EU Parliament Civil Liberties Committee adopts position on CSAR (opens in new tab)

The original title was "EU Parliament Decides That Your Private Messages Must Not Be Scanned" and it was linked to a different article, I think this comment was written before the title and the url were changed.

https://web.archive.org/web/20231114102908/https://news.ycom...

Another spelling for trilogue is trialogue*

* https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/trialogu...

“Di” as a prefix is normally adequate when referring to two (dimension, dilemma, dichotomy, etc) and yet it acquires an “a” in “dialogue”. Possibly a similar word constructed from the “tri” prefix should also have an “a” inserted.

Tripartite might also work

It's also not a dial-ogue, but a di-a-logue because it involves two parties.

I have to admit I'm not very knowledgeable about the process, so I thank you for correcting me. :-)

I think the problem is that they didn't rebuke these groups and tell them that the people don't want to approve stazi tactics in order make it easier for police surveillance for their pet "concern". We all know the primary reason is to slowly sneak in surveillance everywhere, not necessarily for evil purposes, but a system which once set becomes extremely easy to expand upon for surveillance all the time, for any reason because a democratic society just accepted it.

> Article 8 of the EU convention of human rights

Worth noting that this isn't just a regulation; since the Lisbon Treaty it is effectively part of the EU's _constitution_, and can't simply be regulated or legislated away.

Though also note that it's the European convention on human rights, not the EU one. It's from the Council of Europe, a separate body, but the Lisbon Treaty effectively enshrined it in EU law.

EDIT: Nope, see comment below. The terminology is a bit of a mess...

The Parliament can ask the Commission to table a specific law though. And it can dismiss the commission at will.

So it doesn't have de-jure legislative powers, but de-facto it does.

... Wait, no, that's not how it works. The commission (broadly representing the will of the member states) proposes laws, the parliament (broadly representing the will of the people of the member states) votes on them. It's perfectly plausible that these remain permanently out of whack.

I think you see this dynamic in action more with the commission vs EU parliament dynamic than you do with national government vs national parliament because in many countries there are, in practice, consequences to the government losing a vote in parliament, so governments will generally mostly restrict themselves to bills that they think they can win. There are no such consequences in the EU system, so you see a lot of this.

I don’t think the average person cares about privacy, sadly. “I have nothing to hide,” etc. The best argument I heard against this crazy policy (only heard recently during these hearings) was that many creators/sharers of this CSAM material is kids themselves! Young teens exploring their sexuality, swapping nudes with each other. So that means that if you’re scanning all messages and you come across one of these chats, instead of that conversation staying between the 2 teens (like it should), it’s getting scanned by the provider, flagged, uploaded upstream to some law enforcement center where god knows how many other people are going to be looking at it, only to realize that there was no abuse happening. And of course that comes with the risk of leaks/hacks/rogue employees spreading it even further. Completely insane!

> The fight is never over.

Checks and balances are working this time hopefully. Regardless our (good) multi-stage processes and multi-chamber structure and even, regardless matters of lobbying and money - in the moment of quiet while smoke is still on the wind - look for the shooter. "Who wants this?" and "What are their fears?" leads to a better leverage point closer to values than parameters.

There are a lot of people in the world right now anxious about the digital future. The EU Commission seem to hear too much from Chicken-Licken's gang of sky-repellant gizmo salesmen and not from calmer humane optimists.

> organise a lobbying group greater than the NRA ($2.93M in 2022)

This is... a little misleading. They also have at least two PACs (here's the big one: https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs...)

Now, you could claim, though not particularly credibly, that money spent on PACs is not lobbying money.

That money is just to employ lobbyists and their associated expenses.

I'm sure there is additional money for lobbying that is not on the books. Holidays, houses, good bullion, crypto, free memberships to exclusive clubs and the like that is gifted to politician's and their spouses by big industry.

I think we're partially mistaken about the true value and reason for lobbying existing as a concept. It's a cover that muddies the waters in discussion about laws, a coping mechanism for "The Other Side" and at the same time an endless stream of content for potential reporting by reporters/media.

It's about relationships - soft power - more than money. Speaking fees, revolving door/sinecure jobs, and donations to your charities will be there for you should you need it, so there's no need to ask for things up front.

Also it has to do with wink wink nudge nudge "Come see us if the election doesn't work out."

Knowing you are losing an election and getting dumped into a $350k/yr easy-mode job takes the edge off.

In the movie, Thank You for Smoking, there is a great scene where the main actors are sitting in a restaurant, and there's a sign just behind them that says:

"Be thankful for your government, it's the best that money can buy"

How sure can you be that your lobby is successful? Can you like 'buy' a politician, effectively a legal bribe, or is it more nuanced?

In the EU, a lot of laws are effectively written or co-authored by companies, which saves the politicians and their staffs incredible amounts of time and expertise. This must be quite expensive, just to have the lawyers on payroll who are able to do that.

I think there is a theme in this thread that misses a key aspect that I think Noam put well here -

https://youtu.be/1nBx-37c3c8?si=vA0IIew7ripABUTD

I think the idea that if an opposing idea went to an NRA friend and offered more money, in almost all cases they would refuse because the lobbying dollars aren’t to convince but to support someone who asked believes what you do.

In some cases, probably like crypto laws, a politician might think “sure I don’t care or have an opinion, you bought some donations and I don’t hate your opinion so I’ll help out”, but that is a lot different than “you pay me x and I vote y.”

I think taking the agency out of the politicians hands, in most cases, is the wrong perspective.

1) You’re right it’s cheaper than people think.

2) You aren’t going to move the needle much with 5 figures for anything at a national level.

