"A person armed with an angle grinder stands in front of a yellow mailbox. The crowd looks on tensely as the tool screeches loudly as it hits the metal. Police are also present, but do not intervene.
After a short time, the mailbox gives way. The metal is broken and so is the protection of the letters from prying eyes.
Anne Herpertz, a German politician from the Pirate Party Germany, takes out letter after letter and reads them aloud: “Trade secrets of a start-up, name and address of a whistleblower and other confidential information.”
The brute force of this action is a symbol of what the European Commission is planning to do with its surveillance law on chat control (CSAR): breaking the digital privacy of letters for everyone.
A few meters away, the Interior Ministers’ Conference (IMK) is taking place with a special guest: the European Commissioner for Home Affairs, Ylva Johansson, who is responsible for the CSAR proposal. She has come to promote her unprecedented surveillance plans."
