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French Gov't Runs Vast Electronic Spying Operation of Its Own
Freshly Exhumed writes with this news (quoting The Guardian): "France runs a vast electronic surveillance operation, intercepting and stocking data from citizens' phone and internet activity, using similar methods to the U.S. National Security Agency's Prism programme exposed by Edward Snowden, Le Monde has reported. An investigation by the French daily [en français; Google translation] found that the DGSE, France's external intelligence agency, had spied on the French public's phone calls, emails and internet activity. The agency intercepted signals from computers and phones in France as well as between France and other countries, looking not so much at content but to create a map of 'who is talking to whom,' the paper said."
Now taking bets on which country will be implicated next in sketchy and/or illegal domestic monitoring.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
/sarcasm
This has been known publicly since the release of the book the Sword and the Shield in the 1990s, and well-known by most larger companies since well before that even. We're persecuting Snowden for being the Captain Obvious of the intelligence community. "Oh noes! The french are spying on us!" Dude. Fucking duh. The french have been spying on everyone since the dark ages. Hell, where do you think the word sabateur comes from? The french pretty much invented industrial espionage.
In other news... why are we threatening the lives of other countries leaders and going on a mad witch hunt for Snowden, wheeling and dealing in backroom deals reminiscent of the cold war era again? Oh right... because he came forward and confirmed what everyone either already suspected, or knew. Which was only necessary because so many people are living in a level of denial that makes the comment "Windows 8 is the best operating system ever!" look like criticism. -_-
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
France does have a huge population of immigrants from N. Africa who after escaping their oppressive Third World shitholes, riot and protest in France because they don't like the society they live in or some such non-sense.
It's the same formula - leave oppressive fundamentalist Islamic society for a Western one and then riot because your new country doesn't have oppressive Islamic laws.
And they wonder why they're prejudiced against.
Al EU nations have to abide by an EU directive that requires telecom companies and internet service providers to record and store the meta-data.
Read this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Retention_Directive
The article is worded such that I don't yet understand whether the data was stocked for years (because the directive does impose time limits) or if the program has been going for years which is accurate since the directive was issued in 2006.
Well, duh. Of course they do - this is France, the country that made cryptography illegal until it was pointed out to them that this was destroying their ability to participate in electronic commerce.
This is not unexpected, but each revelation just makes the whole situation seem more and more hilarious. The following scenario is probably playing itself out somewhere right now.
NSA Agent 1: "Sir, we've intercepted a French transmission that I think you should take a look at"
NSA Agent 2: "Why, what does it say?"
(Transcript of translated Transmission reads) "Sir, we've intercepted an American transmission that I think you should take a look at"
Here's their own English Translation, just the graphics are only in the french version.
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2013/07/04/revelations-on-the-french-big-brother_3442665_3224.html
Over the last decade or so , there have been quite a few major riots by N. African Muslims in Western Europe - especially France. Most times it's because they are incapbable of living in a Free Secular Western society - a society that treats women as equals.
For the love of all that is unholy, how the fuck did this go to +2 Insightful?
You'd understand if you weren't so ignorant, provincial and uninformed.
...thanks to aggressive emperialistic aspirations for hundreds of years...
My great grandparents were mistreated themselves and I don't go around rioting over something that happened to some ancient ancestor of mine. I don't think anyone does this so your reason is unjustified.
I suppose that they could had intercepted all the communication i sent to france based search engines, social networks and mail servers, if ever happened that. But as im not in france, not even in europe, odds that it happened are pretty low. In the other hand, in US most if not all central internet services are located there, my communication with other regions of the world usually goes thru there, and even if not, they went actively going against networks and services located other countries. Could be debatable if the government of a country could watch or not on their own people (specially if we talk about real democracies, not self proclaimed ones that just pick between Kang and Kodos every election), but there is no debate about the right of snooping on every people on the planet.
will be the Netherlands. Word got around, today, that the major Dutch telecom providers have been doing exactly the same thing for several years, in a completely illegal setting.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Looks to me like all the major western democracies are engaging in this sort of thing.
The original article seems to indicate that this is actually illegal in France. Interesting. At least they could have passed a secret law and set up a secret court to make it appear better.
Who next to be exposed? Germany? Surely with the all those ex-Ministerium fur Staatssicherheit employees to draw from it would have been easy.
Close your Dailymotion account now... Because, sadly, that's the only online service they can spy on...
Seems like their shit does stink after all. Gotta love that haughty European hypocrisy, and their outrage over American practices. Of course I expect this sort of thing from politicians and the like, but real people are another story. Certainly not all Europeans are like this, but enough to be annoying. I'm as far as you can get from a wrap yourself in the flag and say everything about America is wonderful type, but I do get sick of "you Americans" type posts. It's especially ironic coming from Britons, considering GCHQ practices. Now we know we can add France to the list. I can't wait for the revelations about Germany though, and their vaunted privacy laws. And from the fact is stranger than fiction dept.: it'll turn out that Russia is the least guilty.
P.S. I'm definitely not defending any government's practices, rather I'm say that many practice this snoop up everyone's ass garbage and they should all be condemned.
P.P.S. Thank you Edward Snowden. It seems that you've not only helped the US, but France as well. More countries coming up.
