> If the software cannot be deployed remotely, the law authorizes officers to secretly enter a person’s home to gain access.
Clear Das Leben der Anderen vibes. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others)
However: As usual, the devil is in the details. How much suspicion is required, what's the process, etc. (I assume that a judge needs to sign off.)
Europeans can no longer afford to be the idealists that they were in the 2000s. Every country is runnng influence ops across Europe to a degree that hasn't been seen since the Cold War.
That said, as an American, it's fine for me if Germans and Europeans remain naive. An allied Europe is good, but a naive but controlled Europe is equally as good. For every Atlanticist, we have people who can push our interests in an illiberal manner like Dominik Andrzejczuk.
[0] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/berlin-ki...
[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-18/vietnam-p...
Always the arguments of the enemies of freedom and dignity - they are fanciful ideals, not necessities and the whole point, and the foundations of the freeest, most secure, most prosperous societies in history. Maybe the rest of Europe wants to live more like Russia?
We in the US are using free speech and privacy absolutism as a hammer against the EU's Digital Services Act, which they are using as a hammer against our dominance in the tech industry and our trade barriers against European exports.
For most European nations today, the degree of greyzone warfare is startling, and multiple near accidents have happened. And even with expanded police and intelligence powers like those used in Europe in the 2000s, most European nations would remain significantly freer than Russia ever was or is.
That's a strawperson, not a serious argument. The idea that the US is absolutist about privacy is laughable, even more when compared to Europe. Free speech is falling apart rapidly. Europe is the central advocate of human rights currently.
The European definition of human rights doesn't include a maximalist approach to privacy. The primacy of state powers is a core bedrock in mainstream European thought, as can be seen with EU Charter Article 8.
Hybrid warfare tactics such as those being used by Russia within the EU [0] along with other sorts of offensive intelligence operations would fall under the remit of an expansion of state enforcement and coexist with the EU Charter.
Furthermore, as I previously stated, this kind of empowerment of law enforcement and intelligence agencies was the norm across much of the EU (and still is in Southern and Eastern European member states) until the 2010s.
[0] - https://acleddata.com/report/testing-waters-suspected-russia...