[HN Gopher] Fight Chat Control
___________________________________________________________________
Fight Chat Control
Author : tokai
Score : 684 points
Date : 2025-08-10 16:50 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (fightchatcontrol.eu)
(TXT) w3m dump (fightchatcontrol.eu)
| isoprophlex wrote:
| God fucking damn it _not again_
|
| This is, what, the fifth time in ten years they try to pass shit
| like this?
| ath3nd wrote:
| They generally don't and won't stop until there are real
| repercussions for that, like losing your political career/being
| canceled in society over voting for it.
| mantas wrote:
| The problem is people behind the curtains will just pick
| another figure head. And we can't even get the names who want
| to get rid of privacy. Since names of people pushing it were
| redacted for their privacy :D
| morkalork wrote:
| When the people orchestrating something like this can hide
| behind a veil of anonymity as well as bestow exemptions
| from monitoring upon the political class, it looks deeply
| wrong and conspiracy worthy. :D indeed.
| Geezus_42 wrote:
| The exemptions for politicians is straight out of 1984.
| thfuran wrote:
| They weren't exempt in 1984.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Yup.
|
| Having empathy for your neighbor, and working with those whom
| you disagree, are precursors. This gives power.
|
| Then using power to enact consequences for businesses and
| governments (the people therein), fixes the problem.
| 9dev wrote:
| They only need to succeed _one time_. People are generally
| preoccupied with a lot of other things right now, so maybe this
| is their lucky shot...
| zubspace wrote:
| It's a shitty system, if one side just needs to succeed one
| time while the other side needs to succeed over and over
| again.
|
| What really should be done is to disallow proposals, which
| are kinda the same. Once a mass surveillance proposal like
| this is defeated, it shouldn't be allowed to be constantly
| rebranded and reintroduced. We need a firewall in our
| legislative process that automatically rejects any future
| attempts at scanning private communications.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > What really should be done is to disallow proposals,
| which are kinda the same.
|
| This very much exists in a lot of parliamentary rules
| authorities, but it's usually limited to once per
| "session." They just need to make rules that span sessions
| that raise the bar for introducing substantially similar
| legislation.
|
| It can easily be argued that passing something that failed
| to pass before, multiple times, should require
| supermajorities. Or at least to create a type of vote where
| you can move that something "should not" be passed without
| a supermajority in the future.
|
| It is difficult in most systems to make negative motions.
| At the least it would have to be tailored as an explicit
| prohibition on passing anything substantially similar to
| the motion in future sessions (without suspending the rules
| with a supermajority.)
|
| I don't know as much about the French Parlement's procedure
| as I would like to, though.
| Telemakhos wrote:
| Is there no way to codify a negative right, like "The
| right of the European people to privacy in their
| communications and security in their records through
| encryption shall not be infringed?" Negative rights
| reserved to the people should be more important than
| positive laws granting power to the government.
| Stevvo wrote:
| This rule can really hurt. e.g. Theresa May tried passing
| a deal to keep the UK in the Customs Union. The speaker
| wouldn't allow it because the same deal had previously
| been rejected, even though she now had the support for it
| in the house.
| CM30 wrote:
| I wonder if it'd be possible to fix a lot of these issues
| by having a constitution with damn near impossibly strict
| standards for changing it that rely on the entire
| population agreeing (or close to it)?
|
| So there might be a right to privacy or freedom of speech
| enshrined in law, and the only way to change it would be
| for 90+% of the population to agree to change it. That way,
| it'd only take a minority disagreeing with a bad law to
| make it impossible to pass said law. Reactionaries and
| extremists would basically be defanged entirely, since
| they'd have to get most of their opponents to agree with
| any changes they propose, not just their own followers.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| cough Patriot Act cough
|
| ...which Republicans swore up and down was temporary and yet,
| oddly, kept getting renewed wirth no evidence whatsoever it
| was necessary to stop a planned terrorist attack or that it
| would have stopped the WTC attacks themselves.
|
| I bet 90% of the population or more has no idea that the
| Patriot Act was dumped and replaced with the nearly identical
| FREEDOM Act. Which took multiple tries to pass because they
| knew if they just kept hammering away, they'd eventually get
| it passed.
|
| Yeah, they called a wildly invasive domestic spying bill the
| "freedom" act....
| dlcarrier wrote:
| It's not even a partisan issue; spying on the constituency
| is one of few issues that has broad bipartisan support.
|
| You could vote for a libertarian, but good luck.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| They actually did succeed once, with the data retention
| directive. That got annulled by the CoJEU.
| mantas wrote:
| As Juncker, ex president of European Commision said, you keep
| trying till it passes at some point. Good luck revoking it
| later...
| uncircle wrote:
| Ah, the marvels of modern democracy. No serious way to enact
| change, politicians still do whatever the hell they want, and
| we still believe that voting for someone else will change
| things.
|
| It'll soon be like the UK, that if you campaign against this
| kinda stuff, the party in power publicly calls you a
| paedophile. Because only people with something to hide want
| privacy.
|
| Privacy is a losing proposition. Governments have the perfect
| trojan horse (child safety) so it's only a matter of time
| before massive surveillance is the norm.
| croes wrote:
| People don't want change.
|
| If really someone gets the power who wants to change things
| they fight them too.
|
| People want that everything stays the same. Problem is
| climate change and other problems make change inevitable.
| mantas wrote:
| People don't want change, yet politicians are pushing
| sleazy changes left and right.
|
| Change like straws ban and attached caps? Such change,
| wow.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| it effects lots of organizations. the left contingent of
| the PCUSA basically did the same for a decade to change
| rules. When they finally got the language passed it caused
| a large rift.
|
| The difference is that one is not obligated to be part of a
| presbytery and can leave. The presbytery doesn't have guns.
| charcircuit wrote:
| You can keep trying to revoke it until it passes too.
| mantas wrote:
| Yeah, right. I wonder if revokers would have same privacy
| as those who try to pass it...
| idiotsecant wrote:
| The fascist, autocratic impulse is a big in the human firmware
| and _will never go away_. We exist constantly balanced on the
| razor edge precipice because we are capable of little else.
| Self-governing humans are not a stable system.
| swayvil wrote:
| Serfs and lords is pretty stable. But ya I get yr point.
| swayvil wrote:
| The arrival of AI has made mass surveillance pass a certain
| threshold. Now we're just a step away from aristocrat heaven.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Yup super easy to moderate, monitor, and manipulate.
|
| Watchlist? Easy.
|
| Mislead? Easy.
|
| We need to isolate this bad behavior ASAP.
