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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

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.
_t9ow 1y ago
> The accepted solution is to have a constitution that says otherwise And the willingness and ability to enforce it. The current iteration of ChatControl is pushed by Denmark, which is at present the President of the Council of the European Union. The Danish Constitution itself enshrines the right to privacy of communication [0], but this is not stopping Denmark from wanting to ratify ChatControl anyway. [0]: https://danskelove.dk/grundloven/72 https://danskelove.dk/grundloven/72
- raverbashing 1y ago
  Yes but unfortunately courts are mostly reactive, not proactive Sometimes there are some mechanisms to block unconstitutional (or other regulation) laws from passing but they're limited Not sure how that would apply at the EU level or even at the Danish level
  - reliabilityguy 1y ago
    > Yes but unfortunately courts are mostly reactive, not proactive I think it’s always the case, no? Unless the unconstitutional law is approved, there is nothing to dispute in court.
    - KPGv2 1y ago
      Correct. Imagine the number of challenges in court based on mere rumor of a law.
    - spockz 1y ago
      In the Netherlands we have the “Eerste kamer” (first chamber, also called Senate) that is responsible for verifying that the proposed laws are in accordance with our “constitution”. They are elected of band with the normal government which should ensure that no single party is able to steamroll laws through both chambers.
      - 1718627440 1y ago
        In theory the "Bundespräsident" in Germany is supposed to only ratify laws that are in accordance with the constitution, but I don't think it happens that he refuses to do this.
okanat 1y ago
EU has the Charter of Fundamental rights which is a part of the Treaty of Lisbon which is the constitutional basis of EU: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_of_the_European_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Right... In the charter, the protection of personal data and privacy is a recognized right. So chat control is also probably against the EU law.
- zamadatix 1y ago
  I'm not familiar with EU law, but reading Title II article 7 and 8 makes me feel this could be an optimistic interpretation of what the Treaty of Lisbon guarantees. I'm sure the supporters of chat control would love to argue something like "ChatControl respects the private communications of an individual by protecting how the data is processed to ensure only the legitimate basis of processing the data is incurred by the law" in court. I would hope the EU courts would disagree, but I'm not sure if anyone can say until it's tested directly.
  - chmod775 1y ago
    Even the EU council's legal service thinks the law as-proposed is probably incompatible with Article 7 and 8: > The CLS concludes that, in the light of the case law of the Court of Justice at this stage, the regime of the detection order, as currently provided for by the proposed Regulation with regard to interpersonal communications, constitutes a particularly serious limitation to the rights to privacy and personal data protection enshrined in Article 7 and 8 of the Charter. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-8787-2023-INIT/en/pdf https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-8787-2023-I...
    - zamadatix 1y ago
      I think there are variants of the ChatControl proposal which were clearly problematic, but the different variations of the proposal try to toe the line since. This report talks to the 2022 era proposal.
- Aloisius 1y ago
kypro 1y ago
I've commented this elsewhere, but rights in the US are generally much more absolute than here in Europe. For example, in the EU you technically have the right to freedom of expression, but you can also be arrested if you say something that could offend someone. Similarly rights to privacy are often ignored whenever a justification can be made that it's appropriate to do so. I don't know about elsewhere in the world, but here in the UK you don't even have a right to remain silent because the government added a loophole so that if you're arrested in a UK airport they can arbitrarily force you to answer their questions and provide passwords for any private devices. For this reason you often here reports of people being randomly arrested in UK airports, and the government does this deliberately so they can violate your rights.
- realo 1y ago
  "... expression, but you can also be arrested if you say something that could offend someone. ..." You probably mean hate speech. We have laws like that too in Canada. It is a good thing.
  - happyopossum 1y ago
    It all depends who’s defining “hate”. The people you like who are in charge today won’t be there in 20 years, and if any kind of extremism leaks in to society, you could find yourself unable to advocate for your beliefs without getting arrested.
  - hellojesus 1y ago
    How on earth are hate speech laws a good thing? Or did I miss a /s?
    - platevoltage 1y ago
      For example, the US government is trying to label any posthumous criticism of Charlie Kirk "Hate Speech". You can see how dangerous this could be when the hate-mongers get to decide what is considered hate speech.
DoingIsLearning 1y ago
