While the whole world is fully focused on artificial intelligence and expanding technological infrastructure, an unbelievable act of surveillance is currently being pushed through the European Parliament, even though it has already been rejected twice. What chat control is about: The EU wants to allow platforms once again to scan private messages. Officially, this is “voluntary”, but in practice it is another step toward indiscriminate surveillance of private communication. What makes this especially questionable: Chat control has already been rejected twice in the European Parliament. Yet now it is supposed to come back, through an urgent procedure. But there is no real urgency. The transitional regulation has already expired, and Parliament would have time for proper deliberation. Instead, the issue is supposed to be rushed through the plenary shortly before the summer break. And the trick is obvious: To stop chat control, a simple majority of the MEPs present is not enough. It requires an absolute majority of all MEPs. Anyone who is absent effectively helps the supporters. In other words: a massive infringement on digital fundamental rights is supposed to be pushed through after all, by exploiting timing, procedural logic and parliamentary absence, even though Parliament has already rejected it. This is not a clean democratic process. This is the erosion of fundamental rights through a procedural trick. So instead of discussing the truly important issues, such as how to bring frontier intelligence to Europe, whether through excellent open-source models or deals with US frontier labs; instead of discussing how to build our own compute capacity through data centers; instead of solving the energy problem, probably the biggest bottleneck, they are acting against the interests of EU citizens, expanding surveillance, expanding regulation and doing all of this against the will of the people. A dark day for Europe. I would appreciate it if you shared this issue. The video by Martin Sonneborn that I am sharing is worth watching. The whole world should know about this. (The speech he gave is in german, hopefully there is a translation somewhere) Thank you for your attention.