Long before the Chinese were the country in the hotseat for spying, France and Israel were already established professionals in the industrial espionage arena.
Before traveling overseas in the late 80s and early 90s we got lectures about how the French probably had bugs and cameras in our hotel rooms and that they routinely spied on visitors.
Just like the NSA spying shouldn't have been news, but most people act surprised. Seriously, what's the next headline we're going to wake up to? That the Koch family has been funding a vast propaganda network to influence public opinion? That the Chinese have stolen the design of every nuclear warhead in our arsenal? That Pakistan is giving safe harbor to terrorists? Or the FBI was been tipped off and missed both 9/11 and the Boston Marathon bombers?
It's like living in Groundhog Day.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I'm so glad I live in a country that can't afford a massive surveillance program like this. At least I'll be spied on by everyone else.
The financial cost of surveillance has come way down, and continues to drop.
So, you're saying you live in North Korea? ...
We're all curious about exactly what data they have, but it shouldn't take more than a sternly worded letter to get the French government to surrender all the data...
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
BREAKING: Easter Island announces "Hey, we're too insignificant to spy on anyone, domestic or international. Come for the statuery, stay for the liberty."
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Keep in mind that if they're reporting on this they're likely privacy advocates, and privacy advocates tend to have a much more expansive view of what is private then the Courts do.
For example state-side you have the right to not talk to the police, but refusing to talk to police can be considered probable cause to get a warrant. It can also be used as evidence against you during your trial. Every privacy advocate hates this, and when the Supremes recently confirmed it there were terrabytes of counter-arguments on the internet; but that didn't change the law.
I figure there are a few possibilities. The first, and the one that I favor, is that the CIA or NSA is ultimately responsible for this leak about France. If there's one thing the US needs right now it is to spread the blame. To show that other people are doing the same. To some people that will seem like a valid defense.
A second possibility is that Snowden, despite his predicament, inspired a French agent to do the same, except anonymously. I find this only slightly less probable than the first possibility.
And finally there is the possibility that the timing is a complete coincidence. I think it's more likely that the moon is made of cheese, but I suppose it is not impossible.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Every nation on earth that can spy at any given level does exactly that. This is why you have nation states which have the technological means to spy keeping their mouths shut about the whole Snowden affair. This is also why backwaters like Bolivia and Ecuador are quick to condemn and make an uproar about the whole thing.
Those countries that can spy, do, those that can't, don't - but they would if they could. Why do you think Russia bluntly asked Snowden to stop leaking documents if he wanted asylum? In the real world every such country does the same damn thing and the US just happened to be the one to have their Snowden come forward. It could have just as easily happened to any other country and the world states know it. Why do you think Snowden hasn't had anyone actually grant him amnesty when he has what would seem to be a treasure trove of intelligence?
Every frigging country does this now. The Americans care about our privacy, so they don't spy on us (sarcasm). The brits do, and they pass this info right on to the yanks at the NSA. I think every country spies on their own citizens to some degree, be it the US, China, France, Israel, GB, or Japan. As Benjamin Franklin said, "Any country that would give up a little liberty for a little security will gain both and deserve neither." That is what is happening now. *sigh*
Of course french people should be concerned, but it is worth noting that this is not PRISM: There is no access to Gmail mailboxes for instance. And as a proof the scope is much smaller than NSA's spying is the size of the datacenter, which fits in a building inside Paris.
But while we get upset, we should not miss why this is revealed right now, while it was obviously known for some time, with parliamentary reports dealing about it. IMO the goal is to minimize Snowden's leaks so that everyone forget about him, and make sure french people do not pressure their government to grant him asylum. And I bet that will work.
There the Informatique et Libertés law, that gives you the right to access the data about you, and request them to be corrected or deleted. But as TFA says, that program is in the murky waters of national security, and it is not obvious if security prevail over that law or not. I understand we need someone to go to a court to know.
...which is nothing more than the 10,000th iteration of "nothing to see here, move along" buuuuuuuuullshit concern trolling. Yeah, we really all have heard of Echelon, Stasi, Carnivor, the Great Wall of China, COINTELPRO, etc etc. Really.
Wrong is wrong, it doesn't matter who's doing it, or how long it's been around.
Or, because they're tired of putting up with racist bullshit and discrimination from bigots like yourself and the AC who started this thread.
If ever there was a perfect chance to use the "I'm shocked, SHOCKED" meme, it would be here.
Excuse me... Did you just try to cop the Nuremburg Defence on behalf of the NSA?
I'm just saying you need to blame the politicos who are responsible.
Ergo, blame the politicos, not the NSA. Perfect application of the Nuremberg Defence.
I refer you to the Nuremberg Principle IV
There is always a choice not to follow. One could take the courageous example of acting attorney general James Comey, FBI director Robert Mueller and others in the Bush era :-
The road to hell is paved with good intentions
The French are the Americans of Europe. The Americans think they are the entire world, the French think they are the whole of Europe. Nothing new here.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I'm so glad I live in a country that can't afford a massive surveillance program like this.
Are you sure? Even a small country such as Luxembourg can afford to have a (small) intelligence agency, still capable of creating a big mess!
No country is too small to spy, no person is too insignificant to be spied upon!