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EU leads the way to digital dictatorship

Totalitarianism

The EU's Chat Control 2.0 bill could turn Europe into a totalitarian surveillance state under the pretext of fighting child pornography.

Published 18 March 2024
– By Dan Ahlmark
Photo: European Union 2019 – Source: EP/CC-BY-4.0
This is an opinion piece. The author is responsible for the views expressed in the article.

The EU is proposing to set up a new body to examine all calls within or to Europe via phones, chats, etc. and all private internet traffic (emails, images, etc.). The aim, they say, is to use AI to search for child pornography and find child sexual abuse. Such a law would mean that all digital communication in Europe would be controlled by and through the EU. Encryption is currently used on the web to protect users from advanced espionage and information theft. But even the most advanced encryption systems are now being opened up, mainly to give the EU a backdoor into the systems in question and to be able to interpret/read communicated material or speech.

Last fall, the European Parliament rejected this bill, while the Council of Ministers is still divided internally. And there is not yet a secure majority to stop the proposal. If this goes through the Council of Ministers, they and the Parliament will have to agree on the law. So there are possibilities that either the proposal will be rejected or that it will probably be significantly changed. The Commission may also withdraw the proposal.

If mass surveillance results in the discovery of criminal material (any communication or text of a sexual nature concerning minors; naked or otherwise sexual images of young people, etc.), after some review by the central EU body, this goes to police organizations in the relevant EU countries. There, the suspect material is examined by employees or subcontractors who listen to or view what may be very private oral or written communications. Given the variety and vocabulary of sexual communications between people, there is a high risk that wrongly flagged material will often be found and investigated.

Another feature of the proposal is that age verification will be required for all online activity. This makes privacy impossible. Chatting or sending/receiving written material anonymously will no longer be safe. This poses risks in a number of situations, such as journalists’ contacts with secret sources, for whistleblowers, communication within political resistance movements based in Europe, and so on.

The surveillance is carried out 24/7/30, i.e. constantly and without exception. Of course, there is no warrant, which would require some kind of suspicion against someone. The AI tools in question are not yet developed, and it is obvious that companies are working to get development contracts from the EU, which of course means that they will get some of the big contracts for the systems they build. The level of development is not trivial; for example, existing technology has had difficulty distinguishing the age of children/young people from photographs. The age limit for the protection of minors is 18. Significant such difficulties exist in cases involving, for example, the category of children/youth between the ages of 15 and 23. As a result, previous attempts to determine this age resulted in unacceptably high error rates.

The Chat Control 2.0 proposal to monitor all digital communications in Europe in order to detect, prevent and punish perpetrators of serious crimes against children is therefore extremely ambitious and far-reaching, even extreme. It is therefore a threat to the integrity and privacy of Europeans.

1. But the crime is so terrible!

The proposer, Swedish Commissioner Ylva Johansson, defends her proposal by arguing that crimes against children are so terrible. But there are other serious crimes that use the Internet that are comparable, but for which no one seriously wanted to propose the introduction of mass surveillance. In its proposed form, it will deeply interfere with human rights, including, in this case, people’s integrity. This applies especially to the right to privacy and the right to protected correspondence/communication, including the protection of personal data. Violation of our rights on this basis would lead to several similar exceptions in the future. The fact that, even with new technology, the methodology and search for child crimes are likely to lead to errors with high frequency does not strengthen the proposal.

Individual rights have been formulated in the full knowledge that many serious crimes are committed against human beings. Based on this knowledge, human rights have been formulated in various ways, including the integrity that all people should and must have in society. This is now rejected by a dogmatic social democratic commissioner. She believes that these particular crimes against children are so terrible that previous groups and commissions that have worked on rights proposals and had their proposals publicly accepted by many parliaments, including international organizations such as the UN, were wrong and that certain human rights can and should be violated.

Commissioner Ylva Johansson says that in the process of investigating information flows, conversations are not reviewed and documents are not opened unless there is something potentially criminal in them. She argues, among other things, that the system’s controls do not read communications, but simply glide past them, like a drug-sniffing dog examining luggage. But the circumstances of the two cases are completely different, and the analogy is wrong even for circumvention, since the significant and growing proportion of messages that are encrypted end-to-end must be opened to be read. The argument also fails to address the main arguments against the proposal.

