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.

FTFA - "this site being a threat to the integrity"

[Sooner Boomer]

"this site being a threat to the integrity of the police..."
No, I think the actions of the police threaten their own integrity. A case of "you can't handle the truth...".

Privacy

[Anonymous Coward]

This site was giving full names and adresses of Police officers, this is why it was closed.

wrong wrong wrong

[worldthinker]

What is a threat to the integrity of the police IS the misconduct that has been documented by citizens. The antidote is sunshine in the form of accountability provided by these documents.

Words matter

[femto]

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

Re:Words matter

[TechLA]

The site wasn't really for the purpose the summary and article make it sound like. It mainly collected personal information, addresses and even social networking accounts of police officers. Europe takes privacy of private persons much more seriously than US, and the information was even used for making threats.

The police had said they were particularly concerned about portions of the site showing identifiable photos of police officers, along with personal data â" including some cases in which officers are said to express far-right sympathies on social networks. The initial complaint against the site was filed by a Paris police officer who said he had received a bullet in his mailbox after his picture had appeared on the site. He was joined by other officers.

I'm all for making police actions more transparent, but single police officers should have some privacy regarding their personal life too.

Re:Words matter

[mikael_j]

My experience, from Sweden, is that some people are dicks. That's about it.

We have a couple of local cops who are hated by lots of people in their twenties for reasons that seem to mostly revolve around those particular cops being part of the local police department's "youth group" that focuses both on solving crimes committed by teenagers but also keeping an eye on what goes on in local parks in the summer and such things. I know that for a while there was a website that posted a bunch of personal information about one of them.

So basically, some people feel that they are justified in being dicks if the cops ruin their (illegal) fun. I myself have met these particular police officers a few times late at night, the worst that I've ever been subjected to was a "please don't drink beer in public south of that bridge, local ordinances say you can't drink in public south of there"...

Re:Words matter

[turbidostato]

"How is the contesnts of this website any different than someone compiling the same information and releasing it in print?"

They are not. That's why it would be prosecuted in any case under European privacy laws.

Re:Words matter

[gl4ss]

so.. they're in a group that actively engages youth, "i'm police officer balbablab you can come to talk me about blablabal", in cases like that the expection of privacy really goes out of the window, the smaller the city the more it goes out of the window(and the more local power they have).

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. why? because they decide about the privacy of the rest and have special rights about invading the privacy of others. the cops don't need to even trump up charges in most of europe to do a house search - private parties should at least be able to keep tabs on who does those searches. because that's the only way to know when they consistently act different than what the local parliaments law deciding bodies want them to.

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.

French Copwatch != US Copwatch

[Anonymous Coward]

While I am no fan of censorship at all, the issue here is that this fFrench version of Copwatch was not so much about showing police abuse than collecting some cops personnal data. In some areas of France, being a cop is all the reason you need for being assaulted, and when a website lists your name and address... not good.

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.

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?

Yeah!

[Black Parrot]

'Cause the police can't maintain their integrity if they're not allowed to beat someone up now and then.

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

[TechLA]

They don't have a trouble if someone documents polices wrongful actions. They have a trouble with site that collects and lists police officers private home addresses, which lead them to receive threats via mail. The site also tried to show if police officers personal political opinion is right or left.

Re:Outrageous

[caius112]

Like many other people pointed it out, the site wasn't simply a collection of misconduct videos. It collected full names, addresses, telephone numbers, and facebook accounts of police officers that visitors then actually used to harass these said officers. I think the judge is fully justified in shutting it down, it probably broke quite a few privacy laws.

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?

Police integrity is police integrity ...

[MacTO]

I'm sorry, but I'm a teacher who has to put up with all sorts of crap to prove my integrity. So when it comes down to people who have even more power and even more rights, I believe that they should be held more accountable.

So fuck your unions. Mine has agreed to semi independent reviews. Yours should too. I can still be hung by my balls over baseless accussations (that you claim to investigate), so you should too. When you are willing to find innocence (or guilt) of my members, I will listen to your whinng. Until then, you're just a baseless bunch of bureaucrats.

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

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds completely valid to me. Governments collect data on their citizens. Is it not also valid for their citizens to collect data on the government? Especially the police, which is prone to corruption and misuse of power? To not allow oversight is only acknowledging that there are problems which politicians will refuse to solve. Making it blatant by blacklisting the source of some oversight should only make the problem more obvious, so hopefully more sites will be started to provide the same service.

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:A good eye-opener

[AK Marc]

And in those places, like good libertarian utopias, the violent gang leaders are screwing the citizens without enough government power to stop them (or conversely, the gangs take over the government then screw the citizens). Little government is always worse, and yet we have multiple parties claiming that's what they want (while most of those are also voting to raise spending - but not taxes, nope, taxes make big government, spending doesn't).

The US politics is broken beyond repair.