| cobbzilla wrote:
| Is Europe sliding into feudalism? The impression is that the
| government/megacorp complex are the lords, everyone else should
| accept their place as a serf and do whatever they're told.
| croes wrote:
| Where is the difference to the US, China or the UK?
|
| Governments often try that kind of nonsense. Usually against
| organized crime, terrorism, child abuse.
|
| But in the end it's just used for the heavy crimes like
| copyright infringement
| cobbzilla wrote:
| The US, at least, has a Bill of Rights that would make this
| illegal, it would definitely violate the 4th Amendment and
| maybe the 1st too.
| Nifty3929 wrote:
| I hope you're right.
| cobbzilla wrote:
| That said, it's not all roses in the US. There are many
| backdoors the government uses like issuing subpoenas to
| tech companies to get their data. Sometimes (like the
| notorious NSLs, National Security Letters) the order is
| secret and the company can't even talk about it. This is
| also why the Snowden revelations were significant--
| arguably what the NSA is doing (mass, untargeted
| surveillance) is illegal, but so far (iirc) courts have
| said nobody has standing to challenge it. Various groups
| are still trying.
| lawn wrote:
| The administration and the people will just shrug and move
| on, like they've done with all the other crap they've
| shrugged at.
| croes wrote:
| The EU countries also have constitutions with laws that
| make that illegal.
|
| Still they try because there is always an exception that
| allows breaking those laws.
|
| Chat control isn't something the EU invented, they tried to
| implement CSAM in Apple devices and the whole chat control
| thing in the EU was heavily lobbied by Thorn
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorn_(organization)
| pessimizer wrote:
| > The EU countries also have constitutions with laws that
| make that illegal.
|
| I don't think they do. They have constitutions that
| guarantee "Freedom of Speech" or "Expression," but don't
| define those terms in any way. I don't know that any of
| them lack legally prohibited political speech laws.
|
| I feel the US was the origin of this "Hate Speech"
| nightmare that has been growing to encompass all of
| Western politics over the past 30 years, but the irony is
| that you can do slurs all day long in the US, to anybody
| you want, whenever you want. You will probably be ejected
| from the premises, though. In the US, the speech still
| has to be connected to a crime. In the EU, the speech
| itself is the crime.
| kodisha wrote:
| Oh no....
|
| I went deep into this rabbit hole and did a lot of
| reading on how this org is pushing it's agenda in EU.
|
| I hate this Hollywood idiots with _burning_ passion.
| NitpickLawyer wrote:
| The 1st, 4th and 5th have been repeatedly and
| systematically weakened both in practice and through the
| courts though.
|
| 1st - gag orders issued by secret courts, no trial, no
| apeal, can't even talk about it (can't even talk about the
| gag orders themselves, basically a gag order on a gag
| order). We only found out about it because Yahoo (out of
| all of them, the least you'd think would fight this)
| briefly tried to fight it. All the top CEOs got them. Yahoo
| briefly tried to fight it at some point and some court docs
| got out, but it wasn't much.
|
| 4th - multiple cases of confiscating cash without a trial,
| probable cause or anything of the sort. It's called "civil
| forfeiture", it's been done at both state and federal
| level, and it's so insanely full of mental gymnastics that
| at some point they tried to argue in court that "the person
| is not suspected of anything, the money is suspected of a
| crime". Bananas.
|
| 5th - there's a case where an executive was caught up in
| some investigation, and she was being held in contempt
| (jailed) over not divulging an encryption password. I
| haven't checked on the case in a while, but the idea of
| holding someone in contempt for so long defeats the
| purpose, and the idea of having to divulge passwords vs.
| having to provide a safe combination was apparently lost on
| the courts.
| cobbzilla wrote:
| You might not like this example, but the relatively
| recent evolution of 2nd Amendment jurisprudence,
| significantly strengthening gun rights, is the result of
| many impassioned, dedicated groups, lobbying the public
| and the government for _decades_.
|
| The lesson is: stay active, stay vocal, stay in the
| media, and prepare for a very long haul. And file lots of
| lawsuits challenging everything!
| rwyinuse wrote:
| I'm not convinced the US will even have fair elections a
| couple of years from now. Do those amendments really
| matter, when those in power are doing everything they can
| to break down the rule of law, and turn the country into
| yet another autocracy?
|
| EU may be sliding towards feudalism, but America is
| definitely farther down that road than we are. Current
| administration's relationship with tech billionaires is a
| concrete proof of that. I have no faith in politicians of
| either part of the world.
| 9dev wrote:
| It takes a firm believe to still pretend the bill of rights
| would be adhered to. You have a convicted criminal as
| president with ties to child traffickers, taking foreign
| bribes on live TV, scamming voters with crypto, while
| punishing universities for teaching the wrong things and
| imprisoning people without due process for having the wrong
| opinion.
|
| All the while SCOTUS elevated him above the law; now he
| actually could shoot somebody on fifth ave and he'd really
| not have to fear prosecution.
|
| Are you sure you want to make this point?
| impossiblefork wrote:
| The EU also has laws that make it illegal. It annulled a
| previous law with some of these provisions, the so-called
| Data Retention Directive.
| userbinator wrote:
| From what I've seen, the US also has a more "rebellious"
| culture than the EU, for lack of a better term; laws are
| viewed less as an absolute and the population is far more
| willing to break them if the consequences are perceived as
| minor. This is bipartisan; examples that come to mind
| include: electing a convicted felon, helping illegal
| immigrants stay in the country, and going 10 over the speed
| limit.
| ronsor wrote:
| The UK is politically, culturally, and geographically close
| to Europe.
|
| China has always been authoritarian (and hyper-centralized).
|
| The US is working hard to copy bad ideas from authoritarians,
| but can't do it in exactly the same way, otherwise the
| ability to criticize the EU, UK, and China is lost.
| pmlnr wrote:
| > The UK is politically,
|
| Europe generally has constitutions, and not precedence
| laws, which is a massive difference.
|
| > culturally
|
| Debatable. As a Hungarian, living in the UK.
|
| > and geographically close to Europe
|
| This one is true.
| rrr_oh_man wrote:
| _> The UK is politically, culturally, and geographically
| close to Europe._
|
| Closer than to the US?
|
| I'm not sure about the first two. The latter is also
| debatable, at least from the UK's point of view. Ireland
| feels closer to Europe than the UK does.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| >Closer than to the US?
|
| Much closer. It's a unitary state with a monarchy and
| parliamentary sovereignty, it's highly centralized
| economically and culturally. It's more European than much
| of Europe. Post war Germany, republican and decentralized
| economically is structurally more like the US than
| Britain. The only reason people in the US tend to
| identify with Britain is Anglo-Protestant
| identitarianism.