Crimes committed by children are not of such a nature that they cannot be effectively dealt with by accepted police measures. However, instead of developing such an approach and designing an effective proposal to prioritize these crimes and to deal with and prevent them within the framework of modern and effective national and especially international policing, an approach was chosen that breaks the most important rules of society. The EU Parliament, which rejected the EU proposal on privacy grounds, has therefore outlined an alternative, more conventional and creative proposal.

2. But it only applies to this area

The argument that the bill only applies to a certain limited area completely ignores the spillover effect of a proposal that violates fundamental legal principles. Individual rights, such as the right to privacy, are abhorred by many collectivist political movements because they protect human freedom in so many ways. A violation of such an important right accepted by the EU will soon attract others to exploit the same leak in the dam holding back the multitude of anti-freedom and authoritarian attempts to further transform the still partially free society in Europe. Even the EU would probably use the changed principle for other purposes and areas. Every leak and every extension of the intrusion brings us closer to a horrible authoritarian world, where the issue of child abuse becomes a mere trifle. So it is not only in this area.

3. How do criminals respond?

Few police actions are taken without causing a change in criminal behavior. After the introduction of an effective monitoring system, serious criminals will move to the darknet, if they are not already there. In addition, one should not underestimate the human capacity for technological development. Intensive public monitoring of the network is likely to lead to such technological development that people with resources can at least partially evade monitoring. The distribution routes of material are likely to change significantly, so that, for example, electronic criminal material is physically transported in a portable way across borders or within countries. Postal systems may also be used. Cybercrime against children predates the Internet, and these previously more difficult to control channels are likely to be easily activated.

It will of course take more time and be much more difficult for operators and consumers, but as long as the activity is profitable because of the existence of a demand, the distribution of child abuse material will not stop. The demand that is likely to decrease the most is the demand for images and videos from individuals for whom it is not of significant importance. Individuals for whom child pornography is very important are likely to have the time and willingness to learn about the alternative distribution channels. Once the monitoring system is in place, it is likely that after a few years the impact will be much less, as activities related to child sexual offences and pornography trafficking in Europe move away from the Internet. A residual proportion who do use the internet to communicate about certain types of abuse are likely to use code words and euphemisms that will be perceived as normal by the system. The serious crimes of grooming, physical trafficking of children, etc. also often involve actors with the skills and resources to exploit new technologies and alternative means of communication.

4. Why has the proposal been drafted in this way?

It has surprised many that instead of formulating a legislative proposal based on police measures of various kinds in European countries and innovative but acceptable international cooperation with various communication platforms, the EU has chosen a measure that violates everyone in Europe who uses digital communication. Everyone, without exception, is considered a potential criminal and is to be monitored without suspicion or judicial authorization. It is hard to believe that the courts, and possibly even the EU Supreme Court, will not intervene at some point. It is therefore an almost unique bill that Ylva Johansson has presented. She has not explored the possibility of trying to solve the current problem by legal means, but instead is trying to build what is likely to be a very expensive system that deeply violates human rights. Why is she doing this?

One reason may be the interest of electronics companies in obtaining funding for what they see as possible technological development. Many electronics companies today do not seem to be guided by any morality, but in this case are blinded by the technical possibilities of controlling information over the Internet. The fact that their economic motives lead to the violation of human rights does not stop them. This applies to organizations I call IG Farben companies.1 EU parliamentarians have just claimed that Ylva Johansson has been intensively processed by such companies, which she denies.

Virtually all human rights organizations reject the Chat Control 2.0 proposal, as does the UN Commissioner for Human Rights. So do the legal bodies associated with the EU Council of Ministers and the Commission, which emphasize that the proposal violates human rights and thus the EU’s own Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights. This is also the view of the EU Data Protection Authority. The computer science research community in general seems to be of the same opinion, as well as many organizations in EU countries. The European Commission itself does not disagree that human rights are being violated, but wants the proposal to go through anyway. In doing so, it is taking a considerable political risk on the eve of an important European Parliament election. Can anyone believe that the reason for this is to stop child pornography and child abuse?

