Chat Control 2.0
Sounds pretty benign, no?
Until I tell you that it's a monitoring program that's been under consideration by the European Union - then I bet your ears perk up in alarm, right?
How about if I give you the EU's justification for what already sounds pretty sketchy to us freedom of speech types?
Ready for this? They're trying to mandate it as an EU-wide requirement...
FOR THE CHILDREN
As soon as you read that, you can be assured it's Orwellian, authoritarian, and utterly terrifying.
And so it is.
A little history from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which thought that this abomination had died on the vine when the European Council closed this past June session without taking action on it. The EU had been nonplussed when their secret deliberations on such a far-reaching, intrusive, and oppressive regulation had been leaked, and freedom of speech advocates got wind of it. Or such as are left in Europe to fight off the persistent EU encroachment.
The EU prefers the cover of darkness for dirty deeds.
...The Belgian proposal was debated behind closed doors, and civil society groups have only recently been able to even evaluate and discuss the proposal after it was leaked to the press.
If the proposal is adopted, it would represent a significant step backwards. Since 2022, the EU has been debating a file-scanning regulation that would eviscerate end-to-end encryption. Realizing that this system of client-side scanning, which some have called “chat control,” would violate the human rights of EU residents, a key European Parliament committee agreed in November to amendments that would protect end-to-end encryption.
...EFF’s advocacy has always defended the right to have a private conversation online, and the technology that can enable that: end-to-end encryption. That’s why, since 2022, we have opposed the efforts by some EU officials to put a backdoor into encrypted communications, in the name of protecting children online.
...The Belgian proposal, which EFF has reviewed, specifies that online services would be forced to install software so that child abuse material “should remain detectable in all interpersonal communications services.” To do this, the online services must apply “vetted technology”—in other words, government-approved software—that would allow law enforcement to scan the photos, messages and files of any user.
The proposal actually goes on to suggest that users should be asked to “give explicit consent” for this invasion of privacy. Users who don’t agree to the scanning will be forbidden from sharing images or links. The idea of whitewashing mass surveillance with a government-approved “click-through” agreement, and banning users from basic internet functionality if they don’t agree, sounds like a dystopian novel—but it’s being seriously debated.
For some reason, Denmark, with the EU presidency firmly in their grasp, is back, and pushing this hideous legislation, which would affect users worldwide.
...This doesn’t just affect people in the EU, it affects everyone around the world, including in the United States. If platforms decide to stay in the EU, they would be forced to scan the conversation of everyone in the EU. If you’re not in the EU, but you chat with someone who is, then your privacy is compromised too. Passing this proposal would pave the way for authoritarian and tyrannical governments around the world to follow suit with their own demands for access to encrypted communication apps.
...Despite strong opposition, Denmark is pushing forward and taking its current proposal to the Justice and Home Affairs Council meeting on October 14th.
The legislation would require every encrypted app to scan every message, link, and picture.
Every last one, with no opt-out.
🚨This EU proposal nicknamed #ChatControl is progressing under the radar but is a major threat for privacy.
— Emmanuel Pernot-Leplay (@PernotLeplay) September 29, 2025
ChatControl would require all messaging platforms (even encrypted ones like Signal, WhatsApp, and Telegram) to scan every private message, photo, and conversation.
Its… pic.twitter.com/F2KCcPI4cu
Somehow, word got out that the Germans were reconsidering what was said to be their longstanding opposition to the measure. Frankly, as Orwellian as the Germans are, I find it surprising that the spying wasn't their idea to begin with.
In any event, that rumored reversal was enough to spook messaging app Signal into a statement of alarm, a call to action, and a challenge.
You all do this, the Signal president said, and we are out of Europe.
We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. https://t.co/015qmQnIS2
— Signal (@signalapp) October 3, 2025
Her statement, calling it 'the end of the right to privacy in Europe,' has set the freedom claxons to banging around the world.
