rdm_blackhole

Are you willing to live in the EU knowing that for the next 8 years the EU agencies will have access to every single message, email and picture you send your loved ones just in case one of those could be CSAM?

Even if that was overturned, how will one know if he data they intercepted and illegally obtained will be destroyed or if the text messages you sent to your wife/husband are not going to end up sold to the highest bidder on the darkweb?

> given the constitutions of various EU countries

EU law superseded any state law by default and that's by design. Even if the EU law is immoral and dangerous like the Chat Control law.

So a country's constitution will not save you if tomorrow all chat apps are doing client side scanning.

That is false. They are not proposals, they are being actively discussed in trilogues which is way way past proposal stage.

Chat control V2 trilogue negotiation was last week and it included mass scanning of messages and private data. Thankfully the EU parliament rejected the idea but every 6 months like clockwork it comes back. The next trilogue is in November.

https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/chat-control-2-0-trilogue-u...

If this was passed, it would force every single cloud provider and e2e chat provider to keep, filter and pass on your private information to Europol and other security agencies.

I agree with you and I wish more people would understand that Trump is only a symptom of the issue.

Its the same in Europe where everyone is somehow discovering in 2026 that the far-right and far-left parties actually want to do what they say they will do if they get in power.

Instead of addressing the concerns of the population, all they do is talk about how bad these parties would be and try every which way to contain them except never trying to even understand or fix the issues these people are complaining about.

It was the same strategy used by Macron in France in 2017 and 2022.

Step 1: Pretend you care and tinker on the margins but fundamentally don't change anything. Step 2: Paint the opposition on the left and right as monsters that will bring chaos and disorder to the country. Step 3: Present yourself as the only one capable of containing said chaos.

In one word: TINA

Except TINA is no longer working and the mainstream parties are being challenged a lot more because people have trusted them for so long and they are no longer interested in waiting for them to actually deliver on what they promised to do years ago.

So you get Reform in the UK, One Nation in Australia, National Rally in France, the AFD in Germany, Swedish democrats in Sweden and much more....

The parties in charge could have tried to address the issues that are fueling the rise of the far-right across Europe, they could have listened to the concerns of their citizens even if they did not agree with their ideas.

Instead, they have let the situation deteriorate and portrayed themselves as the only solution to the problems they never addressed and it backfired spectacularly.

As Jack Kerouac said: After Me, the Deluge.

I agree that is why I said that it was higher threshold to get access to your data but warrants can be obtained for many different reasons and not always good ones either.

All I am saying is that if they want your data, they'll get it. It's just easier at the border.

If you are a UK citizen, they will charge you under the terrorism act if you refuse to answer their questions or if you try to conceal anything or if you refuse to provide all the passwords to all your devices.

As for what happens when you can genuinely not remember your passwords, I honestly don't know. The guy in the video just gave them access to everything because he travels a lot and did not want to have to explain why he has a terrorism charge to his name every-time he has to apply for a new visa.

Maybe you can refuse and stay silent and fight the charge later in court with a good lawyer but who knows. IANAL so do your own research before doing anything.

As for what happens if you are a foreigner and refuse to unlock your devices/ answer their questions, they can deport you and potentially ban you from entering the country for a certain amount of time or indefinitely.

I think you are wrong. We all have things to hide.

A joke between friends taken out of context. Your angry messages to a spouse or parent after a fight happened between you and them could be used out of context also. And what about your YouTube history and playlist or your web history...

> just your own home

Your home can be searched and all your devices at home can be seized as well. Granted it's probably a higher threshold than having everything on your phone but it's no a panacea either.

The UK border agents (technically counter-terrorism) can stop you at the border, force you into a room, ask for your passwords to all your devices and you don't have the right to refuse.

You also don't have the right to have a lawyer be in a room with you and you are compelled to answer all their questions and finally they do not need to tell you why they stopped you.

Then, if you are lucky they return your devices 7 days later after they have been through everything or they can keep them forever if they find something suspicious.

This guy (who is a British citizen) went through it last year and talks about the whole procedure: https://youtu.be/991kRp8KUmo?si=-5S1uLE7K9KG_gNj

The UK border agents (technically counter-terrorism) can stop you at the border, force you into a room, ask for your passwords to all your devices and you don't have the right to refuse.

You also don't have the right to a lawyer to be in a room with you and you are compelled to answer all their questions and they do not need to tell you why they stopped you.

Then, if you are lucky they return your devices 7 days later after they have been through everything.

This guy went through it last year and talks about what happens when they stop you: https://youtu.be/991kRp8KUmo?si=-5S1uLE7K9KG_gNj

To name a few issues currently at play: - chat control V1 and v2 - social media ban for users less than 16 years old - digital id required to be able to prove one's age and therefore post on social media - end of anonymity for users on the web since now everything you say is tied to your real ID and recorded due to Chat Control - state paid fact checkers that would be empowered to flag and force the removal of content from social media platforms that is deemed false or incorrect (by whom, how, nobody knows)

All of this done in order to supposedly either fight terrorism, the far right or protect the children and it is pushed by the lobbies whose main figurehead is notably Ashton Kutcher who through his foundation just happen to be selling software to detect CP images and is ready to sign a big juicy contract with the EU in case Chat Control v2 passes.

