This is a map from 6 months ago visualizing status of #chatcontrol law:
During last 6 months (2025 January - June) the president of EU Council was Poland (in the green color - they were against mass surveillance), but now Denmark (radical supporter of the law - in red) have taken presidency. Denmark want to rally & pass this law around October 14 (more: Patrick Breyer: "🇬🇧On the very first day of its EU Council Preside…" - digitalcourage.social)
(P.S. Curious question - why Denmark support the law, and Poland oppose it? My guess is that Denmark forgot dangers of authoritarianism and Poland still remembers it in recent/current history. Citizens of Denmark trust the government and the government trusts itself to surveil everyone, but Poland was under authoritarian regime 35 years ago, plus their previous government was also authoritarian wannabe, and can take power again next time, so they are more careful giving government such new mass surveillance capabilities)
My country is in red - I wonder how to influence position of my government? I could send politicians some educational materials, but what to send exactly which is simple & quicker to understand?
Privacy community may have intuitive understanding about dangers of laws like #chatcontrol, but other people (like politicians, who deal with countless of other important issues at once) does not. Mass media is also silent on the issue in my country. Regular people also don’t know about this. And politicians instead are educated (lobbied) by powerful interest groups on what decisions to make (in this case, that would be law enforcement agencies). Many politicians in my country still may never heared about the dangers of this law (as it is EU level issue, so politicians often are not directly exposed to negotiations).
Politicians are very smart and many do care, but they also need to be aware of issue and see that voters care as well. Our local politicians have quite direct power to stop it today. I am sending some clips I found, where members of European Parliament explain about their job from the inside:
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A podcast episode where two EU politicians talk with each other (one independent, another from Pirate Party), explaining how difficult is to vote on a lot of different issues without having enough information. I selected time from 00:43:30 https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=qDlv7spcAi4&t=2610 (or here is the same link on youtube)
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Here is another talk from EU politician (from Greens party) who support open source etc., she encourages people to contact politicians about issues and how to do it. I selected time from 00:33:03 Policy Perspective: Why Europe Needs to Strengthen Sovereignty in Web Search, Analytics and AI - NGI Video
If more people would tell members of their local parliaments in their countries about the problems of this law, then they could influence positions of governments, and when governments could vote wisely in the Council during these next 6 months of Danish (and other future) presidency. Finally, if there would be more green countries, then this law could finally be stopped. Now they see that the difference to pass this is very small, so they keep pushing it for many years.