...In a very real way it could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. Germany has long been a champion for privacy; drawing on its own history of the terrible harm that can be facilitated by mass surveillance and standing firm to safeguard this right for all of Europe. To capitulate now, at a time of great geopolitical uncertainty where the cybersecurity of our core infrastructures matters more than ever, would be an incomprehensible strategic blunder, and a fundamental betrayal of Europe’s commitment to learn from history.
Under the guise of protecting children, the latest Chat Control proposals would require mass scanning of every message, photo, and video on a person’s device, assessing these via a government-mandated database or AI model to determine whether they are permissible content or not.
This is a horrifying idea for many reasons. First, the technical consensus is clear. Scanning every message–whether you do it before, or after these messages are encrypted–negates the very premise of end-to-end encryption. Instead of having to break the gold-standard Signal encryption protocol to access someone’s Signal messages, hackers and hostile nation states only need to piggyback on the access granted to the scanning system. This threat is so severe that even intelligence agencies agree it would be catastrophic for national security. These proposals ignore the strategic importance of private communications, and the longstanding technical consensus that you cannot create a backdoor that only lets the “good guys” in. What they propose is in effect a mass surveillance free-for-all, opening up everyone’s intimate and confidential communications, whether government officials, military, investigative journalists, or activists. For all of Europe’s talk of sovereignty, this is a bizarre cybersecurity decision on multiple fronts. For Signal, Chat Control is also an existential threat. We do one thing and we do it very very well: we provide the world’s largest truly private communications platform. And we know that encryption either works for everyone, or it doesn’t work for anyone; a backdoor in one part of a network is a vector into every other part. And we will not compromise the integrity of our service, or endanger the safety of the people who rely on us around the world, often in contexts where private communications are the difference between life and death. If we were given a choice between building a surveillance machine into Signal or leaving the market, we would leave the market. This is not a choice we would make lightly, and our great hope is we never have to face it. But if Chat Control were enforced against us, that’s likely where we would end up.
Europe would be behind a digital wall, and those living within the confines of that guarded compound would have no private expression of thought conveyed through the innerwebs that had not been approved by government censors.
Mindblowing that it's even a consideration.
Democrats and progressives here have to be drooling in their fever dreams over the thought.
Particularly disturbing that a Dane is behind all of this, and even more shocking that the below is an acceptable view in a mature democracy. pic.twitter.com/9uNaZZe8C4
— Dupont Island (@DupontIsland) October 4, 2025
Now, before you get excited about everyone being subject to these surveillance and censorship rules, you have to realize that the old standards hold true.
It still will only be applicable to the peasants.
Brussels Brahmins will maintain their lofty positions in the cloud.
As EU lawmakers push ahead with Chat Control 2.0, a proposal that would compel messaging platforms to scan private conversations, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is once again being called out for sidestepping the very transparency rules meant to keep officials accountable.
The contrast is hard to ignore: while European citizens face the prospect of mass surveillance, von der Leyen continues to ignore the laws and conduct her own communications away from public view.
...When a journalist requested access under EU transparency laws, the Commission first ignored the request for over a year. It then claimed the message could not be retrieved, citing Signal’s disappearing messages setting, which automatically deletes texts after a set time.
LE POOF!
450 million Europeans, under near total control in every aspect of their lives.
FOR THE CHILDREN
...This isn’t just another privacy policy update you can ignore. If passed, this EU regulation (strongest and most binding legal instrument in EU law) would automatically apply to all member states without any wiggle room for national interpretation. It would even override constitutional protections for communication privacy and establish unprecedented mass surveillance of private communications.
The official justification? Fighting child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Protecting children is undeniably crucial, but the proposed methods would eliminate digital privacy for 450 million Europeans and set a global precedent for mass surveillance.
This surveillance trend extends beyond Europe: 🇨🇭 Switzerland is advancing metadata retention requirements, the 🇬🇧 UK is implementing comprehensive age verification systems and now the 🇪🇺 EU proposes to scan every private message. Each initiative is positioned as child protection policy, but the implications reach far beyond their stated goals.
