Chat Control proposal fails again after public opposition

Many countries have such protections, for instance Germany. They could actually issue arrest warrant for all involved as Chat Control amounts to attempt at terrorism (act of indiscriminate violence for ideological gain) against German people and that is illegal. Problem is that there is widespread apathy and lack of will to act.

If our politicians knew anything about anything, they'd take a leaf out of the US' book and call it "Preventing Risks Online; Thwarting Exploitation of Children and Terrorism": the PROTECT act.

I hate how accurate this is.

Ashton Kutcher, Demi Moore and a couple more Hollywood celebrities united under an "NGO" called Thorn(.org).

That "NGO" also happens to sell a tool called Safer(.io) that allows website owners to check hashes against known CSAM material, which I'm sure is unrelated.

They also happened to have shadily employed some former high-ranking Europol officials, which is again just a pure coincidence.

Balkan Insight did wonderful investigative reporting on them a couple of years back: https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...

Most of all this noise is just the product of the drawn out legislative process of the EU, the commission included chat control in a larger package suggested ca 2021 and it's been working itself through the system since then, generating headlines every few months.

By now it's just too late to take it back and start over without including chat control.

The ultimate goal is to make anonymous speech online seem shady and suspicious (only trust thoughts from certified citizen accounts) and to make people more cautious about what they write online. Politicians are really tired of being mocked by anonymous people immune to being shamed with the help of the fourth estate (press). This legislation is one piece of the puzzle.

The people pushing this come from the usual power centers in European politics, the (current) centrists. They feel motivated to protect their positions against encroachments from what they consider extremist positions (be it e.g. economic left or right, or a or b on some other scale.)

Having taken a closer look, there's nothing really nefarious going on: what is mainly happening is that every step of the very long process of passing a EU regulation is getting lots of attention.

Back in 2020 or so the commission first proposed the reform that contains the chat control provisions, then there was like a year or two of well published fighting in the European Parliament (EP) before they reached a position on the entire reform (notably excluding chat control).

Meanwhile the council of minister (effectively the upper house of the EP) didn't get around to forming an opinion before the parliament, so they are doing that now, which means it the same fight over chat control all over again but with different people.

After the council of ministers agrees on a position on the entire reform proposal from the commission we'll get even more rounds of bickering over what the final text should be: the trialogue. Those tend to be very closed, but with how much attention chat control is getting expect lots of leaks and constant news about who's being an ass during that step too.

Note that it is explicitly expected that each of the thee bodies will come up with different positions on many aspects of a regulation proposal, so there is nothing strange with the commission or the council suggesting some the parliament has opposed.

That's why they do it so stealthily, most of the time encryption isn't even mentioned. What they often do is talk about the need to "protect the children" at the responsibility of the service provider, who in order to comply would have to disable encryption on their own. It would technically remain legal, only banned de jure.

Also most average people don't know anything about encryption or backdoors, not even the meaning of those words. In their minds they have nothing to be concerned or mad about.

They only have to get "lucky" once, we have to get lucky every time so it makes sense if you want this to keep pushing it - once the law is passed it's much harder to revoke it later.

The people pushing it are ~bribed~ lobbied hard by groups who want this so they don't care about wasting their time or resources since they are getting paid for it.

> Is there not some career disincentive/consequence where if you try to push Encryption back doors, you get demolished in your re-election

In a somewhat ironic turn of events we don't know who was pushing it this time as they where protected by anonymity - one rule for them I guess and another for everyone else.

Gotta get the average voter to know/care more for that to happen.

The politicians gave themselves an exemption from the scanning. This is just from the top search result but this is widely reported.

“The scanning would apply to all EU citizens, except EU politicians. They might exempt themselves from the law under “professional secrecy” rules” https://nextcloud.com/blog/how-the-eu-chat-control-law-is-a-...

Von der Leyen's phone was convenintly erased before it could be used as evidence in a court case against her. So no. Maybe stuff will leak but this isn't South Korea with two presidents in jail and thd last one on his way to jail.

As often as possible. They only have to win once. The people need to win every single time.

Probably combined with a bunch of unrelated laws, in an unrelated legislative committee, all to try to keep it out of public attention.

Or done quietly outside of the public's attention, assuming it's not already being done.

While True: ProposeChatControl() and return

They are not. For example, according to Italian Constitution [1], chat control is unconstitutional:

    Art. 15
    Freedom and confidentiality of correspondence and of every other form of
    communication is inviolable.
    Limitations may only be imposed by judicial decision stating the reasons and
    in accordance with the guarantees provided by the law.

[1] https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costi...

Arbitrary interception of messages is a violation of the constitution in several European countries. The expectation of privacy in messaging is also codified in Article 8 of the ECHR, although with the usual nebulous exceptions.

This is an excerpt of Swedish Regeringsformen[1]:

> Everyone is also protected against body searches, house searches and similar intrusions, as well as against the examination of letters or other confidential mail and against the secret interception or recording of telephone conversations or other confidential messages.

[1] https://lagen.nu/1974:152#K2P6

You can't break encryption "only sometimes"

The speed of communication has changed a little bit, but still, a hard "no" to the government reading everything I say.

Digital communication is more direct speech, including maybe whispering, than it is writing a letter.

You mean to the indiscriminate reading of ALL the letters without the court order?

Ummmmm....yeah? You don't? It's enough the metadata is collected already.

Big corporations like expensive complicated regulations and onerous mandates because it’s a moat. They can afford to comply while indie companies, open source efforts, and startups cannot. The cost of regulatory compliance is nothing compared to the benefit of not having to compete.

A heavily regulated market becomes an oligopoly of a few players with revolving door access to government and often interlocking directorates, patent cross licensing, and other ways of further colluding to keep out competition.

This is why, for example, the big lavishly funded AI ventures are all about “safety” regulation. It would stop anyone from competing. So far that effort has also failed but expect them to keep trying.

> They will 100% try again.

We only have to lose once. Erosion is a process.

Every country should fight for constitutional protections for its citizens' rights to (internet) privacy. But that'll never have support from politicians, and laypeople don't have the ability to appreciate this highly technical and nuanced topic.

It's only when opposition is mounted to each individual attempt that we can rally public support. Sadly, we can only muster this energy in the face of losing freedom. And it only has to falter once.