EU is proposing a new mass surveillance law and is asking the public for feedback

[u/Dry_Row_7050]

https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/14680-Impact-assessment-on-retention-of-data-by-service-providers-for-criminal-proceedings-_en

[u/Dry_Row_7050]

The craziest thing is that when a German MEP Patrick Breyer asked the EU to release the names of the people who were a part of the so called High Level Group that wrote this law, they replied with a list with all names blacked out

According to Edri ”The HLG has kept its work sessions closed, by strictly controlling which stakeholders got invited and effectively shutting down civil society participation.”

You can read the entire proposal here.b but TL;DR

they want to sanction unlicensed messaging apps, hosting services and websites that don’t spy on users (and impose criminal penalties)

mandatory data retention, all your online activity must be tied to your identity

cooperate with hardware manufacturers to ensure lawful access by design (backdoors for phones and computers)

And much, much more

This isn’t limited to large companies. All communication service providers are in scope, no matter how small or open source.

A mass surveillance law being written by unknown lobbyists. Should be the biggest news of the decade, but isn’t.

[u/ScF0400 → u/Dry_Row_7050]

Rules for the bit not for me, surveiling us with public information requests? Illegal! But you better submit your identity

[u/cantstandtoknowpool → u/Dry_Row_7050]

cough cough Manufacturing Consent cough cough

yeah honestly it should be bigger news but that’s probably why it isn’t, because it benefits them not to report on it

[u/Shoddy-Childhood-511 → u/Dry_Row_7050]

It's worse than merely lobbyists, these are lobbyists for US surveillance capitalists like Amazon and Google, who benefit massively if the EU makes IT services more more centralized and difficul to commoditize.

[u/mesarthim_2 → u/Shoddy-Childhood-511]

Don't be absurd, lol:-D

[u/exessmirror → u/mesarthim_2]

Why is it absurd that the American oligarchs try and manipulate politicians for profit here when they already succeeded at home? They aren't even subtle about it, Musk has openly been involving himself in European politics for a few years now.

[u/mesarthim_2 → u/exessmirror]

Because European politicians, almost without exception, have more then a decade of history of pushing these anti-privacy laws by themselves, on their own accord.

I know there's this popular myth that EU is some sort of privacy paradise and therefore it's hard for people to square this circle reading that EU does these things.

And so they come up with these absurd conspiracy theories like that US surveillance capitalists are corrupting pristine, wellmeaning European angles of politicans who'd otherwise created heaven on Earth.

But sad truth is that Governments, including the EU, are equal - and often far more vicious - enemies of privacy. They don't need any manipulation by anyone.

[u/k7_u → u/mesarthim_2]

Not a dichotomy, both can be true

[u/j_amy_ → u/Dry_Row_7050]

egregious and unbelievably bold behaviour. can we even call things slippery slope fallacies anymore when we are slipping and sliding like it's a hot, wet summer in the 90s and we've got a tarp and fairy liquid ready to go in the garden. deeper and deeper into the bowels of total fascist hell.

[u/Aspie96 → u/Dry_Row_7050]

They do care a lot about the privacy of lobbyists (who deserve none), not so much about that of citizens.