French Court Orders ISP To Block Police Misconduct Website

Freddybear writes "A French court has ordered ISPs to block access to Copwatch Nord Paris I-D-F, a website designed to allow civilians to post videos of alleged police misconduct. French police unions applauded the decision. Jean-Claude Delage, secretary general of the APN, said that '[t]he judges have analyzed the situation perfectly—this site being a threat to the integrity of the police — and made the right decision.'"

Comments

French justice?

[tftp]

this site being a threat to the integrity of the police

I would say that something else, and not a Web site, is a threat to the integrity of the police.

Words matter

[femto]

It's bad for the integrity of policing. Good for the integrity of the police.

Re:Words matter

[Kjella]

but if there's _any_ group of persons who should expect less privacy than the rest, it should be the cops and court system officials.

I don't think there should be any expectation of privacy for an officer on duty, anything you do wearing the uniform should be up for scrutiny. But that is their day job, when they take off the uniform and go home I think they should have the same protections as everyone else. In fact, it's very few other occupations that so often lead to harassment, vandalization or outright threats against yourself or our family. By enforcing the law you're attracting the anger of people that have very little problem breaking the law.

I'm not talking primarily about the big stuff, like when the mafia or drug lords go to more or less outright war against the police, judges and juries. But more like "There's lives the asshole who caught me shoplifting, let's egg his car and stab the tires" kind of thing. I suppose in a small town everybody would know anyway, but in the city it wouldn't normally be that easy. Exposing their private lives is far more likely to give people the means for intimidation to prevent them doing their jobs or leave the force than to keep them honest.

I mean if you were doing any serious coverup for somebody, would you have them listed as your friend on a social networking site? It'd be a pretty blatant conflict of interest, if anything you'd try to it indirectly so your name doesn't come up. And your home address, yeah uh huh so check that you're not covering for your neighbors right? Oh please, that's got almost zero legitimate uses and plenty bad ones. It's far more likely to be used in a "we know where you live and everybody you care about" kind of way.

If you're not doing anything wrong

[jmcbain]

then you have nothing to be worried about. That's the usual post-9/11 line of thought, yet?

Why the misleading summary?

[jezwel]

How do we tag a summary as misleading? Seems that entire premise behind why the site was blocked (providing police officer information including address and political affiliation) was dumped to promulgate 'videos of police brutality'.

It was inevitable this would generate a flame session, so now I'm wondering what the purpose of that was - especially in consideration that a lot of users can disable advertising?

Re:FTFA - "this site being a threat to the integri

[N1AK]

You expect people to take your support of people posting police officers personal information on a website seriously, when you you're not only posting on a forum that doesn't post your personal details but doing so using an optional feature to be 'anonymous'? Good luck with that.

Re:French Copwatch != US Copwatch

[Hatta]

In some areas of France, being a cop is all the reason you need for being assaulted

The solution to that is to earn a reputation for integrity. Not to go into hiding. If the people are so upset with government that cops are arbitrarily targeted, that's a symptom of a problem far deeper than a website distributing public information. A police force that is held in such extreme contempt by the people deserves to wither and die.