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Posted by stavros 7 hours ago

EU Council forces Chat Control via fast-track(www.heise.de)
278 points | 149 commentspage 2
Grollicus 1 hour ago|
The main argument for this seems to be that they catch many pedos by using image recognition tech on facebook etc.

Thus, discontinuing the permit to use these techniques did have enforcement numbers of those crimes found drop significantly.

I'm wondering if they've given up real policing of these crimes completely?!

Spreading pedo content on Facebook, those people have to be the dumbest of the dumb? Everyone spending even a single critical thought on their crimes won't be caught by this.

And they say enforcement numbers drop significantly? Meaning they don't catch many other people? What the fuck are they even doing? Did they completely give up trying to find the real criminals, and instead fall back on sugar-coated figures to conceal that failure?

stavros 7 hours ago||
Please email your members of parliament: https://fightchatcontrol.eu
ascotan 1 hour ago||
i thought apple is already doing this on all it's devices?
varispeed 1 hour ago||
This would be illegal in Germany. I wonder why law enforcement is not looking into this. It is similar to having abusive husband control wife's communication - just at scale and for ideological reason. This is a violent act against whole population, applied indiscriminately. It fulfils updated definition of terrorism in Germany and it is exploiting legislative apparatus of the EU to enact this violent act. German people should report this and these people behind it should be investigated and presumably arrested.
SilverElfin 2 hours ago||
Governments don’t work for people. Yet they use terms like democracy all the time. The repeated attempts at chat control are so blatantly anti civil rights but also disrespectful of democratic principles. Why do EU citizens tolerate this? Are they okay being made a fool of or is this just not an issue for them after all?
flumpcakes 2 hours ago||
> Why do EU citizens tolerate this?

Some EU citizens want it? You'd be surprised on the views of some people.

theodric 2 hours ago|||
How do you suggest people be intolerant? Essentially all the parties work toward these goals, so voting is ineffective. Speech is (more-or-less) allowed until it turns into strident protest, at which point the water cannons are brought out and a few token agitators are prosecuted for their instigation. I wouldn't want to call this tyranny, because I might get a knock on the door.
SilverElfin 2 hours ago||
Why not emphasize the issue of civil rights and make it disqualifying as a single issue for any politician? At least online it feels like people care about chat control a lot but when it comes to voting, the type of dystopian control EU bureaucrats are building isn’t in anyone’s mind. So politicians can get away with supporting those policies since there isn’t a consequence for them.
theodric 2 hours ago||
"Online people" who care about this sort of thing are a microscopic subset of the voting base and do not represent what most people are aware of, understand, or care about. I live in Ireland, and you know what everyone in town and around my area talks about? Donald Trump. When I try and raise issues of national or European politics, I get whatabouted into more American politics. The bread is sweeter (it's the corn syrup) and the circuses more outrageous.
stavros 2 hours ago||
Well, we don't tolerate it, that's why it hasn't passed yet. They keep trying, though.
mr_toad 2 hours ago||
The power of the European Commission to propose legislation needs to be curbed or removed entirely. Executive agencies shouldn’t be writing legislation. It’s far to easy for them to propose laws that benefit the the European Commission, rather than benefiting Europeans.
munksbeer 12 minutes ago||
You're blaming the wrong people and making this worse.

The article is literally about the EU Council, the elected heads of states of all the EU nations. The elected leaders of the EU nations really, really want chat control. The Commission has nothing to do with this.

spwa4 1 hour ago||
This means the council has systematically overridden the will of both EU parliaments and states' objections in pushing this legislation. TLDR: there are, roughly and not 100% accurately speaking, 4 ways to make legislation at the EU level

1) commission + parliament (meaning the EU commission has initiative (veto rights over any law, like the US president), and parliament can only "propose amendments", which pass with 50% of votes, or deny). This is what normally happens.

Parliament denied the law. Twice.

Member states vetoed the legislation at least 3 times (it doesn't technically work like this but member states can force the commission to veto legislation, and Belgium, Hungary and Denmark have done so) (technically member states can force the EU commission not to introduce legislation and because nobody else can do so either, this is normally effectively a veto)

2) council + parliament. This is where we are. If the executives of the member states (NOT parliaments) want to push through a vote, they can use this path. The difference is that only 2/3 majority of parliament can stop the law from passing or put in amendments.

Technically, this is meant for bypassing the EU commission. But of course, in reality it is for getting past the Danish and potential Belgian and Hungarian and other's vetoes. The commission really wants this.

3) council + commission. This completely overrides any legislative involvement in ... well, legislation. They have already threatened to do this.

4) the council can just force legislation through without anyone's approval

Normally "democracy" in the EU means that legislation requires BOTH a majority of Europeans to agree (Parliament) AND no executive government. Both have already been bypassed.