Ylva Johansson has also refused to agree to changes to the proposal, in a way that differs from the usual behavior of Commissioners when their proposals face strong opposition. Further contacts, talks, successive compromises and so on are the usual way, but our Swedish Ylva sticks to her chat control. The proposal is also technically extensive, and is likely to require significant development and start-up costs of various kinds, as well as investment in hardware. At the same time, it can be predicted that the frequency of detected real crimes will decrease after a few years.

There are several types of child abuse. Child pornography should be considered less important than physical sexual abuse and physical trafficking of children, other types not mentioned. However, for the more serious types of abuse, the opportunities to avoid monitoring are likely to be greater, reducing the impact and importance of the proposal. Should such a large and expensive system be built only for all types of child abuse and child pornography, when it is foreseeable that the benefits of the system will diminish rather quickly?

It is such a strange measure by a Commissioner and the European Commission that one has to wonder if the main purpose is not something else. It should be remembered that the current system can, if it chooses to do so, set the control parameters to look for just about anything. In the future, a number of difficult problems will arise for the EU’s governing bodies: who are the most active opponents of the EU as an organization and who want to break off membership, and what are they doing? What is the interaction between different such networks? Which EU citizens actively support alternative media or libertarian parties? What is the interaction between libertarian organizations and parties in different countries? What oppositional networks are emerging to oppose measures taken in the event of a new pandemic, and who are their leaders and active members? The potential for obtaining very important information for policy makers at national and EU level through the surveillance system can thus be enormous, and it is likely that future EU governments will want to use it.

The hypothesis then is that the system to which the Chat Control 2.0 proposal leads is actually intended for future mass surveillance, when the EU has either become a federal state or is governed under future changed conditions regarding majority decision-making in the Union. The initial assumption is that crises will be used to get countries to disregard their constitutions, as was the case with covid-19. The need to amend them could also be a consequence. Later, the governing body is likely to have gained the power to take previously forbidden measures against the population under certain conditions (though easily met). Such laws create the need for an instrument of mass surveillance, possibly for the federal government, and complement the other means that an authoritarian state can abuse. These include knowledge of the opinions of selected EU citizens according to social media; their financial position, spending and investments; all available information about them in all public systems, and so on.

In this case, because the unlocked Chat Control now also provides much more information about the underlying views of each suspect and their network of friends and people they collaborate with, are supported by, or endorse, you have an almost complete picture of that person. This opens up the possibility of gaining control over his activities at a later stage, when new legislation on crimes against the state is in place.

5. What is the main problem with chat control?

We have talked above about human rights, especially the right to privacy, the right to protected correspondence/communication, including the protection of personal data. Mass surveillance also compromises freedom of expression and information in many cases. The latter includes the numerous false flags that the system generates, which are then investigated by police or civilian personnel. Deliberate false flags on persons of interest to the EU may come later.

So what is human integrity? Well, first of all, it is a feeling, an area, a protected sphere that each person owns and that he or she does not allow others to enter or touch. Only he or she, or those to whom he or she has given the right, can do so. This applies to a number of aspects of the individual’s life that are so private that no outsider has the right to know about them, to know and/or discuss them, or to inform others about them. They concern her real self, herself in depth. And the state has no right whatsoever to monitor a citizen’s private life, including his communications, without suspicion.

Violations of privacy thus affect the individual’s strongest and deepest values, and thus feelings that partly control and perhaps dominate her when they are violated. These include their basic views of themselves, life including sexual aspects, family, religious beliefs, freedom, and so on. And who you communicate with is none of the state’s business. Some citizens consider such intrusions as attacks on themselves and may find reasons to react. The state should avoid this completely, even for a purpose such as solving a serious crime problem. There are other ways. And the other kinds of violations are also unacceptable.

