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Revelations On the French Big Brother
Wrath0fb0b writes "Days after President François Hollande sternly told the United States to stop spying on its allies, the newspaper Le Monde disclosed on Thursday that France has its own large program of data collection, which sweeps up nearly all the data transmissions, including telephone calls, e-mails and social media activity, that come in and out of France. The report notes that 'our email messages, SMS messages, itemized phone bills and connections to FaceBook and Twitter are then stored for years.' For those Slashdot readers that grok Français, you can read the original at Le Monde or the translated version from LM."
Well, you know, spying on you own people and spying on other countries are two different things.
Here in the United States, spying on your own is generally held to be distasteful, and very often illegal. But while we project our own ideas of law on other countries, often they have no such squeamishness about domestic spying.
As to American spying on it's own:
* First the Obama Administration said "Weâ(TM)re not doing this."
* Than they said "Weâ(TM)re doing it to ferret out Terrorists!"
* And now they justify what Snowden and others have revealed by saying "Well, EVERYONE ELSE is doing itâ¦"
As an American, while in an abstract way I care what the French are doing to their people, my opinions are really only applicable to my own country - in other words, as far as NSA spying, what the French are doing is not relevant.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
What is French for "only a fool would be remotely surprised that any technologically advanced nation would be collecting this data"?
Though not quite as interesting as when the article was posted yesterday.
Rob
It's almost as if every country of note is running massive internet surveillance programs, is aware of everybody else's program, and is only using the leaks as an excuse to publicly complain about something everyone knows everyone else is doing.
Nah, that would just be paranoid.
Where we get Espionage from. Seems almost like they invented it, non?
Spy program? I told them we already got one, it's verra nice!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Mon Dieu de la Baguette!!!!!!
At what point do internet standards migrate to encrypted proocalls to try and cut down on some of this shit?
"Sacre bleu. You are trying to unlawfully obtain the data we have rightfully stolen!"
we have concluded that it is time to surrender.
You have nothing to worry about unless you're a 12-year-old girl or a gay 16-year-old emo kid... Or you like 12-year-old girls and gay 16-year-old emo kids.
... what is everyone talking about that is so important for government to know about?
Or is this just a part of a manipulation of the people feedback loop where government controlled media is the other part?
"If you don't like the way we spy on you here,
Move to France."
Private companies have set up their own spying operations. Bloomberg Financial is spying on Goldman Sachs. and Murdoch is running saboteur operations against his competitors. And these same people keep calling to tougher measures against hackers.It is as if the entire international power structure walked out of a Vladimir Voinovich novel. Sigh.
Chapeau! Got to praise the French for defending their language against foreign bytes ...
karma police: arrest this man, he talks in maths; he buzzes like a fridge, he's like a detuned radio. [radiohead]
USA: "All countries, ok, we spy on you, but don't criticize us, you do that too"
France: "Hey, that is unacceptable you must stop"
USA: "Shut up France, we highly recommend you that"
France: "YOU HAVE TO STOP!!! THIS IS UNACCEPTABLE"
USA: "NSA, could you give us some juicy information about France so they don't bitch about it so loud?"
NSA: "Oh yes, here you are."
Firstly why is this new ? This has been known since what , 1990 ? At least France did not pretend the DGSE was not doing it, you know contrary to the NSA. And why in the heck did we have the same dupe on France spying ? Ho wait I know : american web site, American audience, trying to shift blame on the french. Well not even that is new.
The fact that one exists results in the need for at least two. "Green peace" type folks may think that this can be "rioted" out of existance however then, only bad men will have guns. What is better is to advocate more effective and honest control and oversight of the use of these facilities. The key is anti-corruption through civilized morals. Where there is no moral backbone within society then there is no effective ability to even comprehend effective oversight and it quickly the world turns to dog-eat-dog mentality through the use of corruption.
So this is a mostly unilateral war, and you could see the monitoring that could do some other countries mostly as self-defense.
The point is that people from all the world should care about what the US is doing (because affects everyone) while French (and a small fraction of other countries) people should care also about what they government do. Also, I don't see France putting in jail or doing a massive international manhunt for the people working for Le Monde, violating every international treaty and convention doing so, as US is doing (and forcing their allies to do) with Assange and Snowden, we are just past the point of absolute corruption, and seeing the first hints of what is coming in the next years.
From the country that brought us the Cabinet Noir, this is surprising how?
There are plenty of people who are looking to excuse the US, simply because France is doing the same thing. It doesn't matter what France does. If I secretly videotape my neighbor having sex, that's bad. It doesn't matter if her other neighbor is videotaping it too. Then the cops just have two dirtbags to arrest instead of one.
Toutes vos données sont appartiennent à nous!
Mr. Hollande is 'Caught Red Handed.' Will Mr. Hollande resign now that the peoples of France know well that he is a lair and thief and worse.
The espionage technologies of USA, France and UK are acts of crimes against humanity.
But look at Mr. Bon KI Moon! Mr. Snowden showed Mr. Moon that the offices and apartments of Mr. Moon are bugged with video recording and sound devices and his cell phone and office phone and apartment phones are bugged. NSA is watching him anywhere on the planet 23/7/365.
How many children of 2 years old and younger has Mr. Moon invited into his New York City apartment?/ how many excaped?
Well Mr. Moon has, as he would say 'refined tastes in flesh.' Well Mr. Moon is a half-breed like Mr Obama.
What to do against the Monsters
The trick now is to use these technologies against the 'Leaders.'
For instance, Mr. Vice President Biden called the President of Ecuador to persuade against granting asylum to Mr. E. Snowden as the media outlets have written.
What were Mr. Biden's actual words?
The NSA has them!
Now, an FOIA request on the NSA snooped voice record of Mr. J. Biden could yield much intelligence to use against Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden and the elected and unelected government of the USA!
I would urge a flood of FOIA requests on the voice and text communications of all elected and unelected Federal Government employees to commence at great speed and density.
Now that we know who is recording and storing the records we have a means to get them and use them against them.
Think of the unelected government of the USA as a Ant Farm robot. Give the robot the right command and a mountain of gold will be given.
Must be an American. That's all you fucks got at this point is to call others hypocrites. Whatever happened to being better than everyone else? Now you're just average. You talk a good game about your country but you're all fat and lazy.
And I had hoped that by hosting my email at www.gandi.net I would be afforded more protection / privacy. (What with it being within the EU and all.)
Wasn't that a load of crock!
No: no-one promised me more protection. I just assumed it would be safer. ... me.
I guess that assuming made an ass out of me and
France, please remind us how to control your government, we have forgotten.
You show me someone who says their country does not spy on its citizens, and I'll show you a fool. And you show me someone who says their country does not spy on other countries, and I'll show you another fool.
Governments have been spying on their own citizens since the day "governments" were born. And that first government started spying on other governments the day the second one was born nearby.
Does this make it right? No, of course not. Two wrongs, as they say, do not make a right (but three rights make a left). But I'm getting a bit tired of all this "My country is better than yours because it doesn't spy" bullshit. Grow up. Your country spies just like mine does.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
This is a dup, and as I already commented in the other one, there is an intent here. That program is known for some time and the goal is to minimize Snowden's revelations so that everyone forgets him.