EU’s Dirty Tricks to Erase Your Privacy

“Democracy” in Action – EU’s Dirty Tricks to Erase Your Privacy

Kit Knightly

Yesterday, the European Parliament held a vote on the issue of “chat control” – the legislation empowering tech giants to monitor private messages, allegedly to counter an “epidemic” of child sexual abuse material.

From EuroNews:

The legislation has been dubbed “chat control” by its critics, due to its privacy implications, particularly on end-to-end encrypted communications. The European Parliament is set to vote again this week on controversial legislation that would allow technology companies to scan online communications for child sexual abuse material.

That vote, technically on extending a temporary measure that expired in early April, was held yesterday.

The majority of MEPs voted “no”.

The motion was passed anyway.

This was the second vote on this issue, it was previously rejected by a handy majority in March (311 against, 228 for, 92 absent). But the powers-that-be are really desperate to get this law in place, so they pulled out all the stops this time around.

Here is Czech MEP Markéta Gregorová explaining the situation:

The vote was called as an “urgent procedure”, and some are claiming this is breach of rules, as this is generally not allowed for issues on a second or third vote, but I have been unable to find this rule in procedural rules of the EU parliament myself.

It was called on the on the last before the summer break when many MEPs were already absent.

The granting of “urgent procedure” status means skipping debate, amendments and – most crucially – that it needs an absolute majority (361 votes) against it or it will be passed:

This “urgent procedure” skips preliminary committee debates where amendments would often be introduced and stipulates that the regulation passes unless an absolute majority of 361 MEPs vote against it.

The number of absentees made it essentially impossible for the bill to be rejected.

Chat Control will now extend until at least April of 2028. This is the European Union’s “Democracy” in action.