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>No one should be required to carry an attacker-controlled tracking device

What about being required to carry a your-own-government-controlled tracking device?

Because the US or Chine government can't harm me in Europe via the data they collect from me, But the EU authorities can if they want to, so naturally I fear them more if they were the ones hoovering my data.

What are the odds they're using this on-shore tech grab to implement their own domestic version of China's social credit score system, to easily get data on their own citizens who commit "wrong-think", without having to through the effort to twist the arm of US entities every time they want to do that?

Food for thought, but I do think we're living the last years of online anonymity, it's inevitable.

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> What are the odds they're using this on-shore tech grab to implement their own domestic version of China's social credit score system, to easily get data on their own citizens who commit "wrong-think", without having to through the effort to twist the arm of US entities every time they want to do that?

What are the odds that once shut down "chat control" will come up under a new name?


> without having to through the effort to twist the arm of US entities every time they want to do that?

Right now, it's more like US corpos are try to twist the arm of EU governments [1][2], pushing heavy propaganda to manipulate our elections [3], allying with the US government to do so. And the US government has been threatening EU govts with invasion [4], leveraging US corpos to harm lawful individuals doing their jobs in the EU [5], and sanctioning elected officials for performing their duties [6], or threatened to [7].

Sure, there's an hypothetical risk of the EU turning sour. On the other hand, when it comes to US corpos, the risk has materialized.

[1]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly930y90lro [2]: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0589g0dqq7o [3]: https://www.politico.eu/article/twitter-faces-renewed-scruti... [4]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenland_crisis [5]: https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/11/19/n... [6]: https://www.brusselstimes.com/1931733/eu-parliament-blasts-u... [7]: https://www.politico.eu/article/us-accused-threats-eu-diplom...


Read your third link, please. The Ministry of Truth not being happy that their policy on "disinformation" isn't being applied as strongly as they wish isn't what I'd call "pushing heavy propaganda".

Yep. Color me shocked that the propaganda state media is unhappy with information being spread that doesn't conform to the views of the state, and so calls it propaganda or mis-/dis-information.

It's totally not the "ministry of truth".


GP means "Ministry of Truth" in the Orwellian-sense. The "Ministry of Truth" was the propaganda arm of the government just as the "Ministry of Love" is the interrogation/torture and brainwashing center.

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> Jacques BAUD and Xavier MOREAU, Swiss and French nationals respectively, were sanctioned by the EU along with a laundry list of Russian nationals, on the accusation of being russian mouthpieces (...)

If this is the best example you can muster, you don't have much of a case.

They are Russian nationals pushing propaganda for a totalitarian regime which has been engaging in wars of annexation throughout Europe and whose threats of nuclear war against Europe are pushed on almost on a daily basis.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2025/12/18/who-are-the-we...

> I would get it if they only did this to russian citizens living in Russia in the current geopolitical context, (...)

They are. Nevertheless, it's stupid to even consider the idea that only foreign nationals can be foreign agents.


>They are Russian nationals pushing propaganda for a totalitarian regime which has been engaging in wars of annexation throughout Europe and whose threats of nuclear war against Europe are pushed on almost on a daily basis.

Where's the proof beyond reasonable doubt resulting from a trial, that those European citizens have done the things you say?

Or is Euro News propaganda supposed to be the only proof on which EU gets to throw people in jail without trial?

Shouldn't you get a trial where you get a chance to defend yourself before being sanctioned? I swear you people are cheering for 1984 authoritarianism to buttfuck you.

>Nevertheless, it's stupid to even consider the idea that only foreign nationals can be foreign agents.

As long as they are EU citizens, they deserve a fair EU trial and not just get sanctioned because EU says "trust me bro" about people they want to see disappeared.


> Where's the proof beyond reasonable doubt resulting from a trial, that those European citizens have done the things you say?

Are you nuts? Not only does the guy run a company dedicated exclusively to push Kremlin propaganda, he literally presents propaganda program's in Kremlin's RT.

Are you living under a rock?

