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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.
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/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
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
France does have some pretty hardcore racists, the National Front party is quite popular. The rioters however are usually second or third generation who complain they aren't being given equal opportunities in employment or education. How true this is I don't know, but having lived in France for quite a while I'd say it's entirely possible.
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
From what I've seen France really sucks at integrating immigrants. the only French pol I can name with non-French ancestry would be Sarkozy, and Sarko's family has been in the country for roughly a century.
In the US he'd be an old-line blueblood. In France the National Front thought he was un-French.
Europe as a whole seems to suck at integrating immigrants. Which is unfortunate, because basically the entire point of the EU is to allow random Romanians to get jobs in London.