Plenty of EU states already have a constitution in which this proposal would be de facto unconstitutional. The issue is what is the European Commission willing to do in order to guarantee that fat contract check goes to Palantir or Thorn or whoever has the best quid pro quo of the day. This is not Stasi this is Tech billionaires playing kings and buying the EC and Europol for pennies on the dollar and with it the privacy of virtually every citizen of zero interest for law enforcement or agencies.
pjmlp 1y ago
As shown on the other side of Atlantic that is worthless when no one upholds the constitution.
- Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
  I think of constitution as a contract between the citizens and the state and the (judiciary?) Like, constitution both defines the rights of citizens and the limits of those rights and the same goes for the states. I feel as if the creators of constitutions think that it is a set of checks and balances... Just as if how a citizen violates something written in the constitution, the state can punish it. In the same manner, I believe that the constitution thought that if the state violates some constitutional right of citizen, then citizens can point that out and (punish?) the state as the legitimacy of state is through that constitution which they might be breaking... I concur (fancy word for believe which I wanted to share lol) you are talking about america. The thing is, revolutions are often messy and so much things are happening in america that I think that people are just overwhelmed and have even forgotten all the stuff happening in the past... Like tarrifs were huge thing, then epstein news then this I think autism thing by trump. Like, the amount of political discourse is happening less and idk, oh shit, just remembered the uh person deporting thing which was illegal which was done anyway If these things happened in isolation, they would all have huge actions against govt. but they are happening back to back and so everyone's just kinda silent I think, frankly I believe overwhelmed. I believe that just as in nepal, in america everyone is whining on social media but nobody's taking action. Nepal blocked social media and so people in nepal were kinda forced to take action irl and it worked kinda nice in the end tbh So maybe its social media which is enabling this thing.... which is funny to me as I am doing the same thing right now lol All for sweet internet points tho.
  - gameman144 1y ago
    > I concur (fancy word for believe which I wanted to share lol) you are talking about america. Just a heads up but concur means "agree", not "believe"
    - 1y ago
quotemstr 1y ago
> The accepted solution is to have a constitution that says otherwise. Constitutions don't enforce themselves. The US constitution has a crystal clear right to bear arms but multiple jurisdictions ignore it and multiple supreme court rulings and make firearm ownership functionally impossible anyway. Free speech regulations have, thankfully, been more robust. The only thing that stops bad things happening is a critical mass of people who believe in the values the constitution memorializes and who have enough veto power to stop attempts to erode these values. The US has such a critical mass, the gun debate notwithstanding. Does the EU have enough people who still believe in freedom?
- fsckboy 1y ago
  i think making your argument on free speech grounds would be stronger
  - quotemstr 1y ago
    How so? My point is that US constitutional protections on firearm ownership have undeniably eroded. The presence of text on the page did not prevent this erosion. I'm using gun rights as an example of a situation in which text granting a right becomes irrelevant if people stop believing in the values behind the text. People do believe in freedom of speech in the US, thankfully, even if they've stopped defending gun rights in some places. EU free speech protections are in the same position gun rights are in the US, and for surprisingly similar reasons.
    - fsckboy 1y ago
      when you are talking to a european audience, they tend to be in favor of gun control so they don't care about erosion of those rights (like the people in the US who also favor eroding them, wording of the rules be damned) HN is to a large extent a popularity contest, and people here are more in favor of free speech than guns. the US record on protecting free speech is very good.
      - dmitrygr 1y ago
rsynnott 1y ago
For practical purposes the EU does have a constitution, it's just a messy collection of treaties rather than a single codified constitution (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitution_for_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu... for why).
zx10rse 1y ago
You are most definitely not right. The EU charter of fundamental rights is an agreement that holds legal binding. The institutions who are supposed to uphold the charter are CJEU, European Commission, FRA, NHRIs. The people who wrote this proposal said it themselves - "Whilst different in nature and generally speaking less intrusive, the newly created power to issue removal orders in respect of known child sexual abuse material certainly also affects fundamental rights, most notably those of the users concerned relating to freedom of expression and information." This proposal is illegal. The fact that CJEU at least haven't issued a statement that this is illegal tells you everything you need to know about the EU and its democracy.