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/pixels/article/2023/12/15/the-web-...

At this point it's evident you are either playing the role of wilful ignorant, or heavily invested in being contrarian.


> they deserve a fair EU trial and not just get sanctioned

And if they refuse to return to the EU for this trial? That means they could do whatever they want with no consequences?


Moreau is apparently a Russian citizen living in Russia since 2013. I have some concerns about process, but not for these guys. People working for enemy intelligence services tend to get treated harshly.

>Moreau is apparently a Russian citizen living in Russia since 2013.

Is he not still a French born citizen deserving of a fair trial? Or should getting a dual citizenship of a foreign passport, of a nation that later becomes an adversary, become an automatic death sentence? US should then put all it citizens with Cuban and Iranian passports in jail with that logic.

And then what about Jacques BAUD who's Swiss living in Belgium? He doesn't deserve a fair trial either? On what grounds? With what evidence?

How can you justify dishing out death sentences without trial? Remember that blindly supporting the authoritarian hand waving of due process with no trial or evidence, just to easily get rid of undesirable people, can always be used against you too, if what you say becomes undesirable when politics shifts.


> Or should getting a dual citizenship of a foreign passport, of a nation that later becomes an adversary, become an automatic death sentence?

You seem to be invested in trying to stitch together flimsy arguments based on specious reasoning.

Your so-called victims are Russian agents with Russian nationality which have been engaged directly with a totalitarian regime that is engaged in war across Europe, both cold and hot.

You don't even try to argue for innocence. You know they are agents and guilty, but somehow opt to shift focus to technicalities. Why?


>Your so-called victims are Russian agents

WHere's the proof that they are? Would you be OK is someone accused you of being a russian agent because you criticized the EU too much, and sanction you with no opportunity to defend yourself in court?

>You don't even try to argue for innocence.

Why would I? I don't know if they are innocent, that's why I want a public trial.

>You know they are agents and guilty

I Don't know that. That's just what the EU told us. That's why I want a public trial.


> Where's the proof that they are? L

I think you are discussing topics you are not familiar with, or you're being disingenuous.

In case you live under a rock and chose to comment on issues that you know nothing about, you can start reading up on this.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46973777

> Would you be OK is someone accused you of being a russian agent because you criticized the EU too much, and sanction you with no opportunity to defend yourself in court?

If I'm ever assigned Russian nationality and collaborate as a Russian observer on russia's sham elections on occupied territories, be my guest. Do you think you'd be wrong?

> Why would I? I don't know if they are innocent, that's why I want a public trial.

Yeah, you have been claiming ignorance on the topic. Willful or not, that is to be determined.

It's weird, however, how you invest so little effort to educate yourself on the topic but still feel compelled such strong opinions on doubts and technicalities and turning blind eye to foreign interference.


It is because, historically, the “enemy of the state” category has been used in expanding manners. The “they are enemies of the state” should not be used as a counter argument for having a fair trial, as far as actual democracy and human rights are involved.

Anything the government does should be viewed with the lens of "do I want somebody who hates me to have this power".

Do you honestly expect us to just turn a blind eye to Russian assets spreading disinformation in a time when Russia is literally waging wars of genocide in Europe? No. Strip his nationality and let him enjoy his Russian passport.

This isn't a death sentence? But they probably do deserve legal redress. And jail sentences.

>This isn't a death sentence?

Being sanctioned means no bank will touch you, meaning no employer and landlord will touch you, meaning you don't get a national insurance health card to receive healthcare, and you'll be homeless and begging for food.

How is taking away all of someone's means to survive NOT a death sentence?


> Being sanctioned means no bank will touch you, meaning no employer and landlord will touch you, meaning you don't get a national insurance health card to receive healthcare, and you'll be homeless and begging for food.

How does being sanctioned by the EU *while living in Russia* do that?

Since when does Russia care?

(Assuming of course that the claim you responded to was in fact correct, that he has been living in Russia since 2013).


