URGENT! The European Union and its plans to scan all communication

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traxter
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Joined: 03/23/2018

Hello everybody,

this is mainly addressed to users from the European Union, but others may be interested as well.

Please read it and check out the last section, which is the urgent part.

Thank you.

At the end of last year, the European Union allowed Facebook, Google/Gmail and others to continue their practice of scanning all their users' contents and communications.

Several companies, especially Facebook, said this type of scanning was necessary to detect child pornography as well as malicious attempts of adults to get in contact with children ("grooming").

Now, the European Union's commission (which is the group of politicians that creates and suggests laws to the European parliament) plans to make it mandatory (!) for each provider offering e-mail, messaging, cloud services, etc. in the EU to do just like Facebook already does - scanning all their users' contents and communications in order to "detect child pornography and grooming".

Causeless and automatic. Always. No need for a court order.

There is no doubt that fighting such crimes is important, but this absurde surveillance project is anything but proportionate and an attack on privacy and confidentiality which would be unprecedented in a democratic environment.

Besides that, it is plain to see that the criminals who are said to be fought would simply use other ways of sharing and communicating.

Mandatory scanning would apply to any service that can be used within the EU, even if the company behind it is located outside of the EU (examples would be Signal, Threema or Protonmail).

So far, it is not really clear what would happen if providers of communication services would refuse to do so. However, there are politicians in the commission as well as in the parliament who demand to block such providers at the level of the ISP.

Also, it is not really clear what would happen to end-to-end encrypted communication. It is said that encryption is not meant to be prohibited in general, but there's reason to believe that providers are indirectly forced to rebuild their software to enable scanning before the encryption - or otherwise would get blocked.

The situation is critical. Since the majority of the European parliament is made up of right wing and conservative politicians, a law like the commission wants it would likely be passed.

Patrick Breyer is a politician in the European parliament who fights against this surveillance project.

If you want to do some further reading, here is a link to his website (he also points out other critical aspects that I have not mentioned):

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/message-screening/

--------------------------------------------------------------

URGENT!

UNTIL APRIL 15, THERE IS THE OPPORTUNITY TO TAKE PART IN AN ONLINE CONSULTATION ON THIS TOPIC!

THE RESULTS WILL BE PRESENTED TO POLITICIANS OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT.

SO FAR, MOSTLY PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT THE PLANS OF THE EU HAVE TAKEN PART.

IF YOU ARE FROM THE EU, PLEASE SUPPORT THE RESISTANCE AGAINST THIS CAUSELESS AND AUTOMATIC SURVEILLANCE!

Patrick Breyer has created some useful information on how to answer particular questions (please read before starting!):

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/have-your-say-public-consultation-on-chatcontrol-open-until-15-april/

The consultation itself can be reached like this:

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12726-Child-sexual-abuse-online-detection-removal-and-reporting-/public-consultation

lanun
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Joined: 04/01/2021

The European Parliament has been known to take a firm stance in support of online privacy, so the "child pornography" argument is a vicious attempt to coerce it through emotional manipulation.

I am not sure whether I should login with a Facebook or a Google account, though. EU login app, maybe?

EU_login.png
traxter
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Joined: 03/23/2018

> I am not sure whether I should login with a Facebook or a Google account, though. EU login app, maybe?

Thank you for your interest. Have you tried the "create an account" option?

By the way, everybody is allowed to copy the text I wrote and post it on another forum, social media or whatever.

lanun
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Joined: 04/01/2021

I took the liberty to post a link to this thread in the neighboring General Free Software Talk forum: "a place to discuss free software, free culture, online privacy and related topics."

> Have you tried the "create an account" option?

Yes, "create an account" should be fine, but I find it much telling that all the other login options are hogged by the main culprits.

nadebula.1984
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Joined: 05/01/2018

The European Parliament is so futile that it cannot stop the three prime evils (China, Russia, and US imperialism) from wiping out your petty democracy.

To name just a few methods, we can bribe and corrupt your parliament members to pass fascist laws; we can financially support fascist rebels in your countries to win the elections or civil wars; we can even brutally invade your countries to directly overthrow your democratic governments and plant fascist ones. Haven't you seen what happened in Iraq and Libya? Your countries will be the next victims.

lanun
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Joined: 04/01/2021

Oh my - someone pulled the plug and flushed the fascinating discussion we were having here.

Anyway, I think we can sum it up with an appropriate quotation:

"With victory, certain moods may grow within the Party - arrogance, the airs of a self-styled hero, inertia and unwillingness to make progress, love of pleasure and distaste for continued hard living. With victory, the people will be grateful to us and the bourgeoisie will come forward to flatter us. It has been proved that the enemy cannot conquer us by force of arms. However, the flattery of the bourgeoisie may conquer the weak-willed in our ranks. There may be some Communists, who were not conquered by enemies with guns and were worthy of the name of heroes for standing up to these enemies, but who cannot withstand sugar-coated bullets; they will be defeated by sugar-coated bullets."

-- Mao Zedong, "Report to the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee of the CPC" (March 5, 1949), Selected Works, Vol. IV, p. 374

nadebula.1984
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Joined: 05/01/2018

Since the three prime evils (China, Russia, US) all surveil their people, so Europe must do the same. If you don't like this, please help us defeat Chinese social imperialism. Otherwise every fascist tyranny we have been facing for over 40 years (since capitalist restoration of China) would be imposed on you via the infamous "Belt and Road", too.

lanun
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Joined: 04/01/2021

> please help us defeat Chinese social imperialism.

Sorry, we already have our hands full trying to free ourselves from our very own freedom eaters. If we ever manage, we shall be able to help you. Tell us, what is your plan exactly?

Do you also intend to help us now?

nadebula.1984
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Joined: 05/01/2018

Very easy: you can just start with boycotting WeChat. This is noble help to us.

Our plan is very easy, too: simply undermining the economy base of the Chinese social fascist regime. With its economy base weakened, so be the superstructure.

lanun
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Joined: 04/01/2021

> boycotting WeChat

That should not be too difficult.

lanun
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Joined: 04/01/2021

I am appalled by the lack of information in the news about that very uncanny project, including from specialized sources.

Even an advanced search does not return any recent result, as if everybody had been gagged on the whole topic.

If allowed to pass, this piece of legislation will effectively kill communication privacy. Or is it already dead?

traxter
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Joined: 03/23/2018

> I took the liberty to post a link to this thread in the neighboring General Free Software Talk forum

Thanks for that!

> I am appalled by the lack of information in the news about that very uncanny project, including from specialized sources

Yes, this is really extraordinary. A new bill is said to be released in the next weeks, hopefully the coverage will increase then

> If allowed to pass, this piece of legislation will effectively kill communication privacy. Or is it already dead?

It's dying more and more, but in my eyes there is still enough that's worth fighting for