Alice Weidel, head of the populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, has come out swinging against the possible cave by German leaders, as you might well imagine.
"Die geplante EU-weite Chatkontrolle ist ein absolut totalitäres Projekt. Sie bedeutet die faktische Abschaffung der digitalen Privatsphäre." pic.twitter.com/CZDagsEL00
— Alice Weidel (@Alice_Weidel) October 7, 2025
The planned EU-wide chat control is an absolutely totalitarian project. It means the de facto abolition of digital privacy.
The AfD's digital policy spokesperson warned against falling for the old 'for the children' trick and then risk losing everything.
...Ruben Rupp, the digital policy spokesperson for the AfD parliamentary group, warned against “total surveillance under the guise of child protection.”
“What is being sold here is, in reality, a frontal attack on the fundamental rights of all citizens. Such a measure places the entire population under general suspicion,” Rupp said. He added that millions of innocent users would be spied on, and instead, the focus should be on harsher punishments for those who hurt or abuse children, not mass surveillance.
AfD politician Rupp wants Berlin to turn against the new spying powers that would be granted to the EU.
He said that “Germany can no longer duck away, but must vote against this surveillance madness together with freedom-oriented states like Poland and Austria. Freedom and privacy are not negotiable goods.”
FREEDOM AND PRIVACY ARE NOT NEGOTIABLE GOODS
Ah, but they are when those rights derive from a European government, vice being 'endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.'
The uproar must have someone in Friedrich Merz's coalition and/or cabinet, if not the chancellor himself, rethinking their support for the Danish legislation. Yesterday, Merz's Christian Democrats issued a strong statement against it and said it wouldn't be happening on their watch.
Germany’s ruling Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has come out against the European Union’s attempt to break end-to-end encryption via its proposed “chat control” law.
Under the Danish presidency of the EU Council, the highly controversial chat control law is being pushed as a way to combat child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online but it is widely seen as a mass surveillance tool and a threat to the right on privacy.
Civil society organisations have been campaigning against chat control and have intensified their efforts ahead of an expected vote in the European Council on October 14.
...“We as the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag are against the control of chats without cause. That would be like opening all the letters as a precaution and seeing if there is anything forbidden in them.
“That is not possible, that will not happen with us”, chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group Jens Spahn said in a press conference yesterday.
People are celebrating, taking them at face value. I hope they're not being premature or overly optimistic with the whoop dee dos.
You did not translate or summarize correctly what he said. You forgot the word “anlasslose” (without reason, unmotivated). You also did not translate or summarize the last part, what the end goal should be. Clearly he wants some form of chat control, only a different one.
— Luc Van Braekel (@lvb) October 7, 2025
It IS the Germans, after all. They are about nothing if not control.
Although, to their credit, the German Child Protection Association has just released a statement against the measure, saying it would interfere with everyone's privacy, including children's. They want targeted enforcement, not blanket surveillance.
The German Child Protection Association has come out against the EU’s attempt to break end-to-end encryption via the ‘chat control’ law. https://t.co/AbZuoHUbmr
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) October 8, 2025
It's possible that the Danes and the control freaks haven't thoroughly thought this through.
This was Phil Zimmermann's observation too.
— Bob Summerwill (@BobSummerwill) October 4, 2025
There is a hot war happening in the Ukraine.
Compromise your own best secure comms tech?
Madness.
It wouldn't be the first time.
Maybe we'll get lucky and J.D. will weigh in beforehand.
That's always worth the price of admission.
Then again, maybe that's not the best idea. He always gets those goose feathers so ruffled that the Europeans would gleefully screw themselves to show the U.S. we're not the boss of them.
In less than a week, we'll find out.
I'll always be forever grateful for November 5.
If we thought our job in pushing back against the Academia/media/Democrat censorship complex was over with the election, think again. This is going to be a long fight. Ed, David, John, and I are here for it.
COME AT US, BROS!
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