when it's done to them" sort of thing.
  • ddalex 1y ago
    No, you silly man, the politicians are protected from this law, this is just for the plebs.
  • glenstein 1y ago
    >The only way I see to prevent the constant pushing is that every single time some council or committee presents something like this Yes but.. it can't just be vague exhortations and generalities. I didn't know the pertinent bodies previously, but after GPT'ing on it, it looks like they include: One is "DG Home," an EU department on security that drafts legislation. Another is Europol, a security coordination body that can't legislate but frequently advocates for this kind of legislation. And then there's LEWP, The law enforcement working party, a "working group" comprised of security officials from member EU states, also involved in EU policy making in some capacity. I think the blocking states should be resisting these at these respective bodies too.
• simianparrot 1y ago
  The only real option is to get your country to leave the EU. An unelected cabal of people making sweeping decisions for countless member states isn't democratic, so yeet it while you can.
  • johnwayne666 1y ago
    > An unelected cabal of people European Commission: Commissioners are nominated by elected national governments and must be approved by the directly elected European Parliament. Council of the EU: Ministers are accountable to their national parliaments, which are elected by citizens. European Council: Composed of heads of state/government who were elected in their own countries. European Parliament: Members are directly elected by EU citizens every five years.
    • Xelbair 1y ago
      >European Commission: Commissioners are nominated by elected national governments and must be approved by the directly elected European Parliament. With so many levels of indirection, that citizen votes are irrelevant and they don't need to care about it - only about support of major political group at the top. And surprisingly enough Parliment is relatively stable. >Council of the EU: Ministers are accountable to their national parliaments, which are elected by citizens. same as above. i don't advocate for leaving the EU, but this needs to change. Those positions, which are the ones pushing for such legislation usually, need to be held accountable by citizens. At least EC. No more rotations, or other such bullshit. Right now EU is sitting in middle ground between federation and trade union, reaping(from citizens point of view) downsides of both systems.
  • ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
    The UK left, but then their politicians just decided to do their own version of chat control
• zx10rse 1y ago
  Strip the privileges from the bureaucrats who are involved in any type of government work or activity. No immunities, no security. If you want to be a servant to the public be one.
• hartator 1y ago
  Explicit digital privacy right in each country constitution? Priva rights are already there in most countries constitutions, but maybe adding the digital part will make it harder to push back.
• stego-tech 1y ago
  I would argue that a surefire way of guaranteeing the right to privacy is to instead continuously push for absolute-transparency laws for politicians and governments. If they’re going to demand every private citizen’s records are always open for view, then the same should be said for governments - no security clearances, no redactions, no “National Security” excuse. Is it patently unreasonable? Yes, but cloaked in the “combat corruption” excuse it can be just as effective in a highly-partisan society such as this - just like their “bUt WhAt AbOuT tHe ChIlDrEn” bullshit props up their demands for global surveillance.
• postepowanieadm 1y ago
  Can't be done. It's pushed by the Commission - the technocratic deep state.
• 6r17 1y ago
  This has to be written in the constitution somehow ; it has to comes down to the values of everyone - and i believe a lot of education has to do with it. Currently people are simply not tilted by it as much - or not in a way comparable to other topics.
• nilslindemann 1y ago
  By implementing direct democracy via internet, which creates laws which disallow that. But, amongst a few others, there is a technical problem, how do we log in to vote? That mechanism must be unhackable, configurable by computer illiterates, and it must not invade privacy. Serious question.
• jMyles 1y ago
  The prevention has to be in the underlying layer of physics / math / the internet such that the state is _unable _ to make (or at least enforce) such laws. We need to accept and celebrate a world in which the capabilities of states are constrained by our innovations, not merely the extremely occasional votes we cast.
• ulrikrasmussen 1y ago
  This is why the right to protected communication, as well as the right to control the software running on general purpose computing devices that you own (i.e. no remote attestation), must be adopted as human rights.
• abandonliberty 1y ago
  It's incredibly difficult to stop a well-funded, 50-year plan to subvert a democracy. The attention spans of politicians, corporations, and the public are measured in days, months, or years, not decades. After 9/11, the Bush administration was accused of abusing the crisis to expand executive power and the national security state. Those who raised the alarm about things like the Patriot Act were often dismissed as fringe alarmists. Now, nearly 25 years later, we're seeing the downstream effects of that gradual degradation of democratic pillars. On both sides, voters and politicians can be influenced by propaganda and campaign finance to accept small, incremental changes that don't seem dangerous in isolation, but can cumulate to crush an empire. Every democracy carries these risks. Do we think our opponents haven't noticed?