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.

_t9ow 1y ago

> The accepted solution is to have a constitution that says otherwise And the willingness and ability to enforce it. The current iteration of ChatControl is pushed by Denmark, which is at present the President of the Council of the European Union. The Danish Constitution itself enshrines the right to privacy of communication [0], but this is not stopping Denmark from wanting to ratify ChatControl anyway. [0]: https://danskelove.dk/grundloven/72 https://danskelove.dk/grundloven/72

raverbashing 1y ago
Yes but unfortunately courts are mostly reactive, not proactive Sometimes there are some mechanisms to block unconstitutional (or other regulation) laws from passing but they're limited Not sure how that would apply at the EU level or even at the Danish level
- reliabilityguy 1y ago
  > Yes but unfortunately courts are mostly reactive, not proactive I think it’s always the case, no? Unless the unconstitutional law is approved, there is nothing to dispute in court.
  - KPGv2 1y ago
    Correct. Imagine the number of challenges in court based on mere rumor of a law.
  - spockz 1y ago
    In the Netherlands we have the “Eerste kamer” (first chamber, also called Senate) that is responsible for verifying that the proposed laws are in accordance with our “constitution”. They are elected of band with the normal government which should ensure that no single party is able to steamroll laws through both chambers.
    - 1718627440 1y ago
      In theory the "Bundespräsident" in Germany is supposed to only ratify laws that are in accordance with the constitution, but I don't think it happens that he refuses to do this.

okanat 1y ago

EU has the Charter of Fundamental rights which is a part of the Treaty of Lisbon which is the constitutional basis of EU: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Rights_of_the_European_Union https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Fundamental_Right... In the charter, the protection of personal data and privacy is a recognized right. So chat control is also probably against the EU law.

zamadatix 1y ago
I'm not familiar with EU law, but reading Title II article 7 and 8 makes me feel this could be an optimistic interpretation of what the Treaty of Lisbon guarantees. I'm sure the supporters of chat control would love to argue something like "ChatControl respects the private communications of an individual by protecting how the data is processed to ensure only the legitimate basis of processing the data is incurred by the law" in court. I would hope the EU courts would disagree, but I'm not sure if anyone can say until it's tested directly.
- chmod775 1y ago
  Even the EU council's legal service thinks the law as-proposed is probably incompatible with Article 7 and 8: > The CLS concludes that, in the light of the case law of the Court of Justice at this stage, the regime of the detection order, as currently provided for by the proposed Regulation with regard to interpersonal communications, constitutes a particularly serious limitation to the rights to privacy and personal data protection enshrined in Article 7 and 8 of the Charter. https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-8787-2023-INIT/en/pdf https://data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/document/ST-8787-2023-I...
  - zamadatix 1y ago
    I think there are variants of the ChatControl proposal which were clearly problematic, but the different variations of the proposal try to toe the line since. This report talks to the 2022 era proposal.
Aloisius 1y ago

kypro 1y ago

I've commented this elsewhere, but rights in the US are generally much more absolute than here in Europe. For example, in the EU you technically have the right to freedom of expression, but you can also be arrested if you say something that could offend someone. Similarly rights to privacy are often ignored whenever a justification can be made that it's appropriate to do so. I don't know about elsewhere in the world, but here in the UK you don't even have a right to remain silent because the government added a loophole so that if you're arrested in a UK airport they can arbitrarily force you to answer their questions and provide passwords for any private devices. For this reason you often here reports of people being randomly arrested in UK airports, and the government does this deliberately so they can violate your rights.

realo 1y ago
"... expression, but you can also be arrested if you say something that could offend someone. ..." You probably mean hate speech. We have laws like that too in Canada. It is a good thing.
- happyopossum 1y ago
  It all depends who’s defining “hate”. The people you like who are in charge today won’t be there in 20 years, and if any kind of extremism leaks in to society, you could find yourself unable to advocate for your beliefs without getting arrested.
- hellojesus 1y ago
  How on earth are hate speech laws a good thing? Or did I miss a /s?
  - platevoltage 1y ago
    For example, the US government is trying to label any posthumous criticism of Charlie Kirk "Hate Speech". You can see how dangerous this could be when the hate-mongers get to decide what is considered hate speech.

