Wow the EU pulls ahead of the US in the competition to become the most comprehensive surveillance state
this post was submitted on 11 Jul 2026
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So what does this mean? Do we have to use China-based chat apps to avoid domestic spying? I assume US companies (including Whatsapp) will bend to the ruling
I'd say probably best to not trust apps at all. You could roll your own Matrix instance for example, but then who's to say that the client applications don't comply?
Trust no one, I suppose.
The source code of the client applications prove they don't comply.
Worst part is - this is the fuel for anti-EU crowd.
Why is it the worst part? If the EU admin does not represent its constituents, it should be threatened. Otherwise it ends up being undemocratic rep of various business interests.
Something something governments should be scared of their people
tl;dr, they waited for the opposition to go on holiday and then pushed through a special resolution that required them to vote no in order to not pass. It's shady as fuck.
It's almost like our institutions and political class across the developed world are acting on behalf of capital and not in the peoples best interests...
Maybe that's why they all collude with surveillance capitalism to violate our civil rights wholesale, and expand the surveillance state...
These are not the actions of a government "for the people". These are the actions of criminally corrupt tyrants and traitors who should spend the rest of their lives in prison. The fact that they won't should tell you everything you need to know about our "democracies".
Taking a lesson in underhanded politics from US republicans. Pass shitty legislation at midnight when nobody else is around to disagree with them.
Huh, that sounds like there's some next system level evaluation that can repel it then
Well, my country's legislative bunch has already said, that mass surveilance is against our constitution. I doubt Finland is the only country in EU to have that, so even if it passes fully, it is going to have some big hurdles ahead.
Possibly, but Finland still uses Palantir tech, so who knows if they're following the constitution
„The Council then sent the file back to Parliament at the beginning of the vacation season, where it was difficult to secure the necessary majority to dismiss it again“
What are we paying these people for? It should be obvious that it is Part of your duties being a member of parliament to monitor and act on stuff while being on vacation.
To be fair, Europe is all about their summer vacations.
When I have vacation, I don’t want to be bothered with work related stuff either. I understand their want for a vacation, and they should not be blamed. The system that allows this chicanery is at fault here.
The total vote count required shouldn't change if someone's on vacation.
If they can't vote remotely or by proxy, then the vote should either be delayed or extended, or anyone absent should be listed as not present or abstained. Either way the percentage of "yes" votes shouldn't be any different from if every seat was in attendance.
Never heard of a parliament where abstain = no. Is that common?
If there's a threshold needed for a "yes" vote then it's functionally the same, even without counting as one. I'm just saying that threshold shouldn't go down just because someone is on vacation.
I don't want to be bothered while on vacation either, but if something happens at work that needs my specific attention someone will find me.
For fuck's sakes we can't be taking server rooms more seriously than democracy.
I’m sorry but you’re enabling this behavior. When I take an official holiday, I’m unavailable for work, simple as that. Work is a part of my life, not the definition of my life.
As per Wikipedia on the topic.
As of July 1, 2019, the monthly salary is of €8,932.86, or just over €107,000 per year.[15] MEPs also receive a general expenditure allowance of €4,563 per month.[15]
If I can be called in from vacation for €43k a year, these cunts can come in to vote for the fucking future of democracy for €107k.
Is it right to interrupt vacations? No. Does it matter in this case? Also the fuck no. The thing happened! They weren't there! If they want better rights or whatever I guess they should fucking unionise or whatever. Sitting out on a vote of this magnitude is beyond reprehensible.
I agree. I guess what I didn't say is that I do a bunch of work on the clock in order to ensure 99% of my responsibilities are covered. And then even the other 0.9% my coworkers can just deflect or work around.
But if a situation arises that actually hurts people imo that is no longer a work issue but a humanity issue, and if my fellows can't handle it then I do want to be made aware.
If this a regular occurrence then there needs to be some way to block or mitigate the damage, so that people can go on vacation and not worry they're coming back to a mess.
