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."

Comments

I'm not French

[Frosty Piss]

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.

Re:I'm not French

[phayes]

Completely ridiculous. French politicians are soo afraid of the public that they voted global amnesty laws forgiving the whole lot of themselves for the corruption they used to finance their political parties -- without having most of them get voted out of office in the subsequent elections.

French politicians have coined phrases like "I was responsible for the deaths of hundreds in continuing to use contaminated blood, but I'm not guily of breaking any laws".

Only the ignorant believe that politics in France is any different than anywhere else.

Re:I'm not French

[icebike]

s 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.

When the French spy on US citizens and feed it to the NSA, how is that different, or some how not relevant? I'm sure the NSA returns the favor. Each side claiming they are protecting their citizens from the Rest of the World.

Perhaps we as Americans, still clinging desperately to tatters of our Constitution, which, in our hearts, we know is already a joke, have a harder time than the rest of the world getting our head around one single question:
          Where did this entire Idea that Governments were authorized to spy on its citizens come from?

Perhaps the German, the French and the Russian never even thought to ask that question, having never had a time in their memory (if not their entire history) where they were ever free of such government snooping, because Government was always a Right excersized over citizens, and citizens were never in control of government.