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French Court Orders ISP To Block Police Misconduct Website

Posted by samzenpus on from the don't-look-at-that dept.

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.'"

8 of 178 comments (clear)

  1. French justice? by tftp · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  2. Words matter by femto · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    1. Re:Words matter by TechLA · · Score: 5, Informative
      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.

    2. Re:Words matter by mikael_j · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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"...

      --
      Greylisting is to SMTP as NAT is to IPv4
    3. Re:Words matter by turbidostato · · Score: 5, Informative

      "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.

    4. Re:Words matter by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  3. French Copwatch != US Copwatch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. Why the misleading summary? by jezwel · · Score: 5, Insightful
    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?