Chat Control faces blocking minority in the EU

https://twitter.com/TutaPrivacy/status/1966384776883142661

161•miohtama•1h ago

Comments

Bender•1h ago

Chat Control repelled 4th time in the EU

Nice! They will keep trying until they wear people down. Keep up the great battle!

eloisant•1h ago

We have to win every time, they only have to win once

SiempreViernes•1h ago

No? If they win it mostly flips who pushes the proposal to change the law and who opposes it.

s1mplicissimus•1h ago

I think the implication was that there's something like a tipping point after which the surveillance leads to people not daring to oppose it in an organized way anymore. Which, at least to me, is a way more realistic danger than, for example, AGI.

Sharlin•1h ago

It's usually much easier to pass a law than to get rid of it once passed.

oytis•1h ago

What kind of government will on its own initiative want to give citizens more privacy not to say actively push for it against other governments? EU parliament cannot propose laws, so it would be nearly impossible to grassroor such an initiative

rsynnott•1h ago

Well, realistically, if this were to pass, it would likely run into trouble with the courts. There's a bit of a history of this; in particular the Data Protection Directive got struck down by the ECJ for violating fundamental rights.

some_random•25m ago

Never trust the courts to protect your rights, even if you think that a law obviously infringes on obviously well enshrined rights that still is no guarantee of victory.

spwa4•1h ago

Except ... where do you get the idea that the police forces will respect the law? If you want to get an indication of that just read the judgements here:

https://www.echr.coe.int/

Note, especially, how many judgements are about the state already getting convicted a first time and then immediately violating the judgement, and in some cases the size of the convictions tells you something:

https://www.echr.coe.int/w/judgment-concerning-t%C3%BCrkiye-...

(over 6000 very serious individual violations by law enforcement)

Or take https://www.echr.coe.int/w/judgment-concerning-greece-9 where the Greek state illegally abducted 2 children and moved the to the US. Obviously this court provides no recourse, and the Greek state is entirely free to just totally ignore the judgement.

So where do you get this idea that law enforcement or the state will respect the law when they don't get what they want?

NeutralForest•1h ago

Great! Crazy that it can be brought back every time though, it makes me very uncomfortable.

rsynnott•1h ago

I mean, how else could to work? Beyond a new EU treaty (Lisbon treaty replacement) banning discussion of it, I'm not sure that there's any way to prevent it coming back.

m000•56m ago

Voting should be on specific clauses, and if anything is rejected there should be a cooling period before it can be brought up for voting again.

The cooling period does not preclude discussion of course. That's why we pay the MEPs: They are actually expected to show up in the EP and discuss. Not only show up on voting day and follow what their party dictated.

jacknews•1h ago

Just ridiculous how authorities are perservering with this.

The ruling should come with a timeout period; they're not allowed to try anything similar again for 20 years or whatever, and even then only if circumstances have changed.

vladms•55m ago

I prefer a simpler system if possible, adding further rules ("don't try anything similar for X years") seems to me that will make matters worse (who decides if it is similar enough? can you challenge that? at what stage you have to decide? etc.)

Also, are you sure most population is against ? I did not see a poll on that. I know enough people that like "authoritarian" governments and laws, so I think we (the ones that don't agree) should make an effort to convince people that too much "authority" is not the most efficient/smart way. Some of those people are in fact just afraid even if they would not admit it...

jacknews•19m ago

Yes you are right, the people and the authorities should be better informed.

The problem is that these kinds of laws tend to be one-way streets. Once systems are in place, they are hard to remove, so there should be some protection against unenlightened authorities just trying again and again and 'getting lucky'.

elenchev•1h ago

see you next year

kamil55555•1h ago

I know normal ordinary people that were defending this...

m000•1h ago

There should be sorts of an exponential backoff mandated for the contents of bills.

Now, every lobby group keeps pushing their sketchy agenda, knowing well that they will eventually pass it. Worst case, it will be passed bit by bit.

zenmac•59m ago

Good idea. yeah at this point, law making every were just seems like brute force attack at this point. We need some kind of security assure to keep out these 'law making crackers'

mariusor•54m ago

I doubt that this can be actually done as intended because the wording of a bill can be changed enough to pretend it's not the same as the previous versions. I can't really think of a way to make this work, but indeed it would be a great addition to law passing.

nickslaughter02•53m ago

It exists but the proposal must be voted on. These people will not put the proposal to vote if they know it will not pass. That's why they ask countries' positions up front.

Vespasian•51m ago

That's also problematic.

Currently the same proposal is being discussed over and over again but if that wouldn't be possible it's easy introduce "similar" ideas.

Ultimately law makers need to be able to pass new laws, even controversial ones, or the power to so slowly shifts to someone else (e.g. the executive in the USA)

Not having a majority is the only way to stop the process and if the population is in favor, doesn't care or can't be bothered any law will pass.

mariusor•38m ago

I disagree on this one.