>How does being sanctioned by the EU while living in Russia* do that?*

Because Jacques BAUD is NOT living in Russia but is living in Belgium like I said 3 times already.

Has reading comprehension gotten THAT bad?


> Has reading comprehension gotten THAT bad?

  Assuming of course that the claim you responded to was in fact correct, that he has been living in Russia since 2013
If he isn't, as you aver, his continued existence rather contradicts your claim of this being a death sentence. Or even reduce one to begging.

Did anyone of them die?

Is unaccountable government legal overreach an issue for you only when you die by it?

To me death sentence has very specific meaning.

Presumably he’d get an opportunity for a fair trail IF he decided to come back to France. Or do you want him to be tried in absentia?

The odds are very low. It all depents on the people. So far, the European citizens are very privacy senstive. The European institutions are characterized by a huge devision of power. There is no chance that European instutitions can impose their will against a considerable majority of people. If people turn away from liberal democracy, that's another matter. But then everything is lost anyway.

35 years ago, a good chunk of the current EU was under a Soviet-imposed totalitarian rule. Spain was a dictatorship until 1975. And it's been just 80 years since WWII.

It always boggles my mind that most Europeans are absolutely convinced that nothing like that could ever happen again. Meanwhile, many people in the US are convinced that the government will be coming for them any minute now.


> It always boggles my mind that most Europeans are absolutely convinced that nothing like that could ever happen again.

It’s not that it cannot happen again. It’s that the EU is explicitly built against that and if it happens it will come from the national governments (see Hungary), not the EU.


> It’s that the EU is explicitly built against that and if it happens it will come from the national governments (see Hungary)

So to prevent individual EU nations ever becoming authoritarian, like Hungary, we have to cede sovereignty and authority to the EU & EC unelected bureaucrats like Ursula VDL who take over as the main executive leaders, ensuring we'll no longer have the danger of national-level authoritarianism.

Hell of a solution.

Surely the better solution to issues like Hungary is ensuring we get more democracy to Hungarian people, not giving authority over Hungary to someone else the Hungarian people can't elect.


> So to prevent individual EU nations ever becoming authoritarian, like Hungary, we have to cede sovereignty and authority to the EU & EC unelected bureaucrats like Ursula VDL who take over as the main executive leaders, ensuring we'll no longer have the danger of national-level authoritarianism.

Not really, and the example of Hungary shows that it would not be that effective for that purpose.

The EU is a union of nations, not really of people. It was built so that nations play nice with each other. Each member state still does more or less what it wants within its borders, as long as it does not jeopardise the union.

In that way it’s not perfectly democratic, because there are layers of indirection between the citizens and the institutions.

Commissioners are nominated by member states and approved by parliament. So they are generally aligned with the politics dominant at the national level and palatable to MEPs. Von der Leyen is there because she had support from the German government and was from the dominant block in parliament. It’s not direct democracy, but it is not a faceless blob either.


US Supreme Court Judges are not elected. Although I hesitate to use this as an example currently, given how well the US separation of powers is (not) working, the point stands that all democratic systems need some kind of "damping" influence to survive. If successive national governments were hostile to EU bureaucrats there are options open to them to restore sovereignty — e.g. exit the EU, or force change in appointments by coordinating with other EU governments. The fact that senior positions in the EU are unelected does not in itself make the system un or anti democratic.

> it will come from the national governments (see Hungary), not the EU.

what's the difference? The EU relies on national gov't to enforce rules. Until the EU becomes a sovereign entity with standalone enforcement mechanisms, it's no more able to ensure things can't happen than the UN.


National governments are often at odds with the commission. France was regularly threatened and fined for its energy policy, for example, which was not pro-business enough. All EU regulations are the result of horse trading in the council of ministers and the commission, the member states are not helpless victims or perfect enforcement forces blindly applying what the president of the commission of the day wants.

>it's no more able to ensure things can't happen than the UN

It's not the same. EU will cut your funding if you don't follow their rules. UN is not finding any EU countries, but the opposite, we all pay to fund the UN.