The real work comes when you hire the congressman’s favorite PR firm for X and their cousins polling firm for Y and their former chief of staff for $15k a month retainer and so on. The vast majority of this gets done via “consulting” agreements and public relations firms and law firms, where the nominal work is irrelevant and the relationships and introductions are the product.

It's a downpayment, though. Political careers are often short; subsequently the politician will get a high paying 'job' at one of the firms funding the lobbying. That's the real payoff.

Wow!!

The better word is "informing". Lobbyists inform policymakers about perspectives of certain groups (those employing the lobbyists).

It just happens that most lobbyists are paid by groups who are seeking to enrich themselves at the cost of everyone else.

However, there are some lobbyists who work for organizations that attempt to guide policy that helps under-represented groups (like nature, animal welfare, human welfare). Those lobbyists are fewer and poorly paid (as their "clients" typically have little or no money), but they work hard to at least inform policymakers of their perspective.

Agreed, that is exactly what it is. It's a huge stain on democracy and in many ways subverts it. Companies don't have the right to vote and should not be able to do an end-run around the electoral process with their money.

Oh it is called corruption - when you're talking second or third world countries.

Same with "expats" vs "immigrants".

Lobbying is just people or organizations making their case to politicians in a private way (e.g. meeting MP in their office) instead of a public way (e.g. putting an article to press).

You're throwing the baby with the water here.

Lobbying I'd argue is an essential part of democracy because it allows groups of people that have a shared concern to come together and make their case to the politicians.

> https://www.patrick-breyer.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/SKM...

page 26 (or page 24 in in-document numbering) ... amazing that Thorn was just an "NGO" .. instead of the company that wants to sell filtering tech.

so, can we get the actual expert opinion of these wonderful folk?

I count 24 experts from 5 eyes countries and 8 from non 5 eyes countries. Not sure if thats relevant but it is funny.

Looks like some of the AI doom regulatory capture panels I’ve seen.

The EU also has a right to privacy enshrined via the Treaty of Lisbon, so even if this law had got through the parliament somehow it should/would have been stuck down by the courts.

How do you explain big Pharma lobbying to stop reducing drug prices? For example, Democrats who held up drug pricing reforms were the largest beneficiaries of lobbyist money.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/...

It's a numbers game. You can't convince everyone, but lobbyists are generally good at their job and know how to find people with malleable opinions.

I don't think there's a topic where lobbying doesn't work to at least some degree. Or do you have an example?

Sure.

Google has well enough resources to handle such an effort whereas a newer, competing entity will likely not. ("entry barriers")

I'm still bitter about their half-baked cookie law that instantly made web browsing a much worse experience, regardless of how well-intentioned it may have been.

Specifically in the digital space the DMA and DSA try (and will probably at least partially succeed) to break the plattform feudal rule and move their role more towards that of a public utility by restricting how they can use their market power.

That'll have a massive (I think positive) effect on the digital economy.

Just one example:

https://last-chance-for-eidas.org/update-151123

> will try again on the local level

That will be a lot harder though cause way more people actually pay attention to what their governates are doing compared to the EU (assuming of course a significant proportion of the population actually cares and opposes stuff like this).

Do you have examples? Ideally related to digital things or privacy.

(Thanks)

And? I fail to see how having a big EU-wide tech company is more important than good regulations that protect EU citizens and give them rights big tech companies don't want them to have (e.g. privacy, data portability, right to be forgotten, etc.)

All security is built on trust. If your threat model is trust nothing, then the solution is do nothing. What I’m talking about is called anchoring, where you force a critical flow through a single anchor by design, and thus reduce the places that you have to audit. It’s the same reason they say that all security should be baked in the keys (strength, mgmt, exchange, etc…).

Do I trust Apple and Microsoft? I think sort of.

I don’t trust them to be perfect, but if your prior is to say that you don’t trust them at all, then it means you basically can’t use them at all bc no amount of security will get around an untrustworthy OS.

They control what gets displayed on screen, they control how memory is laid out and accessed for a program. There are already so many more important things we entrust to them. So, yeah, I prefer OS’s (all vendors) to provide APIs, and for app stores to enforce their use. I especially would trust this more than EU laws, and I certainly would trust that more than everyone doing their own thing, regardless if it’s open source.

If for no other better reason I trust the OS more, since all of these open solutions will still run on those supposedly untrustworthy os vendors.

You basically have to trust your OS, Don’t you think? Otherwise, the answer is you do nothing.

Why wouldn't you trust them? To some extent at least?

I mean if they are claiming their messaging system is E2E and it turns out it isn't the cost to them (not only financial) would be much higher than whatever they earn from having access to your data.

No citation needed. If the statement was false we wouldn’t get advertising based on conversations that happen in what’s app.

> This is why it's important to have a reasonable legislature and laws.

And multiple points of control. In the EU the council acts as a check on populism through parliament (even if the nazis took over parliament it wouldn't give them a lot of power), parliament acts as a check on the council (even if the heads of 70% of EU countries decided something, parliament gets its say). Neither of those are the executive so they would be unable to push through laws which favour specific countries or groups of countries (as the commission are supposed to act primarily on behalf of the union, in the same way the US president is supposed to not favour his home state). Then outside of government you have the judiciary who look at the laws passed and interpret them in line with other laws, throwing out ones which are incompatible.

It'd give people all the more incentive to sideload and get off Google Play Store. That's a win win in my book. And Signal is a non-for-profit. I don't see why they'd care. Designing system that subvert authoritarian regimes.. what's more punk than that

If you have to ask governments for permission then that's a bad design and your system will be taken away from you when the next think-of-the-children populists are elected

If you work on the assumption all governments are eternally nice and well interventioned .. then E2E chat systems aren't all that necessary in the first place

Well, that's possibly simplistic, because it's unlikely this would have held up in the ECJ in any case.