A Barcelona court just broke the wall of impunity. For the first time, former Guardia Civil directors Félix Azón and María Gámez face criminal charges for deploying Pegasus and Candiru against civilians.

Throwback to Ethereum Cypherpunk Congress #2: @Joan_Arus from @SentinelSwiss examined how mercenary spyware threatens developers—and why protecting the people building freedom technology must become a priority. piped.video/watch?v=-hOP-gf2…

EUROPOL IS LOBBYING THE EU COMMISSION TO BAN END-TO-END ENCRYPTED COMMUNICATIONS "Horizon scanning on emerging privacy enhancement technologies" lobby report just dropped. Europol, with EU taxpayers' money, is again lobbying to end privacy, seeking unlimited access to all messages worldwide, and pushing to ban end-to-end encrypted messaging apps and VPNs. This is part of the EU Commission's earlier ProtectEU agenda, which includes concerning snooping laws and mass-surveillance elements. Europol calls privacy-enhancing technologies, or PETS, the tools of criminals: “PETs are used by criminal actors for secure communication, anonymisation, and protection of data. Criminal networks utilise various PETs, including end-to-end encrypted messaging apps, encrypted phones, and virtual private networks (VPNs), to communicate securely and anonymously. “ "For this reason, lawful access to electronic evidence has become one of the most critical issues for European law enforcement" These idiots still do not understand that the backdoor they want for themselves will be open for everyone in the world, and once opened, cannot be closed again. We had such a backdoor in the 90s, and after a lot of citizenship legal warfare, we managed to close it. The closed door was further tightened after Edward Snowden revealed how the USA spies on everyone on this planet, including the EU members of parliament themselves. Now, Europol wants the backdoors back because of “protecting the children.” If consumer-grade encryption is made illegal, criminals can, and will, still use it, as anyone can build an encrypted messaging app with an AI in two days. Only normal citizens will have their data collected, sold and consumed by advertisers, opposition politicians, Russian oligarchs, Donald Trump, and God knows who. And of course Europol itself. Remember, a state where the police make the rules is called a police state. Europe has a rich and complicated history of snooping on its citizens, as for example with the Stasi or Brigada Político-Social ("la Secreta"). Even our current politicians in this decade have been using Israeli NSO spyware to spy on opposition politicians in Poland, Greece, Hungary and Spain, and nobody in the police has been sentenced for this. Mind you, these were judge-approved requests. Against this backdrop, getting "lawful" access to all messages in the world is a tall ask from Europol. Furthermore, a deliberate path laid out for privacy violations and EU-wide snooping access erodes trust in the EU as an institution. The EU was sold to us as a trade union, but the Commission has taken an interest in turning it into the police state it wants. This drives voters to the far-left and far-right parties. And what do the European Commission and Europol want? Here are the most important highlights from the paper. BANNING END-TO-END ENCRYPTION IS A PRIORITY FOR EUROPEAN COMMISSION "This report presents the results of a joint horizon scanning exercise carried out by the EU Policy Lab at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC), and Europol, the EU law enforcement cooperation agency. It contributes to broader JRC efforts to support the European Commission’s political priority, the ‘New Era for European Defence and Security’, by anticipating future technological developments. “ END-TO-END ENCRYPTION MUST BE MADE ILLEGAL “Existing regulatory frameworks might need to be reviewed to clarify and simplify compliance processes and reduce the current legal uncertainty related to data usage, particularly in light of the challenges and opportunities that current and emerging PETs pose to law enforcement.” WE WANT TO HAVE A BACKDOOR IN EVERY SYSTEM “A proactive and informed approach to regulating advanced PETs and key enabling technologies is needed to leverage the benefits of these technologies effectively and to prevent potential new risks stemming from them. This includes developing clear guidelines to include law enforcement access to data.” WE WANT TO HAVE A BACKDOOR IN EVERY SYSTEM EVERYWHERE IN THE WORLD WITH OUR POLICE BUDDIES, NO MATTER IF THOSE COUNTRIES ARE A BIT QUESTIONABLE “Collaboration and international partnerships are essential to develop common standards for PETs and foster law enforcement cooperation in fighting cybercrime, including lawful access to data for law enforcement agencies; implementation of relevant international agreements should also be promoted” The snoopers who signed this paper and want to read your messages include: — Sigita TRAINAUSKIENE (JRC) — João FARINHA (JRC) — Mark WITTFOTH (Europol) — Diederik DON (Europol) — Alexandra de MALEVILLE (JRC) And the others: — Adrianus Warmenhoven, Nord VPN — Bart Preneel, KU Leuven — Cornelia Kutterer, Considerati — Cyril Piotrowicz, FR Gendarmerie — Denise Mayerdorfer, Federal Ministry of Interior – Austria — Dorine Walter, National Gendarmerie – France — Fredrik Heintz, Linköping University — Freek Bomhof, TNO — Igor Nai Fovino, JRC — Ismael Alvarez, Europol — Johanna Laurin Gulled, Swedish Police Authority — Juraj Kubica, DG CNECT — Olga Batura, TNO — Pieter Nooren, TNO — Jürgen Freudenberger, Cyberagentur — Kasper Rasmussen, Oxford University — Kirsi Jauhiainen, Police of Finland — Marjolein Lanzing, University of Amsterdam — Miguel Fayos Mestre, Guardia Civil – Spain — Mihai Tiganus, Romanian Police — Ralf Zimmermann, Central Office for Information Technology in the Security Sector – Germany — Tariq Elahi, University of Edinburgh — Vasileios Rovilos, Future of Privacy Forum — William Borg, Danish Online Police Patrol — William Karlberg, Malta Police Force — Gwendolyn BAILEY (JRC) — Antonia MOCHAN (JRC) I have attached some screenshots of these authors celebrating the steps taken to erode privacy. If you want to stop this, the best way is to raise awareness: I kindly ask you to refer this to the local press and ask them to call these people for an interview to ask them what is so important that they should read our private messages. europol.europa.eu/cms/sites/…

Please reach out to your local press if you recognize any of those names, and ask them to interview those who are actively lobbying for the supression of end-to-end encryption. Haven't they got enough offensive capabilities already with mercenary spyware? Why the big push to snoop in all our private comms?

Voting mass surveillance on the last day before summer break, when nobody's watching. Palpatine would be proud. #ChatControl

Today 80 governments use mercenary spyware to suppress and surveil civil society. In his talk at our Cypherpunk Congress @Joan_Arus x @SentinelSwiss addressed necessity for governments to be accountable for using spyware, presented case of @jbaylina & invited legal professionals, technologists and activists unite. Watch the talk, support Sentinel Alliance Association: piped.video/watch?v=-hOP-gf2…

"The defendants received combined prison sentences totaling 126 years and eight months, with eight years to be served" Congratulations to everyone involved in this milestone towards accountability and restitution 🇬🇷

Investigations continue in 🇪🇸 years after @citizenlab uncovered a massive domestic espionage campaign targeting Catalan civil society Two Civil Guard officers charged for the first time in the Pegasus case en.ara.cat/1_561a35 via @diariARA