Maybe in theory, but the idea that nations that trade doesn’t go to war is a naive one, it has happened plenty and will happen again. As for the structure of voting etc, it’s just a matter of pushing until people give up.

Indeed, which is why entanglement goes deeper than simply trade. The emergence of pan-European companies like Airbus makes the cost for one country to go alone much steeper. Same for the establishment of EU-wide supply chains. There are also incentives to play nice in the form of the customs union and the single market. The moment you leave, you’re on the wrong side of a trade barrier.

How is the EU built against that and how does it matter?

The EU is built on rules that uphold liberal democratic principles, agreed to by national governments in a flush of post-WW2 clarity, and which tie successors to the same principles. There are exit mechanisms, but they impose large costs (i.e. Brexit).

You're saying nothing concrete in particular. What rules? How do they inhibit change? The only thing I can think of which is actually difficult to change is the echr and i see more than a dozen mostly liberal governments queueing up to change it (to little effect so far) over migration issues.

There are rules about election conduct and free operation of courts, to give two examples. Both of which Hungary skirts on occasion but the EU does apply some pressure.

The ECHR isn't actually an EU thing. (It's a Council of Europe thing, which is separate from and predates the ECSC/EEC/EU.)

I know and it's a requirement for being in the EU still.

Sort of correct but also playing with words. Most, many.

There's a divide between generations and geographies to start with. Younger vs. older generations see things differently. Westerners vs. Easterners (especially those who remember the communist times) see things differently.

It's very hard to say what many and most people are doing on either side of the Atlantic. Until a few short years ago you wouldn't have imagined enough Americans would vote for the leader they did, knowing exactly what they're getting, and yet they did. So people aren't always forthcoming about their views and beliefs.

In Europe for anyone who can't remember the "hard times" it's easy to fall into the trap of believing things will stay good forever. The US hasn't had equivalent "hard times" relative to the rest of the world for as long as any person in the US has been alive and a few generations more. So they too can easily believe things can't turn sour, which is why this recent and swift downturn caused so much shock and consternation. But the US also always had a lot of preppers and people "ready to fight the Government" (that's why so many have guns, they say). It's a big place so you expect to have "many" people like this.


> Meanwhile, many people in the US are convinced that the government will be coming for them any minute now.

It's a bit ironic that most of those people voted for Trump, who is now doing exactly that. But I guess they think it's ok as long as the government is coming for others, not for them (at least not yet)...


While I love the premise that he is choosing arbitrary groups to go after and we just haven't been chosen yet, no, he campaigned on this and was elected for exactly this. This is what the people want.

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In general, Europe does not subscribe to the US absolutist version of freedom of speech.

At the same time, most European countries are also way more resilient against authoritarian takeover.


‘They’ literally didn’t.

They who and what?

They’ll give you a small handful of examples, of which a number occurred in the UK (famously not a member of the EU), most of which were actually arrests for incitement, and of the remainder the majority were thrown out before ever going to trial, or subsequently on appeal.

Very few of the cases they present will have involved citizens being murdered in the streets by the government for exercising their absolute right to free speech.


The UK has more arrests for social media posts than any other country in the world, including authoritarian countries like Russia, Belarus, etc. Germany is the third highest. Both have thousands, not "a small handful".

Ah, the Joe Rogan school of geopolitics finally rears its HGH malformed head

{1}https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/wales-englan... {2}https://pa.media/blogs/fact-check/fact-check-international-d... {3}https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tommy-robinson-uk-speech-cla...

Most of the erroneous conclusions come from a cursory interpretation of a Times article from last year:

{4} https://www.thetimes.com/uk/crime/article/police-make-30-arr...

In 2023, UK police forces made around 12,000 arrests under the Communications Act 2003 and the Malicious Communications Act 1988. These laws cover sending messages that are "grossly offensive, threatening, indecent, or menacing over communications networks" (which includes social media). Prosecutions resulting tend to come from a small subset of serious crimes - stalking, incitement to hatred, endangering minors etc...