 

Dan Ahlmark

 


 

Sources and references:

(1) Nya Dagbladet – The corporate giants that enable a totalitarian development of society

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Comment: When globalism is threatened the establishment respond with repression

Totalitarianism

We see it time and again: when the ideas of globalism are challenged by the will of the people, voters' voices are met with surveillance, censorship, and threats of bans. In reality, you only have the freedom to choose as long as you choose "correctly".

Published 5 May 2025
– By Jenny Piper
There are concerns that Friedrich Merz will heed the demands of outgoing Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and her allies - and ban the AfD altogether.
{ $opinionDisclaimer }

After the German security service BfV decided to classify the party Alternative for Germany (AfD) as “right-wing extremist” – which allows the regime to infiltrate, mass-surveil, and sabotage the popular opposition party – the German left-wing bloc has moved forward with attempts to completely ban the party, which is Germany’s second-largest party in the Bundestag and, in recent polls, has been the country’s largest party.

As expected, this has passed without objection from the Swedish establishment, which is exactly the same trash as its German counterpart.

However, US Vice President JD Vance is not holding back on his criticism and is drawing attention to the move on X.

“The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it. The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt – not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishment”.

Throughout Europe, those in power are vigorously and, unfortunately, effectively opposing the growing parties that embrace nationalism instead of globalism, which runs counter to the established politically correct view that has been allowed to dominate for so long without any significant opposition.

Bans and increased repression against dissenting voices are now spreading –  the hope lies with the peoples of the rest of Europe to take up the fight against the ruling elite and stand up for their values and true democracy.

The well-indoctrinated population of Sweden will certainly not be a contributing factor – on the contrary, we immediately side with the oppressors, ready to point the finger.

 

Jenny Piper

All Jenny Piper's articles can be found on her blog.

US condemns extremist labeling of AfD: “Tyranny in disguise”

Totalitarianism

Published 4 May 2025
– By Editorial Staff
Marco Rubio says it is the political establishment and its policies that are "extreme" - not the AfD.

The decision by Germany’s domestic intelligence service to classify the Alternative for Germany party as “right-wing extremist” has led to strained relations between the US and Germany.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio calls the actions of those in power “tyranny in disguise” and points out that it is Germany’s boundless mass immigration policy that is “extremist” – not the nationalist party that the authorities now intend to spy on.

Recently, The Nordic Times drew attention to how the German constitutional protection agency decided to classify the entire AfD as a “right-wing extremist” organization – because of its immigration-critical rhetoric and nationalist ideology. In practice, this means that the state is given expanded powers to monitor the party, for example through wiretapping and the use of infiltrators.

Although the German establishment has a long tradition of combating or criminalizing political dissent, the latest announcement comes as a shock to many – not least because the AfD is now the second largest party in the country and the largest in some eastern German states.

One person who has reacted strongly to the fact that the party, despite its popularity, has now been labeled an enemy of the German state is US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who argues that it is rather the establishment parties that should be considered “extremists”.

Germany just gave its spy agency new powers to surveil the opposition. That’s not democracy – it’s tyranny in disguise. What is truly extremist is not the popular AfD – which took second in the recent election – but rather the establishment’s deadly open border immigration policies that the AfD opposes. Germany should reverse course”, he writes on X.

Germany: “Right-wing extremism needs to be stopped”

Vice President JD Vance shares this view, pointing out that the Berlin Wall has been rebuilt—but this time not by a foreign occupying power, but by Germany’s own politicians.

“The AfD is the most popular party in Germany, and by far the most representative of East Germany. Now the bureaucrats try to destroy it. The West tore down the Berlin Wall together. And it has been rebuilt – not by the Soviets or the Russians, but by the German establishmentt”.

However, the German Foreign Ministry defends the AfD’s extremist label, arguing that “this is democracy”.

This decision is the result of a thorough & independent investigation to protect our Constitution & the rule of law. It is independent courts that will have the final say. We have learnt from our history that rightwing extremism needs to be stopped”, they stated.

“European courts cancelling elections”

The Nordic Times has previously highlighted how JD Vance has already condemned the European establishment and accused it of undermining democracy and citizens’ freedom of expression.

