The European Union towards Chinese-style digital control

Markus Reuter is a German journalist who writes about civil rights to information, digital politics, disinformation, censorship and surveillance technologies. in 2018 was rewarded for a series of investigations on Twitter, in 2020 per un’inchiesta on TikTok.

THE 19 June 2024 raised the alarm about the imminent “Surveillance state” in the pipeline in the European Union, a chat control project that prevents privacy by banning encrypted private communications.

Reuter states that to get this idea across, the institutions are purposely creating public alarms about crimes such as terrorism, pedophilia, subversion, war, but what is actually being pursued is authoritarian control and therefore a less safe world for ordinary citizens.

Imagine that “every image sent by post is checked by the State directly at home, in the desk, and before being placed in the envelope. ” It suggests that “You have to imagine checking chats as if they were letters to understand how profound the invasion of privacy is.”

The attempt is not new “For years, legions of IT experts and security researchers, lawyers, data protection experts, digital organizations, technology companies, messengers, representatives of the United Nations, child protection experts, guardians of Internet standards, scientists and anyone else with expertise on the matter have raised the alarm around the world: monitoring chats is dangerous. It's a new form of mass surveillance. It will weaken the cybersecurity of all of us. It would introduce a surveillance infrastructure on apps and end devices outside the EU that authoritarian states will use to their advantage.”

This is a frontal attack on user-to-user encryption (so-called “end-to-end”), a technology ” of encryption [that] ensures that the sender places their message in an envelope that can only be opened by the recipient. With scheduled chat control, the envelope is not forcibly opened on the way to the recipient; Unlike, the contents of the envelope are analyzed before being inserted into the envelope. So, when you write a letter, your private data will be observed directly behind your back. Nothing is more private when it comes to chat control.”

By contrast “Supporters of chat control say the envelope – in this case end-to-end encryption – it would not be opened and the communication would therefore be secure and encrypted. This is a failed and obvious sleight of hand: after all, what is the use of protective packaging if what we send to other people is independently examined before being sent? And where is the good old privacy of correspondence for our digital letters on WhatsApp, Signal o Threema? What right do you have the authority to control what I do and what I send on my cell phone, tablet e computer? But how dare you!”.

However Reuter believes that “It is not technically possible to monitor all content at the same time and still ensure private and secure communication. It's simply not possible. But the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, and all the other supporters of chat control say exactly the opposite. They lie to us openly, they post misleading ads and pretend that monitoring chats is somehow harmless and compatible with fundamental rights and data protection. They spread misinformation that private communication and screening of all content can coexist. This is nothing more than an insult to common sense.”

Let's go well, the European Authority openly advocates liberticidal policies!

“Supporters of surveillance pretend to want to better protect children and tell horror stories based on unproven figures. But it was clear from the beginning that chat control is about attacking end-to-end encryption – and therefore to the secure and private communication of billions of people. Because if the EU, with his 450 million people, will introduce chat control, will have a global impact.”

On the other hand, if we still believe that the EU is the pinnacle of world democracy (we are sure that it is not the pinnacle of lies?) this would give justification to any global dictator to do the same.

“From the beginning, a network of lobbies intertwined with the security apparatus pushed for control of the chats. It was never about children; otherwise the root causes of abuse and violence would have been addressed, instead of monitoring innocent people without any initial suspicion. The point is that encrypted communication is a thorn in the side of the security apparatus. That's why it has been trying to combat our private and encrypted communications in various ways for years.


namely, dice Reuter, we would move from the principle of presumption of innocence according to which 'Everyone is innocent until proven guilty’ to that “Everyone is guilty until proven innocent. ” So “the surveillance state at its best” E “an inversion of the principles of the rule of law.”.

Reuter says that “This control of chats is the result of authoritarian fantasies – and as such EU member states must reject it in the Council on Thursday, if they still have a shred of democratic values.”

Reuter does not explicitly refer to fundamental rights , and then I went to check.

Rereading the ” European Convention on Human Rights” of the Council of Europe I have not found certain protection, there are several clauses that would also allow the European Union (who joined it in 2009 with the Lisbon Treaty) of “to spy” correspondence in order to prevent crimes . However, the text refers to national security, which is not that of’ectoplasm European.

There is some minimal protection in the “CHARTER OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION”, especially in articles 7 (Respect for private life and family life” for the right to respect for personal communications, and for l’ Article 8 ( Protection of personal data) because there must be the “right to access the data collected concerning him and to obtain their rectification.” . But there seems to be nothing stopping the Big Brother police state.

The barrier of the Constitutions remains, so an EU rule of this kind would give any member state the legal right to withdraw from the EU for just cause, and every citizen to appeal to the courts for violation of his fundamental rights.

With COVID we have seen that the Italian State is at the forefront of violating citizens' rights. So all Mattarella's references to the fundamental rights that he himself authorized to violate are nothing more than smoke and mirrors in preparation for worse atrocities.

There is an increasingly unbearable rotten smell coming from the halls of the European Union, corruption and wickedness of spirit are seen there, will of disgusting dictatorship , violence against individuals and populations. We'll have to get out of it in the only way possible, that is, resorting to pre-unification jurisdictions.

Moreover, once again we see the value of the federalist principle proving its worth when centralized states become authoritarian, something that throughout history sooner or later always happens: federalism is the only bulwark against ideological evildoers.

Especially if raised according to schools of thought like that of Fabian Society

The original post
https://netzpolitik.org/2024/client-side-scanning-chat-control-is-pure-surveillance-state/