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<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe European Union is moving to ban end-to-end encrypted communication.<\/p>\n
An EU council of ministers\u00a0resolution<\/a>\u00a0spearheaded by French Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron and Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz of the conservative Austrian People’s Party\u00a0would mandate that apps such as Telegram, Signal, and WhatsApp\u00a0provide European intelligence services with backdoor access in order to allow them to better monitor the conversations of their citizens.<\/p>\n Encryption is an important tool used by dissidents,\u00a0journalists and privacy conscious\u00a0citizens around the world in an\u00a0age of mass surveillance and strict social media censorship. Millions have started embracing the technology in the West as the rulers\u00a0of the Anglosphere and Europe continue to lose public confidence and become\u00a0more\u00a0repressive.<\/p>\n The excuse being given for this effort\u00a0is a spate of\u00a0recent terrorist attacks in France and Austria committed\u00a0by Islamic extremists. Rather than contend with the complex cultural, ethnic and immigration issues that lead to such violence, Macron,\u00a0Kurz\u00a0and the interests they represent\u00a0see an opportunity to\u00a0expand their eavesdropping\u00a0power over their increasingly frightened\u00a0population.<\/p>\n In recent years, laws passed\u00a0by liberal governments under the guise of combating foreign Islamic terrorism have been utilized against citizens espousing nationalist, populist\u00a0and\u00a0dissident ideas, as well\u00a0as adversarial\u00a0political factions.<\/p>\n In the United States, the\u00a0Department of Homeland Security (DHS)\u00a0was founded after 9\/11 to combat Al Qaeda operations domestically, but its unconstitutional powers today are\u00a0largely focused<\/a>\u00a0on going after right-wing white men. The FBI’s CIA-like power granted to them in the name of counter-terrorism lowered the bar\u00a0for surveillance via\u00a0the\u00a0secret\u00a0FISA court<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0was used by permanent bureaucrats\u00a0to entrap and spy on\u00a0members of\u00a0Donald Trump’s presidential campaign in 2016.<\/p>\n Figures struggling with low approval ratings like Macron have\u00a0a vested interest in being able to spy on protest\u00a0movements like the Yellow Vests, who have largely been shut down by Facebook and forced to migrate to\u00a0Telegram<\/a>.<\/p>\n In pursuing these measures, Europe will be following the lead of the Five Eyes intelligence network (United Kingdom, United States, Australia, New Zealand and Canada), which last October put out a call for\u00a0an international plan\u00a0to\u00a0end accessible\u00a0encryption for ordinary citizens.<\/p>\n In their\u00a0statement last month<\/a>,\u00a0the Department of Justice claimed they were concerned with the proliferation of child pornography over these apps. This rationalization rings hollow\u00a0since the FBI’s budget for\u00a0combating child exploitation and pornography<\/a>\u00a0has remained stagnant over the years\u00a0and they continue to allocate meager\u00a0resources to even investigate\u00a0the record number of reports they receive.<\/p>\n Countries that ban encrypted apps are currently derided by neo-liberal institutions in Europe for\u00a0being oppressive.<\/p>\n Last January, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR)\u00a0ruled<\/a>\u00a0that Russia’s ban on Telegram following\u00a0the app\u00a0designer’s refusal\u00a0to provide a backdoor to aid in a terrorism investigation was a violation of free expression. Russia has since unbanned the app.<\/p>\n But litigation\u00a0against a potential ban inside of Europe itself may not be\u00a0as successful,\u00a0according to the court’s track record.<\/p>\n The ECHR exposed itself as a fraudulent\u00a0propaganda tool\u00a0when it ruled in 2019 that expressing skepticism\u00a0on\u00a0the “Holocaust” narrative is\u00a0not<\/em><\/a>\u00a0a human right,\u00a0while simultaneously\u00a0affirming\u00a0that Armenian genocide denial at the hands of the Turkish government\u00a0is<\/a><\/em>\u00a0protected free speech.<\/p>\n Whatever comes of this EU effort, it’s clear that the liberal elite’s response to problems they create will be no different than what they criticize China or Russia for.<\/p>\n