EU pulls procedural dodge to extend snooping on private messages

The European Union has pulled a procedural trick to ram through “Chat Control 1.0” (CC1). CC1 suspends normal EU privacy laws so that tech platforms can ‘mass-scan’ users’ private messages for government.

European Parliament members had already rejected the proposal twice because of the dangers it poses to privacy. The proposal is what MEPs term a “legislative zombie” – defeated repeatedly but resurrected over and over until it gets through.

So the EU tabled it again, but this time as an “urgent procedure”. Instead of the usual absolute majority (50% plus one of MEPs voting) required to pass or defeat it, this meant that blocking it required an absolute majority of all MEPs, whether or not they were present to vote.

Democracy bypassed

The proposal was again strongly rejected, by 314 votes to 276. However, many MEPs had already gone on holiday for the summer recess, or were otherwise unable to attend. This meant the opposition lacked the total required to defeat the proposal: 360 votes.

As a result, the ‘defeat’ didn’t count. The ‘majority of the total’ only applied in one direction – a vote to reject CC1. It wasn’t required in order for the measure to pass.

Fake ‘safeguard’

In order to con some MEPs into supporting the proposal or abstaining, the legislation was amended to exclude messages sent under supposed ‘end to end encryption’.

However, the EU council – dominated by government ministries to whom privacy is an unwanted inconvenience – is expected to remove the amendment before the legislation is enacted in its final form after the summer recess.

Assault on free expression

CC1 forms part of a wholesale assault by the EU – and the UK government – on freedom of speech, freedom of protest, and journalism they don’t like.

The EU has just passed a law making it a criminal offence to share any content – even entirely factual content – from Russian broadcaster RT (formerly Russia Today), for example. But more than anything, CC1 is part of an assault on speech and protest defending the human rights of Palestinians and opposing Israel’s crimes.

The UK government has extended its anti-democratic war on protest by expanding the Terrorism Act to apply to any organisation the government decides to ‘designate’. The ‘designation’ makes it a criminal offence even to use information from a designated group, punishable by up to 14 years in prison.

Again, truth is no defence – and journalists have no exemption. Instead, they can try to defend themselves – in court – against charges under the legislation by claiming they had a “reasonable excuse” for journalistic purposes. They will still have to bear the cost and expense of legal defence against prosecution.

Cui bono

All of these anti-democratic, anti-freedom measures are intended to have two main beneficiaries: Israel, first and foremost; and Ukraine, or at least the Ukraine war.

By invading private discussions, governments can more easily disrupt and criminalise attempts to organise protests, information campaigns and direct action. These efforts aim to raise public awareness of Israel’s crimes and the realities of Nazi-riddled Ukraine. State-corporate media will either ignore these, or actively cover them up, so independent journalism has to be silenced.

By combining an assault on private speech with a war on public speech and journalism, those in power hope to protect criminal states and their ‘wars’ – and the elites that benefit from, or act for, them.

The UK is no longer a functional democracy, if it ever was. The EU is clearly doing its best to rush down the same path.

Featured image via the Canary

Tags: Democracy EU technology

Comments 2

Taxiarch says:

2 hours ago

“The UK is no longer a functional democracy, if it ever was.”

The UK has never been a ‘liberal democracy’: that was a fiction promulgated from the 1980’s and has gradually displaced the earlier description of the British and Northern Irish polity as a ‘constitutional monarchy’, which is what anyone born before 1965 will remember. The purpose was to align UK propaganda with US propaganda. The potential of mass electoral politics was abated and finally destroyed by the three party system. The failure of that system in terms of economic welfare has now created a inflection point, but in the immediate term there remains no prospect of a democratic revival in the UK; indeed after the planned abolition of the ECHR there will be no obstruction to the establishment of a legislative fascism.

The UK polity never a functional democracy, and it never will be.

Isabella Ast says:

37 seconds ago

Capitalism hitting its final form as intended from its earliest days of the gilded age, that only seems to have been prevented by two back to back world wars. These events created disgust for those with the traits we now see those in the current day who rule as lords of this wretched capitalist system, whether that’s the disgust for the monarchs and elites who threw lives pointlessly into a meat grinder for ego or gain, or in the case of WW2 a disgust for those that slaughtered Jews, disabled, and many other minorities in the name of a crazed ideology. Along with this it also made it clear that people back then where not willing to sit by and allow this kind of crap, it also helped that the people who came back from WW2 became by nature of been in a conflict that large all highly trained and competent soldiers which had shown a willingness to die for decency. Now here we are with that generation now gone, and their rotten kids having either sat by or willingly helped dismantle the safe guard that where put in place after those events, and as a result the capitalist system having the road blocks that had been preventing it from going the way it has always wanted to go cleared for it to lead to now.

So when you see these people, videos or news outlets telling you that you are the ones that will be hurt the most by the economies collapse, maybe just don’t listen to these lies as the people who make use of the economy the most are those that destroy your standard of living, are on the epstien files, or have in this articles case points out destroyed democracy and the rules of law and society. (which if it needs to be spelt out for anyone who reads this those two last things failing are what have historically time and time again led to collapses going as far back as 3000 years as we have been able to glean from the fragments of those broken systems)

Finally note, fun fact about capitalism people just love to ignore. each year around 75,000 children are reported to go missing in the UK alone, this though is reported as their are around 200,000 missing children cases. Factor in the how widely known it is that capitalism and its enforcers the police protect pedophiles, whether that’s the case of jimmy savil and how no justice was ever had since he was a corpse already when it came to light, and those that protected him for all those decades within the BBC or the police never saw jail time for doing so, along with the more recent cases of pedophiles been caught in police stings but let go because they where a politician, friend/supporter or corporate linked to the establishment, paints a grim picture doesn’t it. This system has no legitimacy left now has it had since before I was born, and its the world that is a product of my parents generations making as the good old days they like to harp on about was a product of their parents generations, who had a lot more reasons for why it wasn’t prefect as having to rebuild cities and global infrastructure after two world wars is far harder then maintaining a system at the bare minimum, so another fun one for any younger people who read this to give in response the next time a boomer tries to blame them for their sins.

Fuck capitalism let this bitch keep on burning itself down, money does now equal food, shelter or stability, and look after yourself and your neighbour not the system.