This was gleefully misinterpreted by Musk, Steven Forbes and the rest of the right-wing braintrust as "12,000 people were arrested for saying politically incorrect things."

Germany at third highest is equally in the realm of complete fantasy. The Tagesschau debunked it and concluded that the German numbers make no sense. There is no statistic in Germany for the number of arrests, but the number of people investigated is lower for the period claimed and not all led to arrests so the number is simply a fabrication.

https://www.tagesschau.de/faktenfinder/grafik-festnahmen-onl...

Finally, the notion that China or Russia would self-report less cases than the UK and expect the figure to be believed is farcical. There isn't even something comparable to the anti-activism laws or the HK47 in the UK.


> There is no chance that European instutitions can impose their will against a considerable majority of people

The EU commission just passed chat control to have government mandated software in every phone


Do you have a citation for this? I can't find anything showing that 2022/0155(COD) has passed the EU Council or Parliament (nor can I find any scheduled votes). [1]

The most recent related information I could find was some movement to extend the temporary derogation of the ePrivacy Directive, which expires on 2026/04/03, to 2028/04/03 but even that did not seem to have passed yet. [2]

The very fact they're trying to extend the temporary derogation hints to me that they think it'll take some time yet to pass Chat Control (if at all).

[1] https://oeil.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/procedure-file?refer...

[2] https://oeil.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/procedure-file?refer...


It's substantially neutered from the original proposal, with most of the scary parts taken out. I'd count that as a win as far as how antidemocratic the EU commission is.

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/after-years-controvers...


Given how many world leaders form the west had absolutely the most vile chats with Epstein about doing despicable things to people, I'd totally want chat control but only for our leaders. They certainly proved that's who needs it the most to keep us safe.

If you want to over simplify at least do it right.

> citizens are very privacy senstive

Their reaction and opposition to ChatControl (or near complete lack of both) would indicate otherwise? They could hardly care less about privacy.

National governments which have openly declared that believe they have the right to unlimited access to any private communication hardly lost any popularity or faced real consequences.


Very privacy sensitive? In Germany, maybe. Elsewhere in Europe, not so much. See the regular attempts to push through something like chat control.

In Italy were already trying to break that division of power, we’ve a referendum that does just that

> So far, the European citizens are very privacy senstive.

In some areas, sure - like GDPR.

In other areas, absolutely not - like chat control.

As another commenter pointed out, it seems as if government mandated privacy intrusion is OK, while violations by corporations are quickly shutdown. It’s like the opposite of how it works here in the US.


> like chat control.

That has never been passed in any form.

> the opposite of how it works here in the US.

It appears that you have conveniently forgotten about FISA, EARN IT, CLOUD act, PATRIOT act, LAED, etc, etc.



It hasn’t been passed in that “voluntary” form either.

> chat control

The Danish proposal for indiscriminate chat control did not receive enough support and was retracted last autumn. Similar proposals have been put forward regularly over the past 30 years and have so far come to nothing just as regularly.

For the conservative (and sometimes not so conservative) non-experts things like this sound like an easy win. So every new generation of politicians has to be educated about it again.


> chat control

The Danish proposal for indiscriminate chat control did not receive enough support and was retracted last autumn. Similar proposals have been put forward regularly over the past 30 years and have so far come to nothing just as regularly.


The problem is they will keep trying just like before, and they only need to get lucky once to succeed, while we need to be lucky very single time.

This is a truism, but not that helpful. I have to be lucky every time I leave the house not to be murdered, but it doesn't substantially change my behaviour. Rather than freaking out or catastrophising we just need to focus on asserting and celebrating and educating citizens in our shared values (murdering is bad, privacy is important).

Nah, I think in this metaphor we need to lock up Mr.Stabby McStabFace instead of just allowing him to go without punishment for his repeated efforts to legalize face-stabbing.