|
| Britain in reality operates a lot like France or Russia,
| an overwhelmingly strong capital and grand historical old
| world nationalism with relatively weak constitutional or
| formal limits on government.
| peanut_merchant wrote:
| I get that maybe you meant culturally, but Ireland is a
| member of the EU whereas the UK is no longer. This forces
| a tighter alignment so makes your point about Ireland
| redundant.
|
| The UK has continuously been pulled between it's dying
| imperialist vision of itself as a world power, it's close
| but conflicted ties with the US, and it's similarly close
| and conflicted ties with the EU.
| octo888 wrote:
| > The latter is also debatable
|
| Only in terms of perception or semantics or applying a
| huge negative weighting to a bit of water and ignoring
| boats, trains and planes exist. But then you say...
|
| > Ireland feels closer to Europe
|
| So are you slyly conflating Europe and the EU?
|
| Some crazy person might say this is really subtle "UK
| isn't part of Europe" propaganda similar to that in the
| lead of up Brexit
| ahoka wrote:
| The difference is that PRISM was done as a black op, and this
| is out in the open.
| grunder_advice wrote:
| Europe never abandoned the elitist mindset of a ruling elite
| lording it over the masses.
| RickS wrote:
| This video by Benn Jordan makes the case that yes, traditional
| capitalism and empowerment by way of ownership are eroding in
| favor of a rent-seeking subscription economy. This economy
| requires continuous payment for participation with services
| that are not only merely loaned to us, but are loaned under the
| constant threat of banishment if we fail to contort ourselves
| to comply with nebulous, ever changing terms set by orgs that
| don't care about us. One such contortion is the agreement to be
| surveilled at all times.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqtrNXdlraM
| Disposal8433 wrote:
| I'm French and every idiot supports it, even the so-called left.
| There is nothing I can do except donate money every month to
| GrapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org/donate). Democracy is dead for
| me.
| tatjam wrote:
| Looking at the supporting members, this appears to be supported
| by "both parties" across many many countries, what a sad thing
| to unite over...
| dabber21 wrote:
| what are the arguments?
| realusername wrote:
| France is just very regressive when it comes to the internet,
| any laws which can make the situation worse is usually voted
| by all parties (see neighbouring rights or any anti-piracy
| laws), I don't think there's any real reasoning.
| KennyBlanken wrote:
| The country is predominantly Catholic. So both prudish
| views on sexual content, but also wanting to pretend sexual
| abuse by priests in their religion, and their religion
| protecting those priests, isn't the problem - nope, it's
| the interwebs creating child abusers. That is coupled with
| racist fear of terrorist attacks being committed by the
| African and middle eastern immigrant populations.
|
| Sure are a lot of white elephants in the room with you...
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| As a French person, let me tell you you are wrong.
|
| French people mostly don't give a shit about religion and
| do not have any prudish views. We have many nudists
| beaches and women are regularly topless on the beach.
| Talking about sex if accepted in society and between
| friends and family.
|
| So it's not about that at all.
|
| What most French people are though is little children
| that need to be guided and protected by the state.
| Without the state they are lost. If you look at the news,
| the most recurring theme is: "why hasn't the government
| solved this problem for us poor souls? We are helpless,
| help us!"
|
| Therefore French people accept the state and all that it
| encompasses. They have little protests here and there and
| sometime they succeed in making the state back down but
| in the end the state usually wins.
|
| It's a form of learned helplessness and a very sad and
| toxic relationship between the French state and it's
| citizens.
| realusername wrote:
| There's some old influence from the religion for sure but
| it's nowhere as important as you think.
|
| France is still one of the least religious countries in
| Europe (Czech Republic usually being the least religious
| and France in the second position) and people talk about
| sex openly like a normal subject even at work.
| hk__2 wrote:
| I think you're confusing France with Italy. France has
| had Simone de Beauvoir and still has a very strong
| feminist culture, had Mai 1968, has same-sex marriage
| since 2014 and 10 years later it was the first country in
| the world that added the right to aborption in its
| constitution; it has huge pride parades every year, not
| so long ago had an openly-gay Prime minister. It's fine
| to talk about sex at work or with the family; you can see
| boobs on the cover of national newspapers and nobody
| talks about it because it's perfectly fine.
| f_devd wrote:
| If you're just looking at the website, do note that most (if
| not all) people are unconfirmed but show "supports" due to the
| leaked country position (hover over the pill/flag).
| lucideer wrote:
| Unfortunately this seems to be a bug in the website.
|
| For any representatives that have no position / position
| unknown, rather than the website showing them as "Unknown" as
| you'd expect, it just assumes their position is the position of
| their government's EU Council representative supports this.
|
| Many national representatives are aligned with opposition
| parties within their own country, and as such it's highly
| likely their position will deviate from that of their
| government, so this is a pretty bad misrepresentation. Highly
| misleading.
| Vinnl wrote:
| That sounds like contacting your MEPs could at least be worth
| it. Usually when it comes to things like this, the parties that
| I'd consider voting for _already_ vote the way I 'd like them
| to do.
|
| (In this case it's even better - my country opposes, even
| though the governing parties are not mine.)
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| The original sin are ad-based social media.
|
| Everyone (except China) failed to regulate that. So now we
| see overcorrection.
|
| The solution is to regulate Meta and TikTok and YouTube.
| Until that is on the table we'll get performative stupidity
| from both sides.
| medlazik wrote:
| Not sure what you call the "so-called left", but the actual
| left (LFI) certainly doesn't support Chat Control
| OldfieldFund wrote:
| probably they call "so-called left" the liberals
| BlueTemplar wrote:
| Nobody would call them "left", especially not during
| Macron's 2nd term, the Walkers (or whatever is their new
| moniker) have firmly solidified as liberals in the right-
| wing sense (rather than in the bottom-wing sense).