This refers to "Chat Control 1.0", allowing facebook and other messaging providers to scan chats for harmful content (which they had been temporarily allowed to do by a recently expired law). It means current scanning is illegal.

Just so we're clear, this basically means that all messengers (not any specific one) will have to intercept everyone's messages, scan for specific words, and if found report the whole chat history to the police.

Of course, it already turned out "BTW carrousel" (an illegal tax avoidance strategy) is one of the sentences they scan for to "protect the children".

The article itself also contains evidence against the idea that this protects children (that child protection investigations keep increasing despite the scanning not taking place anymore)

munksbeer 8 minutes ago|
>Technically, this is meant for bypassing the EU commission. But of course, in reality it is for getting past the Danish and potential Belgian and Hungarian and other's vetoes. The commission really wants this.

Excuse me? That is quite an assertion. You're saying the EU Commission, the civil servants appointed by the EU Council, are somehow controlling the EU Council to push this agenda?

I don't believe that is true. Please provide evidence.

In the article, it talks explicitly about this being driven by the heads of state.

sph 3 hours ago||
This is democracy manifest. What a joke.
MichaelZuo 3 hours ago||
It is a bit strange why EU countries allow their own credibility and legitimacy get steadily dragged down, bit by bit, by all these thousands of dubious statements, tricks, manoeuvres, and so on.

Do they just not care about weakening their own societies?

graemep 3 hours ago|||
Much the same reasons why the UK, US etc. do much the same. It is slowed down a bit in some countries with strong constitutions or resistance to it, but the governments all want it.
mdp2021 2 hours ago||
> "You have to understand that times have changed, it's not like before... Now we have children, the children, the children, children, children and the t-word."

~~ keir starmer

(I'll see if I can still find the source. If anybody beats me to it, appreciated.)

rckt 3 hours ago||||
The govs consist of people who have their own agendas. Mass surveillance is something they all are aligned on.
SpicyLemonZest 3 hours ago||||
I guess I'm not sure what's dubious here. The article says they're circumventing "democratic control bodies", but I don't know what that means (perhaps it's a more common phrase in German?), and it sounds like the European Parliament can still vote to reject Chat Control if they don't want it. The article strongly implies there's something dubious going on here, but to me what would be dubious is a procedure that prevents the parliament from voting on Chat Control.
flumpcakes 2 hours ago||
Perhaps the article is biased.

The simple fact is that a law that existed since 2011 and expired in April is now back in effect. So we are back where we were on February.

I don't remember moving from an anti-democratic hell scape to serene democratic beauty back in April so it's probably a nothing-burger.

I often see news articles that trade on the fact the general populace aren't professional bureaucrats and so frame anything happening in unpopular ways.

theodric 2 hours ago||||
They hold all the cards, and have means - above-board or questionable, but effective nonetheless - to enact their will. Do you remember the Treaty of Lisbon referendumS, plural? Just keep asking the question until the plebs answer correctly.
stavros 3 hours ago||
We have been enjoying a succulent Chinese meal.
Lio 2 hours ago||
Yeah and Peter Hummelgaard is about to touch you on the penis.

> "We must break with the totally erroneous perception that it is everyone's civil liberty to communicate on encrypted messaging services,"

What an arsehole.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/danish-justice...

sph 1 hour ago|||
What is it with Danish Social Democrats and wanting to enact mass surveillance at any cost?
Ray20 55 minutes ago||
Isn't this natural for any "Social" ideologies? They imply a system of centralized redistribution, which implies a powerful repressive apparatus and an omnipresent surveillance system.
lioeters 1 minute ago||
Who do you think is forcing this repressive surveillance system globally? The commies? The people?
mdp2021 2 hours ago|||
Does that ###, which seems to have the most simplistic ideas about the world, also have arguments to defend its position?

I mean: has it ever heard, for example about the 2nd Amendment to the USA constitution, arguing that people must be able to defend from governments themselves?

Is it not aware that data is not accessed "just by the good guys"? ?!

sunshine-o 4 hours ago||
At that point it has become clear to most Europe is not a democracy anymore. It has lost any legitimacy.
cbg0 1 hour ago||
Talk about overreacting.
rixed 3 hours ago||
At the end of the day, regimes do not depend on legitimacy but on force.
superkuh 4 hours ago||
The same as every other fascist control measure. Voted down. Voted down. Voted down. Then forced through through some obscure mechanism bypassing the will of the people and becoming law forever.
flumpcakes 2 hours ago|
> Then forced through through some obscure mechanism bypassing

It was extending a recently expired law that has existed since 2011.

I don't think your comment is reflecting on what has actually happened. "Chat Control" as people know it has not passed into law.

vb-8448 5 hours ago|
> Although the Council emphasizes that the *scans will be limited to the absolutely necessary extent* and that no general, indiscriminate surveillance will take place

I'm 100% sure that this is the case and about the good intentions of the proposers.

/s

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