>it seems as if government mandated privacy intrusion is OK

Once you give people an outside boogieman(Putin, Trump, Covids, etc) or a self inflicted false flag crisis(surge in violent crime rates for example) to shake them up to their core and put the fear in them, you can then easily sell your intrusion of privacy in their lives and extension of the police state, as the necessary solution that protects them.

When you start lose control of your people because their standard of living has been going downhill for 2 decades and they realize the future prospects aren't any better so they hate you even more, you can regain control of them by rallying them up on your side in a us-versus-them type of game against external or internal aggressors that you paint as "the enemy". The media is your friend here. /s

This isn't an EU or US exclusive issue, it's everywhere with a government issue. The difference as to why the EU people seem to be more OK with government intrusion compared to the US, is that EU always has external aggressors the government can point to as justification for invasiveness and control, while the US has been and still is the unchallenged global superpower so it has no real external threats ATM, meaning division must be manufactured internally (left vs right, red vs blue, woke vs maga, skin color vs skin color, gender vs gender, etc) so that the ruling class can assert control in peace.

Either way, we all seem to be heading towards the same destination.


Amen to that.

I agree 100%. Europe is just ahead of us for the time being, but our turn is soon approaching...

You may say that, but last I checked, we don’t get stopped and shot in the streets by masked goons on government payrolls.

Sure, but I am talking about government-mandated surveillance through legislation.

Also, your police aren’t afraid to go the extra mile to quash dissent. Look at what’s happening in the UK for example with Palestine Action. The only difference is that they are less armed and better trained.


Remember how UK is not a part of the EU anymore for about a decade by now?

Pedantry at its finest. The UK is European and you know it - regardless of the technicalities.

Since you’re a pedant, look at what Germany is doing in this same area.


Oh boy, did I hurt your feelings or something? If you call this pedantry, I'll gladly be a pedant in your perception. I'll call you ignorant in return though. And since you are an ignorant (notice how I can also take an adjective and ascribe it to your whole personhood?) you probably won't know what the difference between Europe and the European Union is anyway, so there's little hope for a fruitful discussion.

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> Sure is convenient that we keep having more and more crisis and boogiemen that governments can leverage...

The problem with this phrasing is it makes it sound hyperbolic, but it is important to remember the world is large and there are always, in a literal and normal sense, multiple major crises going on at any moment.

People who don't pay much attention to politics sometimes get confused about why crises elevated by the corporate media get ignored. A big answer is becuase they are elevated for political reasons, usually the crisis is fairly routine in absolute terms.


>there are always, in a literal and normal sense, multiple major crises going on at any moment

True, but my point I wanted to draw attention to, is HOW these crisis are handled now, not that there's many of them.

Every crisis now seems to be exclusively used as a vehicle to justify taking away just a little bit more of your freedom and anonymity, or implement more fiscal policies that will leave you footing the bill but just so happens it will be enriching the wealthy as a side effect.

Because such policies shoved out the door in times of crisis, don't pass through the lengthy public debates and scrutiny regular policies have to go through, so it's the perfect opportunity to sneak and fast-track some nefarious stuff in.

I'm not that old yet, but I don't feel like this backdoor was misused to this extent in the past, like pre-2008 I mean (except 9/11 of course). It definitely feels like politicians have gooten of taste and are abusing this exploit now more with every little opportunity.


>Didn't really stop them passing whatever rules they wanted during Covid, did it?

>Or today with Russia and Ukraine situation. Sure is convenient that we keep having more and more crisis and boogiemen that governments can leverage to deflect accountability and bypass the wishes of the population, for our own good of course.

>Why do you think Germans supported to tie themselves to Russia's gas and destroy their nuclear power.

You see you might get called a bot, Russian troll, or MAGA a whole lot less, if you didn't pull out ALL the topics those groups are playing at once. There is plenty to criticize about the EU institutions, but man that is a very odd focus.


Two things can be true. While the user you're replying to has a weirdly focused agenda and insistence, some of the points raised are definitely valid.

I do not agree with the overall conclusion that "EU bad". But there are some pretty bad things going on, and the trend is definitely concerning. If you wait until you're on fire, you waited for too long.


