Great news. Now maybe we can go on the offense for once. Work to enable constitutional protections against this sort of thing, and develop systems that can work around it if and when this comes back again.
There are places in the world today where only sneakernet communication has any semblance of privacy, so we need non-specialist tools that can provide privacy and secrecy regardless of local conditions. (I’d love to see more communication tools that don’t assume an always-on connection, or low latency, or other first world conditions.)
What we have at the moment is the protect given by the European Convention on Human Rights. The general problem however is that it gives exceptions to law enforcement to infringe on such right, as long the law is "done for a good reason – like national security or public safety." (https://www.coe.int/en/web/impact-convention-human-rights/ri...)
It is fairly well universally claimed by technology experts and legal experts that Chat Control is not effective for its stated purpose. It does not make it easier to find and stop abuse of children, nor does it have any meaningful reduction to the spread of CSAM. This makes the law unnecessary, thus illegal. However it hinges on that interpretation. Law enforcement officials and lobbyists for firms selling technology solutions claims the opposite, and politicians that want to show a strong hand against child exploitation will use/abuse those alternative views in order to push it.
Removing the "done for a good reason" exception will likely be a massive undertaking. Rather than constitutional protections, I think the more likely successful path would be a stronger IT security, cybersecurity regulations and data protection, so that governments and companies carry a larger risk by accessing private data. A scanner that carry a high rate of false positives should be a liability nightmare, not an opportunity for firms to sell a false promise to politicians. Cybersecurity regulations should also dictate that new legislation must not increase risk to citizens. One would assume that to be obvious, but history has sadly shown the opposite with government producing malware and the hording of software vulnerabilities. If there must be exception to privacy, "for good reason", it must not be done at the cost of public safety.
> Rather than constitutional protections, I think the more likely successful path would be a stronger IT security, cybersecurity regulations and data protection, so that governments and companies carry a larger risk by accessing private data. A scanner that carry a high rate of false positives should be a liability nightmare, not an opportunity for firms to sell a false promise to politicians.
Technological means are forever vulnerable to social means. Governments can compel what technology prohibits. Technology won't stop politicians from passing legislation to ban privacy.
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.
The problem is that EU laws is above national laws. Thus legally any law can be pushed at EU level, even if it breaks national laws. If such law passes, then it’s on member states to adjust their laws.
I think you have misunderstood something. As far as I know no state has ever declared that its own behaviour can amount to terrorism, and one reason for this is that the state applies to some degree arbitrary violence for ideological gain.
I also suspect that there is more to the regulation you're referring to, like something along the lines of 'that disturbs the state, its foreign relations or inter-state organisations'. Is it in StGB? If so, where?
> hey, tell me what are some of the recent laws in Germany that make it a crime to call politicians out on social media
in Germany, calling a politician certain derogatory names or mocking them in a way that is considered a "public insult" (and reasonably likely to impair their ability to do their job) can lead to criminal liability under §188 StGB. The scope includes online social media posts. The trend of enforcement appears to be increasing.
Section 188 of the German Criminal Code "insulting public officials" - This section makes it a crime to insult ("Beleidigung"), defame ("Verleumdung" or slander ("Üble Nachrede" a person in public life (politicians at all levels) if the insult is "likely to significantly impair the ability of the person concerned to perform their public duties"
Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) – social media platform liability; It obliges large social-media platforms operating in Germany to remove "clearly illegal" content quickly (within 24 h) and illegal content within 7 days, report transparency, store removed content for 10 weeks. This law creates an environment in which platform-moderation is under pressure. Content that may lead to criminal liability (such as insults under §188) may be more likely to be flagged/removed by platforms.
General "insult" (§185 StGB), "slander" (§186 StGB) and "defamation" (§187 StGB) apply to any person, not just public officials. Conditions and penalties are higher under §188 when public officials are involved. Also, laws on dissemination of personal data (doxing) (§126a StGB) were enacted in 2021. While not specific to insulting politicians, they add further online-speech liabilities
I mean, eventually if it had become a law it would, I guess, as an ultimate backstop be enforced by violence (like all laws, if you break them persistently and annoyingly enough). But, it wouldn’t be indiscriminate, right?
