alt Hacker News> Europeans can no longer afford to be the idealists that they were in the 2000s.
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?
The American framing of privacy and free speech absolutism doesn't hold much credence in Europe. And it's not like the US is much better in that regard.
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.