> What about being required to carry a your-own-government-controlled tracking device?

What part of the cellphone manufacturer being based overseas makes you think the government can't track you via it?

Even leaving asides 5-eyes style data-sharing agreements, your US/Chinese smartphone still connects through a domestic cellphone carrier, using a domestic number. That's enough to have at a minimum fine-grained location tracking, call logs, and data usage.


In fact 5g and all previous standards have a provision for lawful intercept. So your domestic intelligence service and police can always turn it into a listening device.

Tracking device might be the wrong thing to focus on. The US has other ways of messing with foreigners who depend on services provided by US companies, like suddenly cutting off those services in the case of ICC judges.

IIRC, ICC judges lost access to their O365 work email accounts. Worst the US can do to me is turn off my Steam, and Gmail but I can easily live without those.

Now imagine being debanked by your own government because they don't like what you're saying and becoming unemployed, homeless and dead. I don't think they're remotely comparable.

For example, a few years ago, a power tripping gov bureaucrat turned off my unemployment payments over a technicality. Luckily, I had enough money to pay a lawyer to sue them and won, but it was tight. What if I hadn't had the money to hire a lawyer? Since I was in a foreign country, with no family or close friends to fall back on. I was exclusively relying on the welfare state I paid into for years, that then turn its back on me for shits and giggles.

So I don't think you understand just how bad it can be for you if your government decides to turn on you and fuck with you, if you're comparing this to losing access to your work email account.

See the famous case of UK postal workers that got fucked by their government trying to hide their mistakes.


According to AP News (https://apnews.com/article/international-court-sanctions-tru...) at least one judge had his bank accounts closed. So it's not just your own government who can debank you in Europe.

Of course in this judge's case there might still be some banks who are willing to work with him even at the risk of getting sanctioned as there weren't language in the news that he was completely debanked which I assume they would highlight if it was the case.


The main problem IMHO that a bank access not seen as a right. Even Russia which is neither powerful (unlike the US) nor an EU ally can de-bank Russian critics living in the EU (and other places) by reporting them to FATF. AML is ripe for abuse.

> Now imagine being debanked by your own government because they don't like what you're saying and becoming unemployed, homeless and dead. I don't think they're remotely comparable.

You don't have to imagine it.

Alina Lipp, Thomas Röper, Xavier Moreau, Col Jacques Baud, Nathalie Yamb. The last two are Swiss nationals. The Baud case is interesting because he's a Belgian resident who now can not even buy food or pay his bills while living in his own home.


> IIRC, ICC judges lost access to their O365 work email accounts. Worst the US can do to me is turn off my Steam, and Gmail but I can easily live without those.

They lost access to everything american, including Visa and Mastercard. It's in french and maybe not the best source but it's not paywalled :

https://www.tf1info.fr/international/nous-sommes-attaques-le...

> "Payments are mostly cancelled," he continued, "as almost all cards issued by banking institutions in Europe are either Visa or Mastercard, which are American companies."

They are not completely debanked since they can go to the bank and withdraw cash, but it's a crippling situation to be in.


You most likely use a Windows PC and an Android phone. If Uncle Sam viewed you as a threat actor, he could ask both companies to send you a signed and verified update to either your OS or apps they control, running whatever he wants.

It's all the same. How is suing Google any different, if you instead get debanked by Google for violating their "terms"? The only solution is untraceable, permissionless money, like Monero. Why do you think governments try so hard to ban it?

Being de-Googled is a hardship, though there are replacements for virtually all its services. I acknowledge you are well informed on this topic.

It is not unreasonable for governments to pursue avenues for laundering money. I recognize that you likely don't believe governments should prosecute money laundering, but that view is not aligned with the majority of citizens in your country.


Ah money laundering, the government's 2nd favorite excuse to bypass due process, remove freedom, and impose arbitrary punishments, after "emergency" and before "think of the children".