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| Is there some way we can get people to abandon this
| entire premise?
|
| You have a law that requires age verification. Does the
| right oppose this because they oppose government
| regulation? You have a law that spends more tax dollars
| on law enforcement, lobbied for by the police unions.
| Does the left support this because they support
| government spending and unions?
|
| There is no consistency in their positions, it's all just
| whatever happens to be in their coalition right now and
| it changes over time.
| thrance wrote:
| Yes, this makes no sense. No way they got 100% of every MPs
| to agree on this. They never agree on _anything_. I think the
| website took the fact that the _country_ supports it and
| applied that position to each of its MPs.
| wazoox wrote:
| Actually no, every MEP doesn't support it, the government's
| position is attributed to all MEP from the country, which is
| silly.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| Note that chat control has been a top concern of governments
| since there were governments.
|
| The Roman Empire banned private clubs, seeing them as a source
| of revolution.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| The left and the right stopped being about liberal values (like
| traditionally liberal or whatever) at some point, which are the
| backbone of democratic societies. I don't see how you can have
| democracy without the ability to freely communicate. And that
| means freedom of speech but also the right to anonymity and
| privacy.
| fsflover wrote:
| Consider donating to https://edri.org instead.
| forty wrote:
| If you value democracy, I suggest not to trust any random
| website you read. Of course the French left (at least EELV/LFI)
| is not going to support this. This should be obvious if you
| know a bit what ideas they are defending (them and the others
| too), which you should as well if democracy matters to you.
| Centigonal wrote:
| In the US, we have government programs like PRISM and unchecked
| oligopolies that surveil us and use that information to identify
| dissent, sell us ads, and alter our behavior. In the EU, there
| are these initiatives to surveil us in the name of safety.
|
| Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-surveil
| their citizens for one reason or another?
| nosioptar wrote:
| I'm unaware of Sealand[0] engaging in surveillance against its
| citizen.
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| With only one citizen, it would seem that the government of
| Sealand must necessarily be watching everything he does at
| all waking hours.
| ragmodel226 wrote:
| This is a defeatist and damaging attitude. It detracts from the
| core issue at hand, which is EU government forcing code being
| run in private messaging apps over data before it is encrypted.
| It defeats the security model of end to end encrypted
| messaging, and leads to a society that cannot trust its
| communications against government interference ever again.
|
| One can criticize analysis of mass surveillance of metadata and
| encrypted channels, but this is something else.
| protocolture wrote:
| Australia already has this capability and is likely using it
| for 5 Eyes nations. Questioning the desire to surveil seems
| on topic when this is pretty much everywhere already.
| dachris wrote:
| Power wants to stay in power.
|
| In a healthy society, citizens should always be wary of those
| in power and keep them on their toes, because power corrupts
| (and attracts already problematic characters).
|
| Not driveling when they get thrown some crumbs or empty phrases
| ("child safety", "terrorism").
| r33b33 wrote:
| yeah, Japan
| ncr100 wrote:
| The Catholic Church is not for surveillance, afaik.
|
| Join Vatican City!
| isaacremuant wrote:
| > Is there any regime out there who's not trying to mass-
| surveil their citizens for one reason or another?
|
| Covid authoritarian policies were hugely successful and
| supported by mainstream people by and large. Not enough
| protests. Not enough dissent.
|
| Now politicians know they can turn the power knob as high as
| they want and nothing will happen. Less and less dissent will
| be allowed, just like during covid.
|
| If you fail to learn that and denounce those and reclaim the
| freedoms for all, you're going to just whine into a smaller and
| smaller room.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Covid authoritarian policies were hugely successful and
| supported by mainstream people by and large. Not enough
| protests. Not enough dissent_
|
| America has been trashed not by Covid but by the precedence
| being set that partisan violence can and will be pardoned.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| I don't quite understand your point. I also meant covid
| policies. Not covid itself.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Is there any regime out there who 's not trying to mass-
| surveil their citizens for one reason or another?_
|
| The one where citizens don't regress into comfortably lazy
| nihilism as a first response.
| SilverElfin wrote:
| In the US, violations of civil rights that are performed by
| officials (like legislators) can be prosecuted under something
| called color of law. I think it is rarely done, if ever, but
| the justice department could do it. Maybe Americans need to
| start pushing their own representatives to call for such a case
| in situations where individual rights are violated.
|
| Is there something like this in the EU, so that officials feel
| personal risk and liability for their actions in pushing this
| anti democratic policy?
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| This is the kind of shit that makes my blood boil. Privacy for
| thee not for me. The EU is not worth saving if this this is the
| kind of crap they pull. Fuck all the politicians behind this!
| 9dev wrote:
| No, that's the worst conclusion to draw. The EU is the only
| hope we have if we don't want to become a toy for the US and
| China.
|
| We need to save the EU _from_ these people!
| 0x000xca0xfe wrote:
| They already see us as a toy. Even Russia can't take EU
| serious.
|
| We could have economic and military cooperation without this
| circus.
|
| It's not even actually democratic and veto powers of tiny
| countries like hungary have turned common foreign policy into
| a joke.
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Wasn't Ireland threatened with not being allowed in (a
| hypothetical) EU 2.0 at some point, unless they backed down
| on some issue.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| there's no 'saving' the EU imo. I would consider voting to
| exit if given the opportunity
| 9dev wrote:
| To what end though? What is your country's opinion worth
| globally without the EU? It's not that I like the current
| state of affairs, but the alternative is _so_ much worse.
| 0x000xca0xfe wrote:
| If not being in the EU is so awful, you should tell the
| Swiss about it. They must have missed it. /s
|
| On a serious note, I think EU was a good idea but it has
| decayed a lot, especially after how the Greek crisis was
| handled and because of multiple legal design flaws. It
| needs a big restructuring, otherwise it will continue to
| decline and be used as a dumping ground for unpopular
| laws like Chat Control.
| r33b33 wrote:
| Leave the EU. Let them rot.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Genuinely curious where you would suggest going. The US isn't
| better and has been doing this shit since the patriot act.
| r33b33 wrote:
| Thailand, Japan, Philippines, El Salvador, Brazil,
| Colombia, Argentina, Kazakhstan. There are a lot of
| options. But absolutely leave the EU, UK or USA and let
| them all suffer in their own self-induced dystopian
| nightmare.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| Moving to most of those countries would instantly at
| least 5x (Colombia would be 30x!) my chance of getting
| murdered (and I assume increase my risk of being the
| victim of other violent crimes similarly). Not to mention
| that suggesting El Salvador -- a country that has
| imprisoned 1.7 % of its population, many without being
| convicted in a court of law -- is a truly laughable
| suggestion.
| r33b33 wrote:
| Being murdered is at least honest aggression. Being
| surveilled like that is insidious and sneaky and worse in
| many aspects. El Salvador super safe now, just don't wear
| tattoos.
| kratom_sandwich wrote:
| Who are the organizations fighting chat control which one could
| support with a donation?
| lostmsu wrote:
| Pick any decentralized IM project
| Nemo_bis wrote:
| EDRi. https://edri.org/about-us/victories/
| pmlnr wrote:
| I don't remember the link to the essay that defined public,
| private, and secret information. Essentially it said that public
| is ok for anyone to hear, private is something that shouldn't
| concern others, whereas secret is something that needs to be kept
| under wraps.
|
| Under these terms most of what we're protecting with encryption
| is private - finances, health records, etc. I shouldn't concern
| others.