There is a clear erosion of the notion that privacy is a sacred right and it is clear departure from what the EU was supposed to be at the start.

The proponents here on HN and elsewhere who love to claim that the EU is a better place in terms of digital privacy are either deluded or lying to themselves and to other people.

While many decry China's and Russia's authoritarianism, it is clear that the EU is building a digital fortress where everything a person says online will be recorded, catalogued, analyzed and saved in perpetuity in case this person becomes a problem in the future either because of their political views or any other matter that will be deemed important by the EU.

And if you think this is an exaggeration of the situation, you can Google: - Chat Control V1 and V2 - Digital service act - Democracy shield - Protect EU - EU Going Dark working group

All of this stuff has been documented and criticized by privacy activists extensively.

Between that and the Democracy shield which is basically state paid fact checkers fighting against supposedly foreign interference, can anyone say that the EU is still the best place regarding citizens privacy?

You also don't have the right to a lawyer to be in a room with you and you are compelled to answer all their questions and they do not need to tell you why they stopped you.

Then if you are lucky they return your devices 7 days later after they have been through everything.

This guy went through it last year and talks bout what happens when they stop you: https://youtu.be/991kRp8KUmo?si=-5S1uLE7K9KG_gNj

Who decides what is misinformation? The state? The ministry of truth? That is the problem with this sort of wishful thinking.

> used to manipulate the population

The media industry manipulates opinions via TV channels and newspapers and has done so for the last 50 years. Heck, some states have their own TV channels like the BBC, France Info (France) , SVT (Sweden) which is completely ironic since the state funds them and there is no way to know how neutral these are.

> dangerous information

Dangerous information is a misnomer. You could print out how to build an atom bomb and give the step-by-step instructions for free in entire neighborhoods and no one will be able to build it because you need the right expertise and the materials to create one.

Same with bio-weapons unless you think you can develop these in your kitchen after work?

Secondly, we are back to the same problem. Who decides what is "dangerous information" and how far would you be willing to go to contain it? Censor social media? Censor private messages? What about emails? Textbooks? Listening devices in all homes? Cameras that you can't turn off in your toilet in case you pass information to someone else while taking a crap?

You can get stopped at the border, forced to talk to the border agents, you do not have the right to have a lawyer in the room during the interrogation (although you can have one phone call before your interrogation starts), you do not have the right to refuse to answer questions and they will seize your phone and computers and send them back to you later. Also you will have to provide your passwords and pin-codes for your devices.

This guy went through it last year: https://youtu.be/991kRp8KUmo?si=AFfJA3erydfZZFj1

I think you may have missed the part where Sweden just joined NATO recently. As long as the EU countries are in NATO which is de facto under American leadership, then there will be no strategic autonomy.

Secondly, even if the mood is sour between the US and the EU currently, Germany, Poland and other small eastern states very much still like to have the US as backers if only just for the fact that there is no EU army.

If the EU countries were leaving NATO to form their own military alliance, then I would agree with you but that hasn't happened and maybe never will.

Finally there has to be a certain willingness from other countries to accept this new currency and I just don't see the EU countries conducting all their international trade in yuan anytime soon.

Finally replacing the USD is just one part. The second part is how to stop the next currency from being weaponized just like the USD is/was. Without the answer to that question, then switching to a new reserve currency is just replacing one problem with another.

It's a bit rich to say this when nothing yet is known.

If Carney or the EU did not want the oppositions to start speculating regarding what it entails, maybe they should have talked about exactly what an associate membership means and what of sort of things could be expected from such a move.

Maybe they are wrong or maybe you are and maybe it will involve EU taxes and EU regulations or maybe since you are absolutely certain of what it entails you have some sort of insider information that nobody else has?

Until such a time as everyone knows and understand what a possible associate membership means for the EU and Canada, then nothing should be considered off the table and it is justified to ask questions and get some clarifications on all of this.

I don't think anyone really says it's an hostile act but both countries, Canada and the US will have to decide what it means for their ongoing relationship.

Canada is free to get closer to Europe and the US is free to be displeased about it.

Maybe it works out well for Canada or maybe it doesn't.

> Makes it all the more obvious that USA is Canada's abusive partner

Why anthropomorphize geopolitics?

This is just just a big fish throwing its weight around like all big fishes do. Russia does it with its neighbors, China does it as well and India and Europe are not shy about it either.

It's just the name of the game and its been happening since the dawn of time.

Some states use force, others bribe or cajole but in the end they all try to influence their neighbors in a way that suits their interests especially if these neighbors are smaller in terms of population/economy/military etc...

The fact that so many people are shocked by such news these days is because everyone drank the cool aid of the End of History and forgot that spheres of influence still exists and that the rule of law was nothing more than gentleman's agreement that could be thrown out of the window at a moment's notice without second thoughts.

I bought a few lottery tickets when the prize reaches astronomical proportions but it was always a case of going along and doing it with family/friends just for fun.