In the same way you can't be prosecuted twice for the same crime in the US system under the "double jeopardy" clause, there should be an equivalent system where the same law can't be pushed over and over until it passes.

LtWorf•34m ago

It would be nice, but they change it a little bit so it's technically a different law.

digitalPhonix•30m ago

In many countries, it took multiple attempts to get gay marriage legalised. Having a double jeopardy type block for repeated attempts at passing laws would prevent social changes being captured in law.

Also it would be easy to weaponised by proposing something that doesn’t have enough support now so that it can never be passed in the future.

somenameforme•27m ago

You're fighting a strawman there I think. He said nothing about it then never being possible to propose a law. A reasonable cool-down period to ensure politicians can't simply exploit the fatigue of the public would be reasonable - perhaps 10 or 12 years.

mschild•21m ago

He did make a reference to the double jeopardy law in the US though which, if I'm not mistaken, explicitly prohibits exactly that type of behaviour.

digitalPhonix•7m ago

That's not double jeopardy then

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_jeopardy

The clause in the US constitution specifically has no time limits and it looks like it's the same for all the countries listed on wiki.

somenameforme•29m ago

The whole point of governance in a democracy is consent of the governed. When lawmakers start actively going against the interests of society at large, then they've entered into the realm of authoritarianism with an occasional election - which is exactly what we accuse the 'bad guys' of doing.

achenet•47m ago

As other comments on this post have mentioned, exponential backoff would still have some issues.

However, we could envision a rule where controversial bills have to be validated by a strict majority, or even a supermajority (75% minimum) of the voting population via referendum.

I feel like in 2025 it should be doable for a state to ask its citizens to vote online to show that they support a bill, and if a given bill lacks support amongst the citizen body of that state, it's probably not worth passing.

kstrauser•31m ago

I wish there were a “No, And Stop Asking” law where you couldn’t propose a law again within X years after it fails to pass.

I know a million reasons why that’s probably impossible, starting with “what makes it the same law?”, but I can still wish we had one.

worldsayshi•25m ago

Wouldn't that potentially be exploited by the opposition where they could push a similar bill but with unpopular additions?

NotPractical•23m ago

It is the courts' job to block unconstitutional or otherwise illegal laws.

I believe someone said in a previous thread that a court in an EU member state had already found this mass surveillance on citizens who are not criminal suspects to be illegal under either their constitution or the Charter of Fundamental Rights, but I can't find it anymore. I am wondering why that is not sufficient to permanently block this.

mytailorisrich•11m ago

But that's exactly how the EU works. If you give the "wrong" answer they'll keep going until you give the "right" answer.

France and the Netherlands rejected the proposed EU constitution... nevermind, the same wase in the later Lisbon treaty.

Ireland rejected the Nice and Lisobn treaties... nevermind they still passed when asked again after cosmetic changes and "information campaigns".

Poland voted for the wrong government... EU suspended funds until they voted for the right government at the next election.

nickslaughter02•58m ago

All this means there's a blocking minority (supposedly) which can go away immediately if Germany flips. The debate is happening today. Nothing is repelled.

The title needs to be corrected. It's borderline maliciously incorrect.

miohtama•47m ago

Edited, thank you

PanoptesYC•39m ago

What is the UI from in the twitter screenshot? I'd like to read the positions of the Supporting/Undecided countries.

twsted•32m ago

https://fightchatcontrol.eu/

(And I need to understand why the hell my country, Italy, supports the motion)

wizzwizz4•28m ago

Contact them, and ask!

HelloUsername•37m ago

Discussed yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45209366

thw_9a83c•20m ago

I would really like to know from a perspective of an informed Danish citizen, why the Denmark chose to focus on the Chat Control legislation as one of their priorities during its EU presidency. It somehow doesn't fit with my view of the Scandinavians as a technically competent people. The proposed solution is absurd and can easily be overcome by the real offenders.

speckster•12m ago

Can't speak for the danish, but at least in Sweden i think its more of a "moral police" issue. Our politicians just scream about catching pedophiles and then close their eyes to any privacy issues. Lots of "well if you have nothing to hide then what is the problem?". The people pushing the issue are not really that technically competent either.

nickslaughter02•7m ago

Choose:

- Lobbying. Thorn and other "NGOs" are shaking in excitement about new revenue streams by providing the surveillance software. https://balkaninsight.com/2023/09/25/who-benefits-inside-the...

- Scanning of your emails and storage etc. is illegal in EU. The EU parliament voted for an exception which allows it (https://howtheyvote.eu/votes/167712). It has been extended twice and is set to expire in April 2026. EU parliament threatened to not extend it again. This proposal should become a law which permanently replaces it and is revised every 3 years. What a nice opportunity to include scanning of your encrypted communication too.