The government can prosecute money laundering and all the other crimes, but it's not an excuse to impose extrajudicial punishment. Until they stop, having some cash and crypto is your only means of defense.


I understand your threat model is centered around the risk of a government persecuting you. This will naturally conflict with incentives of people whose threat model centers around a lower severity but higher frequency event of systematic violence performed by criminal enterprises, with a necessary condition being ease of moving money. Both representative and totalitarian governments seek to aid investigation of criminal activity by following the movement of money.

I'm unsure about your reference to extrajudicial punishment, is it referring to de-banking associated with AML and KYC regimes in the US? If so, I agree that unjust things are unjust. I believe we should seek to fix those injustices directly through lobbying lawmakers, rather than rejecting an entire system that has significant security benefits.

I am sympathetic to people who have a fatalistic attitude when it comes to political reforms. Having other financial instruments as a backup is a good practice.


I'm not necessarily opposed to KYC or even government being able to audit transactions in general. But there is too few legal protections both from the bank and the from the government itself for this to be acceptable in a free society.

It's not entirely hopeless I guess. For what it's worth, the US government recently issued an EO that purportedly stops banks from debanking you for political reasons. Hopefully a future administration would take care of the other part.


After a fair trial and appeals process, right?

Because financial sanctions are one of our main tools to pressure enemy countries into calming the fuck down in hopes of avoiding an actual kinetic conflict.

In 2025, North Korea managed to steal from the world over 10% of its GDP worth in cryptocurrency.


> if you instead get debanked by Google for violating their "terms"

Since when is google a bank?

>The only solution is untraceable, permissionless money, like Monero. Why do you think governments try so hard to ban it?

Because untraceable currency is mostly used by criminals for crime.


Your bank (like most European ones) requires you to pass attestation to use their services. If you don't accept Google/Apple's terms, you can't access it without extreme difficulty.

I can always access my bank via a web browser or even in person at the teller at a branch somewhere, or as a last resort via snail mail from attorney, but most importantly even if I get locked out somehow by google, the account still runs and I won't be homeless as my salary and rent auto-payments keep going regardless if you can access it or not.

How is this comparable to your government debanking you meaning that no bank, landlord, layer or job will touch you?


I... don't think you understand debanked. There is no movement OUT of your account. Deposits will be processed all day long. The intent is to tie up access to as many of your assets as possible. If you think anything of yours will just keep on going if you end up debanked, you're sadly mistaken. In addition, based on the U.S. Bank Secrecy Act as amended by the PATRIOT act, covered entities are forbidden from disclosing to you anything about why your account is frozen.

It's as close as you get to a complete shunning from modern society. You're reset to the cash you hold on you and keep custody of. And yes. In the U.S., the list that manages who can and cannot transact is centralized under OFAC. So it is at the whims of Executive whether or not any financial activity can be done with you.


The premise here is that you lose access to a European bank's mobile app because the US government compels Apple or Google to disable your app store accounts. Not that your relationship with the bank is frozen.

It's less severe for sure, but I'd rather live without undue interference based on someone else's whims, unless I broke a law.

the account still runs and I won't be homeless as my salary and rent auto-payments

Luckily in most European countries renters are protected and they cannot just kick you out of your home for missing one rent payment (IANAL, but in NL it requires 3 months of no pay and a judge has to approve). Most likely they wouldn't approve if you missed a payment because you were locked out of your banking account.


My bank's app uses Google Pay to pay at POS terminals, so Google can at least block that.

> Because the US or Chine government can't harm me in Europe via the data they collect from me

That's an amusingly naïve perspective. The US government absolutely can harm you, via a multitude of ways.


Not to speak of russia who have been sending assassins to kill people in the EU for a long time, and the EU has not been very good at stopping those.

Also, Chinese-owned firms are known to be transferring EU citizens' data to China in violation of GDPR: https://noyb.eu/en/tiktok-aliexpress-shein-co-surrender-euro...

China's government has strategic goals to destabilise and weaken the EU, and data-farming will be part of their strategy.


Every government is an attacker.



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