– When we see European courts cancelling elections and senior officials threatening to cancel others, we ought to ask whether we’re holding ourselves to an appropriately high standard? asked the US Vice President during the security conference in Munich in February, continuing:

– If your democracy can be destroyed with a few hundred thousand dollars of digital advertising from a foreign country, then it wasn’t very strong to begin with.

Brits imprisoned at record numbers for opinion crimes

Totalitarianism

Published 4 May 2025
– By Editorial Staff

The signs of democratic decline in the UK are growing. Citizens are now being arrested in their tens of thousands for alleged crimes of opinion on social media, while freedom of expression continues to be curtailed in the country.

Western leaders often use Russia as a cautionary example of anti-democratic laws targeting the country’s citizens, while more and more countries in the West are themselves tightening the screws on the right to speak and write freely.

Hate crime laws are being used more and more frequently in the UK to silence popular discontent, according to an article in Tablet Magazine from March 2025, among other sources. According to a recent report by the free speech organization The Free Speech Union, the police make around 12,000 arrests annually for content on social media that is deemed “offensive”. This figure also marks a 58 percent increase since 2019.

Official statistics from the UK also show a clear trend. In 2023, 145,214 hate crimes were recorded, according to government data. The figure fell slightly to 140,561 in 2024, but arrests for social media posts continued to rise.

Politicians in the UK, including the current government, defend the increasingly harsh laws on the grounds that so-called minorities must be protected.

Legislation such as the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988 underlies many interventions. These laws prohibit posts, messages, and expressions that may be considered grossly offensive or threatening.
Police make 30 arrests a day for offensive online messages, states The Free Speech Union in its analysis.

Unlike many other countries, the United Kingdom also has no formal constitution protecting freedom of expression.

The Human Rights Act 1998 (HRA) is intended to guarantee fundamental rights, including the right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. However, the HRA does not have the same constitutional status and can be amended or repealed by ordinary legislation.

The Malicious Communications Act 1988 (MCA) is a UK law that prohibits sending or delivering messages, letters or other items with the intention of causing alarm or distress to the recipient. The Act applies to both physical and electronic communications, including social media posts.

Under this law, it is illegal to send messages that are:

  • Greatly offensive or indecent
  • Threatening
  • False and deliberately disseminated to mislead or harm

.For a person to be convicted, the prosecution must prove that the intention was to cause the recipient alarm or distress. The penalty can be a fine or imprisonment up to two years.

The Communications Act 2003, in particular section 127, extends the rules to electronic communications networks and prohibits sending messages that are:

  • Greatly offensive, indecent, obscene or menacing
  • intended to cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless alarm

.The mental aspect of this law is broader, meaning that it is enough that the person should have realized that the message could be offensive or risk offending the recipient.

Germany’s security service labels AfD as extremist

Totalitarianism

Published 4 May 2025
– By Editorial Staff
AfD party leader Alice Weidel condemns the announcement.

The German constitutional protection agency, Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), has decided to classify the entire Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) party as a “right-wing extremist” organization. The agency announced this on Friday after what it described as an “intense and comprehensive” investigation.

The classification gives the state extended powers to monitor the party, for example through wiretapping and the use of infiltrators. The BfV has previously designated the AfD’s regional branches in Thuringia and Saxony-Anhalt as “proven extremist”.

In its statement, the BfV mentions that the party represents a view of “ethnicity-and ancestry-based conception of the people that predominates within the party is not compatible with the free democratic order”. The agency also highlights “xenophobic, anti-minority, Islamophobic and anti-Muslim statements made by leading party officials” as reasons for its decision.

AfD party leaders Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla call the decision a politically motivated attack and condemn it in a public statement.

Today’s decision by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution is a serious blow to German democracy: in current polls, the AfD is the strongest party. The federal government has only four days left in office, and the secret service does not even have a president anymore. And the classification as a so-called ‘suspicious case’ has not been legally finalized, the statement reads, and continues:

Nevertheless, the AfD, as an opposition party, is now being publicly discredited and criminalized shortly before the change of government. The associated targeted interference in the democratic decision-making process is therefore clearly politically motivated. The AfD will continue to defend itself legally against these defamatory attacks that threaten democracy”.

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