>we've got to save democracy by restricting free speech and enforcing laws and regulations created by unelected officials
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41341607.
p.s. No, this is not a comment on the EU or any of your views—just about unsubstantive/flamey forum posts.
I keep bringing it up since people forget about it: in 2006 the EU adopted the Data Retention Directive that forced all ISPs to save the browsing history of everyone.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
It was eventually declared invalid by the European court of human rights, but it was still in effect for many years. Countries that did not implement this (eg Romania because their constitutional court found it illegal) were sued by the EU commission.
The EU's attempts to spy on people go back decades. You'll also note that government gets exemptions from all the privacy stuff the EU pushes.
I hope the EU changes course on this, but as with their handling of other tech... I'm not holding my breath.
[1] https://community.cloudflare.com/t/early-hints-and-encrypted...
This is funny because the secret service abuses citizens' privacy in Romania all the time. But this turned against corrupt politicians which is probably why they sued. The secret service wiretapped them and gave the recordings to the anti-corruption directorate which was then led by the current EPPO chief prosecutor. Some high level politicians ended up in prison after much friction, but in the end a few heads had to roll in order to at least give the impression of fighting corruption, which the US Embassy and the EU asked for.
Romanian establishment parties would vote anything that comes out of the Comission. CSAM? They will vote for it. The opposition is basically Kremlin funded right wingers which were barred even from joining Viktor Orban's conservative group and two small parties like Macron's, one which didn't get any votes and the other has like three MEPs after making an alliance with two other small parties. If the right wingers vote against CSAM it's just to sabotage the EU decision process.
Typical modern law enforcement incompetence. They don't care about you. They just want to protect their access to your data.
Mike Benz, a former insider, spends his days explaining how this works.
This is not the best introduction that he has done, but it is the latest space he recorded on the Telegram affair:
https://x.com/mikebenzcyber/status/1827514567884255430
Update: there will be a part two on the „The Geopolitics of Telegram & who is really after Pavel Durov“ 1am ET tonight.
This is going to be one of the best sources of background info on the subject. This is not some random conspiracy theory hack, I promise.
It's clear the EU's mindset is "nobody can compromise your privacy except me, but it's OK, I'm benevolent", and I'm not a fan of that exceptions.
We don’t expect our politicians to dedicate their lives to scientific research so this perspective is inherently flawed.
What? Not in the commission. It's a 100% politically appointed body made up of politicians, it's just not elected.
Also even on the lower levels being an "expert" EU apparatchik has absolutely nothing to do with dedicated your life to science.
In any case it's a deeply flawed system, minimum oversight and a lot of money to spend/waste can't ever lead anywhere good.