|
| Sadly, it does, because the world is full of pieces of shite
| people who want dynamic pricing on health insurance based on
| medical information, and all the similar reasons, for example.
| (Note: I'm from Europe. The while insurance system that's in
| place in the UK is disgusting, and it's nowhere even remotely
| close to the pestilence of the US system.)
|
| I'm conflicted with the whole encryption topic. We initially
| needed CPU power for it, now we have hardware, but that means
| more complicated hardware, and so on. We now have 47 days long
| certificates because SeKuRiTy, and a system that must be running,
| otherwise a mere text website will be de-ranked by Google and
| give you a fat *ss warning about not being secure. But again, we
| "need" it, because ISPs were caught adding ads to plain text
| data.
|
| Unless there are serious repercussions on genuinely crappy
| people, encryption must stay. So the question is: why is nobody
| thinking about strong, enforceable laws about wiretapping,
| altering content, stealing information that people shouldn't
| have, etc, before trying to backdoor encryption?
| tough wrote:
| you cannot enforce law globally online
|
| there's no internet police
| pessimizer wrote:
| You didn't even need the word "online." There's no global
| police.
| futurecat wrote:
| Thank you for sharing.
| 101008 wrote:
| I was very pissed at this, and when I read this part I couldn't
| continue, it boiled my blood.
|
| > *EU politicians exempt themselves from this surveillance under
| "professional secrecy" rules. They get privacy. You and your
| family do not. Demand fairness.
| zwnow wrote:
| What a surprise, they are also paid a handsome pension after
| having worked in EU parliament for a few years, 4 I think. Most
| of us have to work for 40+ years and dont even get good
| retirement money
| amarcheschi wrote:
| If it hasn't been changed, not only politicians but law
| enforcement officers too would be exempt
|
| This is one of the many abuses by Leo(s), part why I don't love
| and trust police in italy:
| https://it.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatti_del_G8_di_Genova#p-lan...
|
| I thought there was an English Wikipedia page but there isn't,
| translate it
| lordnacho wrote:
| Can't make this shit up.
|
| The Danish government (currently holding the rotating chair)
| also raised the pension age for everyone. Other than
| themselves.
|
| But also, how does this get implemented? What's stopping me
| from using, say, Signal, which being OSS would likely have a
| single line I could comment out and compile for myself?
|
| How would I get busted for that? Or I could get clever and have
| AI generate some random chat text to send to the government
| while I send the actual text to my friends?
| amarcheschi wrote:
| It doesn't say how AFAIK, although it's been a few months
| from when I read the original proposal. If I'm not wrong it
| would delegate that to service providers - the organizations
| managing the apps, telegram, meta, whatever the name of the
| foundation for the signal app is ecc
| shark1 wrote:
| It's like any other crime. They cannot stop you from
| stealing, for example. By doing it, you will not be a lawful
| citizen.
| AlecSchueler wrote:
| You mean "an illegal?"
| bombela wrote:
| nah they meant unlawful. https://dictionary.cambridge.org
| /dictionary/english/unlawful
| whatevaa wrote:
| You would get labeled a "potential criminal". See some
| comment from police labelling Graphene OS users as criminals.
|
| Steganography exists and is undefeatable, though very low
| bandwith.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| This is only the first step in the process. First they will
| force all messaging/email providers to implement the
| scanning. Those who refuse or decide to leave the EU as
| Signal said they would do, would end up being unlisted from
| Google Play or the Apple (EU) app store.
|
| Then the second phase is coming by 2030. Read about the
| ProtectEU (what a fucking ridiculous name) proposal which
| will mandate the scanning on device and basically record
| everything you do on your device.
|
| This will be forced on Apple and other manufacturers
| directly.
| cbeach wrote:
| ProtectEU sounds incredibly dark. Do you have a source for
| the information regarding on-device scanning? I had a look
| but only found the bureaucrat-speak overview and they
| didn't discuss details.
| pakitan wrote:
| > Read about the ProtectEU (what a fucking ridiculous name)
| proposal which will mandate the scanning on device and
| basically record everything you do on your device.
|
| Where can we read about that? The official documents are
| quite vague and I don't see anything as specific as
| mandatory device scanning.
| dachris wrote:
| Hopefully it doesn't get implemented, but obviously they
| could force OS providers to implement this in Android and
| iOS.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| Even if you compile your own version of Signal, will your
| friends do it too? Will your grandma/grandpa do it as well?
| It only takes one person in the chain to be compromised by
| using the "real" app and then all your efforts would be
| defeated because now your messages have been exposed by this
| other person unknowingly.
| JoshTriplett wrote:
| > the "real" app
|
| The backdoored app will hopefully not be called Signal,
| since Signal themselves would never do this. I hope they
| own a trademark on it and could enforce it against anyone
| who would try to upload a backdoored version under their
| name.
| rdm_blackhole wrote:
| I used Signal as an example.
|
| People will use what is most convenient. If tomorrow
| Signal leaves the EU, WhatsApp will happily take its
| place and will happily enforce the scanning and everyone
| will just have to fall in line.
|
| What good is it if you are the only one of your family
| who has the only "uncompromised" app on your phone? How
| will you talk to them? Any message you send will be
| scanned on the other end.
|
| That also applies if you have friends overseas. Your
| friend from Japan/US will be compromised as well.
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| Well... "TM Signal" was just in the news. It's close
| enough I bet it could fool some percentage of otherwise
| security-conscious users. https://www.wired.com/story/tm-
| signal-telemessage-plaintext-...
| bqmjjx0kac wrote:
| Do phones have trusted execution environments? I suppose
| you could require the recipient provide attestation that
| it's running the expected binary. Of course, this is
| pointless if the hardware manufacturer shares their root
| keys with the government.
| ncr100 wrote:
| So stop them.
| hagbard_c wrote:
| Quod licet Iovi non licet bovi.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quod_licet_Iovi,_non_licet_bov...
| jaharios wrote:
| A lot of actual pedophiles will be exposed if it was used on
| politicians, we don't want that.
| cloudhead wrote:
| This.
| echelon wrote:
| While we're talking about corrupt politicians, why is this
| all happening all at once?
|
| America, Great Britain, and the EU are all creating tracking,
| monitoring, and censorship regulations. All at the same time.
|
| We're turning the internet into the 1984 inevitability it was
| predicted to become.
|
| We need a Bill of Rights against this. But the public is too
| lay to push for this. Bolstering or eroding privacy rights
| will never happen in the direction we want, only the one we
| don't. It's so frustrating.
| r33b33 wrote:
| They are gearing for WW3 and population control.
|
| This is obvious.