I guess I could understand the appeal if the chances to actually win something were pretty good but it’s a well known fact that the house always wins in the end.

This year is different. Macron is on his way out and everyone wants to stay as far away as they can from him including his former prime ministers who are both running in the election.

That means that there is literally nothing they can offer to the opposition to avoid being toppled. If a parti were to agree to not topple the government on the 49.3 motion, they would be signing their own death warrant for the election.

You have to consider the fact that the populists are only popular because all the other parties in the last 20 years have made endless promises to the voters and failed to accomplish a tenth (if I am being generous) of what said they would do.

At some point, the blame as to lie also with whoever came before them too.

> the order of magnitude that's needed to put the country back on its feet

The amount of reforms needed in France could fit in an encyclopedia. LFI or the RN will not fix this mess and the center who has been in power for 10 years is all but useless. The old center-left and center-right parties have all been in power also and led us to this place which means that are not the solution either.

Seems to me that France is well and truly stuck on a slow but certain decline. But the other EU countries are not doing much better either.

These people do not exists. If a politician ran on such a platform, they would never get elected.

The fact is in modern democracies like in the EU or in the US there are simply too many people who rely on the status quo directly or indirectly.

Its almost comical, in France politicians have run, got elected and have swept the debt problem under the rug for the last 40 years, then they leave office and suddenly decide that the debt is a massive problem but that there was nothing they could do about while in office so they never did anything but now they speak about it.

And they all do it. Left, right, center, it's all the same.

10y OAT are at 4.5% and rising with almost 100bps difference with Germany and no budget for 2027 since there is no majority in the parliament.

There is also a 6% deficit expected and growth has been revised down to 0.4% although during the first 6 months of 2026 there was actually a decrease of 0.2% of GDP in total so finishing the year in recession is totally possible.

Unemployment could also reach around 9% (15% in real terms if you count the people who have given up and/or been removed from the stats since they ran out of benefits).

Finally gasoline could reach 3 euros/liter (USD $13 per gallon) before the end of the year (already sitting at 2.5 euros/liter in many parts of France right now).

The people voted wrong so we must censor or put a gate in front of social media. Next year, we'll simply retire voting entirely because we just can't trust people to make the right choice. This is democracy TM.

> If educated adults in possession of their full critical faculties can be hoodwinked to this extent

Of course if I asked you who you voted for or why you would probably say that you made the right choice based on solid evidence but the people who did not vote like you, no way, they were just hoodwinked or tricked. Condescending much?

> This is not an attempt to censor or otherwise diminish anyone's intellectual or cultural journey

Of course it is, you are simply justifying the censorship because it suits your purpose at this present time.

Protecting kids, stopping terrorism and keeping the population safe are always the same reasons given by governments on this planet to reduce the civil liberties of the population.

Today it's selfies and government ID to view social media and if you have something against that then maybe you are a terrorist or a child molester, tomorrow we''ll ask for the full access to your emails, text messages, browser history because we just can't trust that you are not either doing or planning something nefarious.

Slippery slope all the way but no worries, its for the kids.

To your point, the war on drugs is a colossal failure which has achieved none of the objectives it set out to do. You can now order drugs from your mobile phone in any major city in the west and the purity is often higher and they deliver it to your door sometimes faster than Uber eats.

See also for example digital piracy where the entertainment industry has lobbied, cajoled and convinced many governments around the world to criminalize the distribution of their content over the internet for free.

What was the result? After 20 years of DMCA takedowns, countless celebrations that torrents were dead, and many other self congratulations in the media, you can now find 10 different pirate streaming websites where all the episodes of pretty much any show that was ever created are available for free in 5 five minutes flat and the image quality is as good as on your Netflix or Paramount account.

The only way such a ban of open weights model would work is if you were to replicate the great firewall of China in the US and in Europe and even that doesn't work completely.

As for sanctions, China and India are buying Russian oil in enormous quantities as we speak and they don't really care that Europe and the US have put sanctions on Russia and I suspect you will see the same results with models coming from China.

If a country has a choice to either use the expensive SOTA models approved by Washington or Europe only or using the cheaper and not so SOTA models, why would they use the US ones? Why would it be in there interest?

How does he propose that such a thing will work? Are we going to have US AI inspectors in China and vice versa?

Why would China agree to such thing in the first place since this is a winner takes all situation.

If the US slows down or stops altogether, China can continue to work on their AI and overtake the US, if China accelerates and the US keeps its current pace then it can overtake the US.

The only way out is on the contrary for the US to actually go faster and increase its lead so that China is always 6 to 12 months behind and/or reach AGI/ASI first at which point China will most likely develop its own not long after.

This would actually be the best outcome, just like the MAD doctrine contained the spread and usage of nuclear weapons, having two superpowers with AGI would ensure that they can't be used to arm anyone. Unless they escape their sandbox but that is highly theoretical.

Regarding these Embedded Evaluators who are supposed to be neutral: - who controls them? - who has oversight on their decisions? - can their decisions be challenged by the public or a government? - who has the final say whether a model is "compliant" enough? - what does "alignment" mean in this context and who decides if a model is aligned enough?