How does this differ from the status quo? I would assume targeted surveillance, without requiring 3rd parties sabotage the security of their products, is already a legal law enforcement procedure?
Regulations are complete laws applicable immediately across the EU as they stand, the states are required to amend any conflicting law but the regulations already automatically prevail on any conflicting local law.
Directives instead need to be transposed into local law by each state individually, and can leave many details to the individual implementations.
What makes this story special is how blatantly bribable the commission must be to make them spit out this proposal.
Here's an article in German about the sketchy dealings of the commissioner in question. Apparently, Ashton Kutcher (who's the main lobbying force behind this - how did that happen???), got a meeting with her confirmed 37 minutes after requesting it, while emails from privacy advocates continue being ignored.
It's relatively common for lobby groups to hire known public faces to front for their interests .. a celebrity face can open a door to a meeting that might not otherwise happen.
It works both ways, celebrities will often hit a point in their careers where they start to look for a good noble cause to front for in order to keep their name and face in the public eye and aligned with <insert feel good values>.
For the historians that like to trace the roots of things the test would be whether this is a lobby and cause that was bought into being by its star face, or did it kick around for a few years before being bought to the attention of a star by their PR people and agents.