|
| Get out of EU.
|
| Now.
| api wrote:
| For over a decade now there's been a huge global shift
| toward authoritarianism, and to some extent it's
| grassroots. My speculation is that this is a time of
| unprecedented change and that scares people. We also have
| aging populations due to lower birth rates and older people
| tend (on average) toward nostalgic reactionary politics.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Yes.
|
| It's a tremendous opportunity, presently.
|
| Power is never before so easily gotten.
|
| Fight: Collaborate, Empathize, Reject division.
| moffkalast wrote:
| I would not be surprised if it's the US pressuring everyone
| else. Thiel is probably salivating to get a deal for
| Palantir to implement it.
|
| That said, the UK doesn't need much convincing in this
| regard I suppose, they've always had their fair share of
| extreme laws along these lines and Leyen has personally
| dreamt of this for ages.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Palantir CEO interview about the future was straight up
| "YOU ALL are MEAT. Only I matter."
|
| F that noise.
| hungmung wrote:
| Security is worth half a shit these days and Five Eyes
| can't remotely access everybody's phone without it getting
| noticed by people. So they need to keep transport insecure.
| Teever wrote:
| Authoritarians will always try and pull this kind of shit.
| It's just what they do. The bigger question you should be
| asking is where's the coordinated pushback?
|
| Where are the celebrities and public figures taking a stand
| against this?
|
| Where are the grassroots organizations organizing protests
| and promoting sousveillance programs against the
| authoritarians who want to take away our rights and
| privacy?
|
| The reason why this is all happening at once is because
| there's no resistance to it.
|
| Until there's meaningful resistance you're just gonna see
| authoritarian policies keep snowballing.
| jaharios wrote:
| The pandemic showed that govs can push what they want
| with minimal resistance and having the public on each
| other throats. People are also fatigued and isolated more
| than ever, perfect time to seize total control.
| userbinator wrote:
| _Where are the celebrities and public figures taking a
| stand against this?_
|
| They're afraid of losing their job or being painted as
| someone who supports terrorists, pedophiles, or other
| criminals.
| vaylian wrote:
| There's lobby organisations that try to influence
| politicians in different countries:
| https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-
| the...
| Aerroon wrote:
| I think the UK (and EU) have been at this for a while. The
| UK pushed for the Data Retention Directive in the EU in the
| mid 2000s that required ISPs to save all the websites you
| visit. This was eventually ruled to be illegal, but it was
| still in force for several years.
|
| These guys have been at it for a while.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
| CM30 wrote:
| Yeah this really annoys me, because it appears to show that any
| pretense that the law applies to everyone equally is
| disappearing fast.* If it at least affected politicians you
| could write it off as "idiotic idea that wasn't thought through
| in the slightest", but here it's clear that they have some idea
| how stupid and dangerous the law is, and see themselves as
| worth exempting from it instead.
| einarfd wrote:
| That they exempt politicians is basically admitting that the
| security problems that detractors bring up is true, and is
| something that should be used against them.
|
| After all exempting some police, that work on investigating
| child molesting, from the scanning, that is understandable.
|
| Exempting prime minster Mette Frederiksen, on the other hand.
| Means either that they understand that it undermines security,
| or that she or some other top politicians are child molester.
| So which is it?
| setnone wrote:
| Excellent resources section [0] including "Digital technologies
| as a means of repression and social control" study from European
| Parliament
|
| [0] https://fightchatcontrol.eu/resources
| lucideer wrote:
| A little context here since this website is highly misleading:
|
| - EU Council holds more power in Europe than EU Parliament
|
| - EU Council is pushing this regulation
|
| - this website misrepresents the positions of most members of EU
| Parliament - it shows "Supports" despite most of them being
| "Unknown"
|
| Overall, while people should be encouraged to contact their MEPs,
| I suspect many are already very informed on this & strongly
| opposed. Whether Parliament will end up having enough power to
| stop it is a different question.
| beberlei wrote:
| Came here to say the same thing, confused how a website like
| this can be made, the people behind it must have not understood
| how the EU works.
|
| If Germany is listed as "Undecided" then this is in the
| Council. The 96 MPs are from a wide spectrum of parties and
| most of them will already be either for, or against this.
| x775 wrote:
| Ultimately, both the EU Council and the European Parliament
| must agree on legislation for it to pass. The Parliament acts
| as a co-legislator with equal legislative power in this
| process, effectively representing the citizens while the
| Council represents the member states governments. Both have to
| agree. In the case of Chat Control, Denmark, as the current EU
| Council Presidency, revived the proposal (after it previously
| failed to reach agreement during both the Belgian and Polish
| Presidency). In order for this to pass at the Council level, at
| least 15/27 member states must support it. If this were to
| happen, it would then reach the European Parliament and would
| have to be approved there as well. However, as support at the
| Council level seems greater than in previous renditions
| (supported further by Denmark's insistence on an expedited vote
| scheduled for October 14), it seems prudent to target beyond
| merely the Council-level.
| lucideer wrote:
| To be clear, I wasn't saying Parliament wouldn't have a say -
| mainly pointing out that the website's information about
| MEP's current position on the regulation is incorrect.
| joks wrote:
| The whole site has that vibe-coded-website look. I wonder if a
| lot of the information on the site was essentially hallucinated
| too.
| Nemo_bis wrote:
| You mean the Council of the EU. The EUCO is a separate body.
| SCNR.
|
| https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/decision-makin...
| croisillon wrote:
| nitpick but the number of MEPs is not the same in some countries
| (Slovakia, Spain and a few more) on the summary card and on the
| representative list
| shark1 wrote:
| It's impressive how governments never quit trying to implement
| this harmful idea.
| rendall wrote:
| The landing page really should have an open graph image! It would
| help with sharing and promotion.
| dachris wrote:
| Really ironic that Britain left the EU, but is even further ahead
| down this road. British humour I guess.
| vaylian wrote:
| The chat control bill also has age verification to identify
| child users.
| mustaphah wrote:
| The EU: proudly defending human rights... unless you're trying to
| send a private message.
| midasz wrote:
| As disappointing as my national government (NL) has been and
| still is, at least our MEPs oppose this dragon of a proposal.
| thesdev wrote:
| The individual MEPs' positions are wrong, it's not 1:1 with the
| national government's position as the website suggests.
| alphazard wrote:
| So what is the real solution? Meaning the solution that an
| individual could use themselves, without further coordination, to
| insulate themselves from this policy. Is it an Android
| distribution? Jailbreaking? Custom builds?