In this case, this is a thing that can be postponed
I can agree if they called them because "OH NO ALL OUR PEOPLE ARE DYING WHAT DO WE DOO" but it's not
I guess I'm not European so I don't know that much about this process. It sounded serious, but if it can be postponed then yeah postpone.
When a server is down, they want to find you. When they want to pass a law which you will vote against, how hard do you think they're trying?
I mean how are there not people in your office, people you work next to, people who know about which issues you ought to be made aware of, that can reach out to you?
I don’t want to be bothered with work related stuff either. I understand their want for a vacation, and they should not be blamed
Have you ever heard the phrase, "With great power comes great responsibility"? Yes, it's from some dumb capeshit, but it's true. If you want to be elected into a position of such power, then you're voluntarily signing up for the responsibility, including the responsibility to keep shit like this from happening when you go on vacation.
Vacation is vacation. They have a right to a vacation just like I do. The system should have safeguards in place. I don’t want the elected to have a burnout, just in the same way that I don’t want to have a burnout.
Right there should be, but there isn't, so until there is they need to have someone from their office on the spot to field important stuff like this.
It's not a regular job though. They know what they're getting into.
The difference beeing is that.they do not have attendence requirements, which i am sure you do at your work, can't just not show up.
I mean maybe get pissed at your premier for playing these underhanded games
The amended EP position adopts a positive, yet rather cosmetic amendment proposed by the liberal RENEW group that would “exclude communications to which end-to-end encryption is, has been, or will be applied” from the scope of the law.
This isnt cosmetic, this is genius! It satisfies lawmakers who want to make this pass to "save the children" and have no idea of the consequences, and it satisfies the lawmakers with braincells since makes the law inapplicable to secure communications.
I hope this does pass so they finally stop trying to push it through. But since they did pass the voluntary one but are still trying to pass the non-voluntary one, I think they will just try to spam chat control laws until their dystopic aim is achieved.
They still get to eavesdrop on your e-mails.
You know, the digital version of mail.
Guess who used to open and read people's mail ... oh, yeah, the political police of every fucking dictatorship in Europe (both Fascist and Communist) during the XX century.
This is the shit these people in supposedly Democratic nations have enacted.
If you're a citizen in an EU member state, I suggest you have a look at who are the MEPs in you country who voted for this shit. In mine - Portugal - which had a Fascist dictatorship complete with mail opening secret police, this was passed entirely with the votes of the mainstream parties and even the far-right voted against it.
I agree they should have barriers on getting access to your email, but, and I'm sure you know this on some level, the way email works and can bounce around across multiple servers before landing in your provider's systems, all in plain text, means you should never rely on email for privacy unless you are encrypting it. I just run on the assumption that copies of all of my emails exist somewhere.
I do know how the SMTP protocol works.
Just because the envelope is not sealed doesn't mean that the state should be allowed to get a photocopy of what's inside to be perused by some apparatchik if they feel like it WITH NOT EVEN A SUSPICION OF A CRIME MUCH LESS JUDICIAL OVERSIGHT
Is this shit Democracy or is Autocracy with a bit of Theater of Democracy on top?
Yeah. It might be preferable to draw a line between social media and chat applications.
That way the people who are scared can teach their children to talk on services that are scanned, while people that care for their privacy can opt for private communication.
If it's about pedophiles sharing stuff with each other, they'll never be able to stop that.
If it's about pedophiles sharing stuff with each other, they'll never be able to stop that.
I mean they can’t stop it entirely, but the could do some things… Like invest in mental healthcare to understand and combat such social problems, but just passing laws is so much easier.
Finally!
This is one of the rare articles that is trying to explain what happened because the whole procedure can be a bit confusing with multiple readings and votes, and most sources don't even mention multiple votes as if they don't understand the process themselves.
Democracy manifest.
What is the charge? Eating a meal? A succulent Chinese meal?
Democracy is fundamentally incompatible with capitalism.