DoingIsLearning 1y ago

Plenty of EU states already have a constitution in which this proposal would be de facto unconstitutional. The issue is what is the European Commission willing to do in order to guarantee that fat contract check goes to Palantir or Thorn or whoever has the best quid pro quo of the day. This is not Stasi this is Tech billionaires playing kings and buying the EC and Europol for pennies on the dollar and with it the privacy of virtually every citizen of zero interest for law enforcement or agencies.

pjmlp 1y ago

As shown on the other side of Atlantic that is worthless when no one upholds the constitution.

Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
I think of constitution as a contract between the citizens and the state and the (judiciary?) Like, constitution both defines the rights of citizens and the limits of those rights and the same goes for the states. I feel as if the creators of constitutions think that it is a set of checks and balances... Just as if how a citizen violates something written in the constitution, the state can punish it. In the same manner, I believe that the constitution thought that if the state violates some constitutional right of citizen, then citizens can point that out and (punish?) the state as the legitimacy of state is through that constitution which they might be breaking... I concur (fancy word for believe which I wanted to share lol) you are talking about america. The thing is, revolutions are often messy and so much things are happening in america that I think that people are just overwhelmed and have even forgotten all the stuff happening in the past... Like tarrifs were huge thing, then epstein news then this I think autism thing by trump. Like, the amount of political discourse is happening less and idk, oh shit, just remembered the uh person deporting thing which was illegal which was done anyway If these things happened in isolation, they would all have huge actions against govt. but they are happening back to back and so everyone's just kinda silent I think, frankly I believe overwhelmed. I believe that just as in nepal, in america everyone is whining on social media but nobody's taking action. Nepal blocked social media and so people in nepal were kinda forced to take action irl and it worked kinda nice in the end tbh So maybe its social media which is enabling this thing.... which is funny to me as I am doing the same thing right now lol All for sweet internet points tho.
- gameman144 1y ago
  > I concur (fancy word for believe which I wanted to share lol) you are talking about america. Just a heads up but concur means "agree", not "believe"
  - 1y ago

quotemstr 1y ago

> The accepted solution is to have a constitution that says otherwise. Constitutions don't enforce themselves. The US constitution has a crystal clear right to bear arms but multiple jurisdictions ignore it and multiple supreme court rulings and make firearm ownership functionally impossible anyway. Free speech regulations have, thankfully, been more robust. The only thing that stops bad things happening is a critical mass of people who believe in the values the constitution memorializes and who have enough veto power to stop attempts to erode these values. The US has such a critical mass, the gun debate notwithstanding. Does the EU have enough people who still believe in freedom?

fsckboy 1y ago
i think making your argument on free speech grounds would be stronger
- quotemstr 1y ago
  How so? My point is that US constitutional protections on firearm ownership have undeniably eroded. The presence of text on the page did not prevent this erosion. I'm using gun rights as an example of a situation in which text granting a right becomes irrelevant if people stop believing in the values behind the text. People do believe in freedom of speech in the US, thankfully, even if they've stopped defending gun rights in some places. EU free speech protections are in the same position gun rights are in the US, and for surprisingly similar reasons.
  - fsckboy 1y ago
    when you are talking to a european audience, they tend to be in favor of gun control so they don't care about erosion of those rights (like the people in the US who also favor eroding them, wording of the rules be damned) HN is to a large extent a popularity contest, and people here are more in favor of free speech than guns. the US record on protecting free speech is very good.
    - dmitrygr 1y ago

rsynnott 1y ago

For practical purposes the EU does have a constitution, it's just a messy collection of treaties rather than a single codified constitution (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitution_for_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_establishing_a_Constitu... for why).

zx10rse 1y ago

You are most definitely not right. The EU charter of fundamental rights is an agreement that holds legal binding. The institutions who are supposed to uphold the charter are CJEU, European Commission, FRA, NHRIs. The people who wrote this proposal said it themselves - "Whilst different in nature and generally speaking less intrusive, the newly created power to issue removal orders in respect of known child sexual abuse material certainly also affects fundamental rights, most notably those of the users concerned relating to freedom of expression and information." This proposal is illegal. The fact that CJEU at least haven't issued a statement that this is illegal tells you everything you need to know about the EU and its democracy.