| betaby wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution probably a
| solution
| r33b33 wrote:
| Solution is to move or cause resistance obv
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| When (rational) people make decisions they weigh the possible
| rewards of success against the possible costs of failure. We
| are in a situation where the costs are virtually zero ("oh no,
| we have to try again in 6 months!") while the rewards are
| immense: the potential to consolidate even more power to the
| rich and powerful elite.
|
| It shouldn't be surprising that this happens again and again,
| and they only need to succeed _once_. Social movements of the
| past understood this well. They increased the costs to such an
| extent that they couldn 't be ignored.
|
| Look at the movements that brought forth societal change in the
| past and imitate them. I can't think of one that didn't have an
| "extremist" wing that was willing to target the decision makers
| were it hurt: economic output (eg. strikes or sabotage) and
| violence.
| vaylian wrote:
| The real solution is to stop the law while it is still being
| negotiated.
| ncr100 wrote:
| In America our judicial system is sleeping and also overtly
| supporting anti democratic laws.
| alphazard wrote:
| If the law was passed, would there still be things you could
| do to insulate yourself from the effects of the law?
|
| If so, that is the real solution, because it works in all
| cases.
| HelloUsername wrote:
| You ask a valid and clear question, sadly no one yet properly
| responded :( I'll try: using an app that can communicate
| without ever connecting to the internet? Such as:
| https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6748584483
| nomilk wrote:
| Laws generally recognise the sanctity of privacy - for example,
| so much as looking at someone for too long can be deemed sexual
| assault in some jurisdictions - yet law makers wish to legislate
| they be able to view everyone's nudes (and much more)! Weird
| contradiction.
| latexr wrote:
| We do need to take action, but be mindful the data as presented
| isn't yet entirely accurate. Note the text on the website:
|
| > Notice: The positions shown here are based on leaked documents
| from a July 11th, 2025 meeting of the EU Council's Law
| Enforcement Working Party (...) The icons next to each name show
| whether we are displaying their confirmed personal stance or
| their country's official Council position. This information is
| updated regularly as new responses come in.
|
| In other words, take care to not harass an MEP whose position is
| unconfirmed. Be respectful in your opposition of the law but
| don't be accusatory if you're not certain of their stance.
|
| Looking around the website, I can only find four MEPs whose
| stance was confirmed, all in Denmark. Even for the undecided and
| opposing countries, every listed stance is based on the stance of
| the country, not each individual. They should really make this
| clearer; displaying misinformation could really hurt the cause.
| ncr100 wrote:
| Make their job more servant to the public, and less profitable
| in the near and far term.
|
| Regulate the politicians.
| ukprogrammer wrote:
| HN applauds this vibe-coded "privacy" site yet condemns
| decentralized messaging.
|
| States control what's centralized; incentives ensure they keep
| doing so.
|
| Protesting it is like arguing with a thermostat--it can't hear
| you, and it's built to tighten control.
|
| As technologists, we have a lot more power than we realise.
|
| (Yes, I'm speaking to the blob, but the Venn overlap of anti-
| crypto and pro-this seems big.)
| drapado wrote:
| Genuely curious. What would the problem be if it was vibe-
| coded? It's an easy to read site that succeeds in communicating
| what it wants.
| ukprogrammer wrote:
| there's no problem with it being vibe-coded
|
| The point is that the site, contacting your local MEP, and
| all the discussion in this thread, is pointless to affect
| some kind of durable societal change
|
| Pointing out that it's vibe-coded just emphasises that all of
| the above actions are just low-effort cope
| Nemo_bis wrote:
| Can you suggest an alternative action?
| trallnag wrote:
| Maybe accelerating is an option
| rossant wrote:
| Sometimes, very bad things are done in the name of "child
| protection". https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402
| throwaway89201 wrote:
| Please also fight mandatory age verification with prison
| sentences. The European Parliament has already voted in favor of
| a law that mandates age verification for pornography with a one
| year prison sentence. It was included as a last minute amendment
| into this bill [1]. See "Amendment 186". It has been completely
| missed by news organizations and even interest groups.
|
| The full accepted article reads: "Disseminating pornographic
| content online without putting in place robust and effective age
| verification tools to effectively prevent children from accessing
| pornographic content online shall be punishable by a maximum term
| of imprisonment of at least 1 year."
|
| It's not law yet, as the first reading is now sent back to the
| Council of the European Union, but I don't think it's very likely
| it will get a second reading.
|
| [1]
| https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/TA-10-2025-011...
| MrDrMcCoy wrote:
| Maximum of at least one year? Is there some kind of award for
| how nonsensical a law can be?
| throwaway89201 wrote:
| Member states will implement this into national law. So in
| the case they will need to implement a maximum of one year or
| more (but not less). The final law as applied by a judge will
| just read "punishable by a maximum of [i.e.] fourteen
| months".
| ryankrage77 wrote:
| > maximum of one year or more
|
| If the max is one year, it can't be more?
| Aurornis wrote:
| The maximum value in each instance must be at least one
| year.
| rkomorn wrote:
| It sounds like it's "the maximum penalty must be at least
| 1 year", as in "your member state can't enact a law where
| the maximum penalty is less than 1 year".
|
| At least that's how I read it, but it's confusing.
| demiters wrote:
| That's not only asinine but also poorly worded. How is this
| getting approved?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| Its properly worded, as it is an EU law declaring atandards
| for national laws and the implementing national law must
| specify a penalty range where the maximum is at least one
| year (but can be more).
|
| It seems worded poorly if you think of it as if the phrase
| was from a criminal law and not a law mandating and setting
| parameters for criminal laws.
| demiters wrote:
| Ah, that makes sense.
| W3zzy wrote:
| Jup, it's a directive.
| ncr100 wrote:
| WTFF. Fight !!
|
| Why is this Thought Policing tolerated?
|
| Are we so End Stage Growth Economy that EVERY power broker see
| now as the time to employer (IC)Enforcement?
|
| Gestapo much, anyone?
| isaacremuant wrote:
| > Why is this Thought Policing tolerated?
|
| Because it's what everyone and their mother was calling for
| during covid to fight the dangerous <label> for opposing
| authoritarian policies.
|
| Because we have to stop Russia, the republicans, extremists,
| anti war protests who are actually just <label>, because we
| have to protect kids, or fight racism...
|
| It was all bullshit and people loved it. Now it's almost too
| late. If you don't reject it all and fight authoritarianism
| regardless of party alignment, you're not going to change any
| of this.
| isaacremuant wrote:
| Sure. Fight it. And also Remember this moment next time you're
| calling people conspiracy theorists because your party politician
| or mainstream news says so.