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.
No need to wait for that! The official name is not ChatControl, it is CSAR: Regulation to Prevent and Combat Child Sexual Abuse
Denmark has the EU Presidency and is currently pushing ChatControl hard (objecting HEAVILY to the moniker/nickname). They try to sell it as “for the children” and “to fight terrorism” here already…
The first thing to check in new versions of the proposal is whether they include an exception for the government, as they always do. If the proposers think the scanning is so safe, why don't they want the government to use it too? As soon as it says the government is exempted, you know that the rest can be tossed in the trash without much further examination.
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.
I've heard those celebrities talk about this. What they (willfully?) ignore is that law enforcement is already too understaffed to handle every child abuse case with proper care, so giving them even more cases to work with won't achieve anything.
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.)
And what they will do, if they succeed, is provide tools of repression to the extremists which of course will win the elections once confidence in the centrisrs shall further erode.
The real purpose is to supress opposition.
Like everyone who questions the Ukraine narrative, must be a Russian asset. Or questioning the Middle East narrative makes you an antisemite.
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.
I don’t get how this debate keeps cropping up. Is there not some career disincentive/consequence where if you try to push Encryption back doors, you get demolished in your re-election
At least in Sweden, almost all established parties support this legislation making it difficult for voters to vote against it without voting for fringe parties outside parliament (piratpartiet for example). Further, mainstream media hasn’t given it much attention so politicians has been able to be pro this legislation while in general being pro peoples integrity. Quite incoherent, but not challenged by anyone.
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.
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.
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.
I really don’t think this has anything to do with pressure from the 10% of the public that can afford to care about this.
Politicians, and more importantly influential people, also rely on the same tech as we do and they have infinitely more to lose if their communications leak.
If you think about it this is truly absurd reasoning - they say they want to protect children by introducing this scanning, of course not spy on people, but then politicians are excempt? Why, what could possibly be the reason?
They already openly reveal their true intentions by this excemption.
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.
Comparing electronic chats to former communication methods... Would people have objected to the government scanning all of their physical postal letters for keywords that might suggest something illegal? Don't they need some legal ground to do this in advance of the act?
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.
note the "EVERY" other form of communication. (Maybe somebody will be able to twist in a way that makes chat control constitutional, or somebody else will argue that since it is an EU law the constitution doesn't matter, but the spirit is clear)
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.
If it is direct speech and they can monitor it. What's the next step? Turning on the microphone on your phone and logging everything in earshot for "security".
If you don't record every conversation that happens in a private home, you can't retroactively wiretap them "only sometimes". If you don't open and scan everyone's mail, you can't go back and read the ones they've already received "only sometimes".
Why is that a problem? Then you just don't do it at all. Society can survive two people being able to have a private conversation.
This is pretty problematic for the EU as an institution. It is actively undermining its already questionable legitimacy. The powers that be largely aren't democratically elected, and there really aren't any mechanisms with which European citizens can hold them accountable for their actions.
Every time they pull a stunt like this, this becomes a little bit more clear. If the EU wants to avoid the spread of euroskeptic populist parties, they should be working to patch the system and be building legitimacy and credibility, rather than be seen working to undermine it.
To be fair it would be outright unconstitutional in a at least a few EU countries. Then there are the courts on the European level. One way to truly kill it might be to allow Chat Control to go to the end where it actually becomes a major issue on the national level in those countries.
Of course that would be a very, very risk approach...
Readit News
There are places in the world today where only sneakernet communication has any semblance of privacy, so we need non-specialist tools that can provide privacy and secrecy regardless of local conditions. (I’d love to see more communication tools that don’t assume an always-on connection, or low latency, or other first world conditions.)
It is fairly well universally claimed by technology experts and legal experts that Chat Control is not effective for its stated purpose. It does not make it easier to find and stop abuse of children, nor does it have any meaningful reduction to the spread of CSAM. This makes the law unnecessary, thus illegal. However it hinges on that interpretation. Law enforcement officials and lobbyists for firms selling technology solutions claims the opposite, and politicians that want to show a strong hand against child exploitation will use/abuse those alternative views in order to push it.
