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Comment by beezlewax | Hacker News Reader

Comparing electronic chats to former communication methods... Would people have objected to the government scanning all of their physical postal letters for keywords that might suggest something illegal? Don't they need some legal ground to do this in advance of the act?

Why are chats different?

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They are not. For example, according to Italian Constitution [1], chat control is unconstitutional:

    Art. 15
    Freedom and confidentiality of correspondence and of every other form of
    communication is inviolable.
    Limitations may only be imposed by judicial decision stating the reasons and
    in accordance with the guarantees provided by the law.

note the "EVERY" other form of communication. (Maybe somebody will be able to twist in a way that makes chat control constitutional, or somebody else will argue that since it is an EU law the constitution doesn't matter, but the spirit is clear)

[1] https://www.senato.it/documenti/repository/istituzione/costi...

Arbitrary interception of messages is a violation of the constitution in several European countries. The expectation of privacy in messaging is also codified in Article 8 of the ECHR, although with the usual nebulous exceptions.

This is an excerpt of Swedish Regeringsformen[1]:

> Everyone is also protected against body searches, house searches and similar intrusions, as well as against the examination of letters or other confidential mail and against the secret interception or recording of telephone conversations or other confidential messages.

[1] https://lagen.nu/1974:152#K2P6

The speed of communication has changed a little bit, but still, a hard "no" to the government reading everything I say.

Digital communication is more direct speech, including maybe whispering, than it is writing a letter.

If it is direct speech and they can monitor it. What's the next step? Turning on the microphone on your phone and logging everything in earshot for "security".

Definitely a hard no!

Sounds like you have something to hide! /s

You can't break encryption "only sometimes"

If you don't record every conversation that happens in a private home, you can't retroactively wiretap them "only sometimes". If you don't open and scan everyone's mail, you can't go back and read the ones they've already received "only sometimes".

Why is that a problem? Then you just don't do it at all. Society can survive two people being able to have a private conversation.

You mean to the indiscriminate reading of ALL the letters without the court order?

Ummmmm....yeah? You don't? It's enough the metadata is collected already.

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