|
| Next time think twice before calling people "freedumb" lovers and
| otherwise label them as Nazis, deniers, -ism, terrorism
| apologist, foreign government agents and more which is the
| typical attack when people fight for civil rights and freedoms.
|
| It's always placing them on a false spectrum and assuming the
| worst.
|
| Now you get to enjoy your authoritarian utopia. All for the
| greater good.
| andrewinardeer wrote:
| Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Signal chat
| messages to my wife about what I'm cooking for dinner?
|
| Can someone explain how they could read my e2e Sessions chat
| message sent via TOR to my wife about what I'm cooking for
| dinner?
|
| Genuinely curious. Can those that are in power break this
| encryption?
| ivanjermakov wrote:
| Making it illegal to use "non-compliant" e2ee services and
| prosecuting those who does. Realistically, they couldn't, but
| could ban such apps in EU stores, making them less popular.
|
| They can break encryption by stealing keys from your device, or
| by pwning your device, or by introducing backdoor into the chat
| client for every user.
| danielheath wrote:
| They can fine apple and google for offering signal in their app
| stores, until nobody has it installed.
|
| That doesn't break your comms today - but later, you replace
| your phone, can you get a current copy of the app?
| layer8 wrote:
| Not quite. It would be illegal for Signal to continue
| operating in the EU if they don't implement the required
| scanning functionality. And Signal has already stated that
| they'd rather leave the EU.
| rkomorn wrote:
| The idea isn't to break encryption, it's to have apps implement
| client-side scanning "pre-encryption".
| zbentley wrote:
| No, but many political figures have proposed banning the
| distribution/possession/operation of tools (e.g. Signal, Tor)
| which can be used to circumvent surveillance.
| ymir_e wrote:
| Definitely wouldn't break the encryption itself.
|
| I think the way it could work is to send a letter to each of
| the messaging apps saying that they are now legally required to
| use the EU's encryption keys and make the messages available to
| the EU.
|
| Then they would make it so that the apps that don't comply are
| not available in the app stores by pressuring google and apple
| respectively.
|
| I think this is the reason why for example telegram is not end
| to end encrypted by default - as some regions require them to
| be able to access users info.
|
| Software you're using on your own wouldn't be effected, but
| wouldn't necessarily be legal either.
|
| People who are technically savvy could get around it, but the
| vast majority of people just assume that their private messages
| are private.
| layer8 wrote:
| The proposed regulation is about imposing requirements on
| service providers, as defined by the Digital Services Act, for
| messaging and other services, effectively requiring them to
| implement backdoors in their software.
|
| Purely P2P communication isn't affected.
| protocolture wrote:
| The app that decrypts the message, will have the capability to
| provide that message, now decrypted, to the government.
| mettamage wrote:
| So as a Dutchie that opposes this, is there still something for
| me to do? The Netherlands opposes this, so... should I sway them
| to oppose it even more? Not really sure what my role should be.
| layer8 wrote:
| See https://www.chatcontrol.eu/#WhatYouCanDo under "Is your
| government opposing?".
| x775 wrote:
| Hello! I made this website. Thank you for sharing.
|
| I appreciate all the feedback, and have implemented a few
| changes. A few points worth accentuating to avoid any
| misunderstandings. It is correct that the current proposal indeed
| is at the Council level, introduced as a high-priority item by
| the Danish Presidency. It is not yet with the Parliament. This is
| important as both need to be in agreement for any legislation to
| be adopted into European law. The first two sections of the
| website thus summarises the level of support at Council level.
| The source of this data strictly follows leaked documents from a
| July 11th 2025 meeting of the Council's Law Enforcement Working
| Party (LEWP) [0], originally reported by [1] and subsequently
| summarised by [2]. The next meeting for LEWP is scheduled for
| September 12th [3], shortly after most MEPs return from vacation.
|
| As noted in another comment, the Council level requires at least
| 15/27 member states to support it. Should this happen, it would
| then reach the Parliament, pending approval. However, as support
| at the Council level seems greater than in previous renditions
| (supported further by Denmark's insistence and confidence on an
| expedited vote scheduled for October 14 [4]), it seems prudent to
| target beyond merely the Council-level. This is the intended goal
| of the third section of the website.
|
| I see a few comments here suggesting that it would be better to
| label MEPs yet to respond as "Unknown". I initially decided to
| have MEPs inherit the position of their government, in part
| because I (a) wanted to encourage MEPs making a statement and
| clarifying their stance (while some have in the past,
| circumstances have changed with this version of the legislation);
| and (b) wanted to encourage a firm opposition at the Parliament
| level, ideally before the Council vote. However, I recognise how
| this can be perceived as being misleading. As such, I have
| updated the appearance such that pending a response, the label
| reads "Unknown" while the border indicates the presumed stance of
| the MEP to be that of their government.
|
| I appreciate the interest and feedback: thank you. Ultimately,
| the goal with this website really is to raise awareness that the
| proposed legislation, once again, has been resurrected and is
| making progress. The attention this thread has garnered is
| greatly appreciated. As all MEPs have been contacted to confirm
| their stance, I expect responses to arrive in the coming days and
| weeks, allowing the overview to soon accurately reflect the
| personal opinions of each MEP.
|
| In the meantime, I would still encourage you to contact your MEPs
| such that they are aware of your concerns.
|
| [0] https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/council-eu/preparatory-
| bo...
|
| [1] https://netzpolitik.org/2025/internes-protokoll-eu-
| juristen-...
|
| [2] https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/
|
| [3]
| https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/meetings/mpo/2025/9/law-e...
|
| [4]
| https://www.parlament.gv.at/dokument/XXVIII/EU/26599/imfname...
| stavros wrote:
| Hello, it's not working for me, "send emails" fails with:
|
| Uncaught TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined
| (reading 'selectedMeps') at Object.showSelectionFeedback
| (takeAction.js:546:41) at Object.selectAllRepresentatives
| (takeAction.js:542:14) at HTMLButtonElement.onclick
| ((index):1:13)
| josh2600 wrote:
| This is actually one of the major fights of our generation.
|
| If signal/whatsapp/e2ee are desecrated, only criminals will have
| encryption for a short period of time until we all come to our
| senses and realize that some semblance of personal privacy is a
| human right.
|
| IMHO, we should fight for the maximum amount of privacy possible
| within the context of a civil society.
|
| In every generation there is a battle, sometimes quiet, other
| times a dull roar, and occasionally a bombastic. This battle is
| who can oversee who.
|
| Surveillance should be the last resort of a free society.
| hazek112 wrote:
| The EU continues to become a hilariously Soviet nanny state.
|
| Beautiful land and country, but they're destroying their cultures
| with the third world and seem to just not care about the rights
| of their citizens.
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