Removing the "done for a good reason" exception will likely be a massive undertaking. Rather than constitutional protections, I think the more likely successful path would be a stronger IT security, cybersecurity regulations and data protection, so that governments and companies carry a larger risk by accessing private data. A scanner that carry a high rate of false positives should be a liability nightmare, not an opportunity for firms to sell a false promise to politicians. Cybersecurity regulations should also dictate that new legislation must not increase risk to citizens. One would assume that to be obvious, but history has sadly shown the opposite with government producing malware and the hording of software vulnerabilities. If there must be exception to privacy, "for good reason", it must not be done at the cost of public safety.
Technological means are forever vulnerable to social means. Governments can compel what technology prohibits. Technology won't stop politicians from passing legislation to ban privacy.
I also suspect that there is more to the regulation you're referring to, like something along the lines of 'that disturbs the state, its foreign relations or inter-state organisations'. Is it in StGB? If so, where?
in Germany, calling a politician certain derogatory names or mocking them in a way that is considered a "public insult" (and reasonably likely to impair their ability to do their job) can lead to criminal liability under §188 StGB. The scope includes online social media posts. The trend of enforcement appears to be increasing.
Section 188 of the German Criminal Code "insulting public officials" - This section makes it a crime to insult ("Beleidigung"), defame ("Verleumdung" or slander ("Üble Nachrede" a person in public life (politicians at all levels) if the insult is "likely to significantly impair the ability of the person concerned to perform their public duties"
Network Enforcement Act (NetzDG) – social media platform liability; It obliges large social-media platforms operating in Germany to remove "clearly illegal" content quickly (within 24 h) and illegal content within 7 days, report transparency, store removed content for 10 weeks. This law creates an environment in which platform-moderation is under pressure. Content that may lead to criminal liability (such as insults under §188) may be more likely to be flagged/removed by platforms.
General "insult" (§185 StGB), "slander" (§186 StGB) and "defamation" (§187 StGB) apply to any person, not just public officials. Conditions and penalties are higher under §188 when public officials are involved. Also, laws on dissemination of personal data (doxing) (§126a StGB) were enacted in 2021. While not specific to insulting politicians, they add further online-speech liabilities
Dead Comment
Denmark has the EU Presidency and is currently pushing ChatControl hard (objecting HEAVILY to the moniker/nickname). They try to sell it as “for the children” and “to fight terrorism” here already…
Who is driving it?
Who wants this so much that they have gone to the massive expense and effort?
Whoever it is - they know thet defeat is only temporary, and if they keep bringing it back from the dead, eventually it will succeed.
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...
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.)
By now it's just too late to take it back and start over without including chat control.
FAANG, various 3 letter agencies.
> Who is driving it?
FAANG lobbists. Stupid politicians who think they can only use it on adversaries.
Dead Comment
https://www.svt.se/nyheter/inrikes/mp-och-v-rostade-fel-om-k...
https://emanuelkarlsten.se/vansterpartiet-om-varfor-de-stott...
Or they opposed it before the EU elections and then switched immediately afterwards.
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.
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.
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.
Politicians, and more importantly influential people, also rely on the same tech as we do and they have infinitely more to lose if their communications leak.
“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-...
They already openly reveal their true intentions by this excemption.
Why are chats different?
[1] https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costi...
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
Digital communication is more direct speech, including maybe whispering, than it is writing a letter.
Definitely a hard no!
Why is that a problem? Then you just don't do it at all. Society can survive two people being able to have a private conversation.
Ummmmm....yeah? You don't? It's enough the metadata is collected already.
Every time they pull a stunt like this, this becomes a little bit more clear. If the EU wants to avoid the spread of euroskeptic populist parties, they should be working to patch the system and be building legitimacy and credibility, rather than be seen working to undermine it.
Of course that would be a very, very risk approach...