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France To Open Preliminary Investigation About PRISM Program
An anonymous reader writes "Paris' prosecutor office opened a preliminary investigation after a complaint by two human rights associations who hope to determine the roles played by companies in the PRISM program. Two million communications (phone calls, SMS and mails) are said to have been intercepted in France by U.S. agencies."
Isn't this just for show, or getting some benefits from the USA? I'm under the impression that a lot of earopean members are already using intel from prism and in exchange the USA gets access to the network. The only shocking thing is that they also listen in on political and businesss conversations.
They won't actually do anything about it. No one ever does anymore. It's not just the States either.
Sadly, people are the same everywhere. And this new trend to just lay down and take it has become almost universal. Once a nation becomes industrialized enough and people have enough comfort they will never fight back for fear of losing that comfort. It's really the best way to enslave humans. Just let their own natural lethargy keep them in check. Sure there will be chest beating and spin doctors will cry outrage... but in the end, the people will just go home, turn on the tube and tune out the life they have.
They won't actually do anything about it. No one ever does anymore. It's not just the States either.
Sadly, people are the same everywhere. And this new trend to just lay down and take it has become almost universal. Once a nation becomes industrialized enough and people have enough comfort they will never fight back for fear of losing that comfort. It's really the best way to enslave humans. Just let their own natural lethargy keep them in check. Sure there will be chest beating and spin doctors will cry outrage... but in the end, the people will just go home, turn on the tube and tune out the life they have.
So this is your excuse for not doing anything?
Be seeing you...
And this is different from the whole world history... how? Yes, most people are complacent with order of things - be it current governments, Middle Age absolute monarchy or, say, bloody Aztec theocracy. Still, history teaches us that there is no need for the "masses" to be upset about anything for changes to come. On the contrary, mass starvation and poverty can lead to mass riots, even change ruling dynasty, but almost never to some radical changes in the country's ruling system.
For the real changes to come there must be a small percentage of unhappy "elite", like bourgeois in France or "intelligentsya / intellectuals" in Russia. Then they can lead masses to the revolution that will bring real changes. Problem is, our current elites are trying to use and even exploit existing systems of government, instead of trying to change it completely. So, yes, we won't have any real revolutionary changes in the foreseeable future, but not because of the "tubes". It's because everybody with the real power (even "middle class") are really happy with the current state of things.
Absence of proof != proof of absence.
France constantly ranks up near the top in nations where the State facilitates or actively participates in corporate espionage.
They were one of the first countries to pass a "key disclosure law", allowing law enforcement to demand people decrypt data.
Encryption in France has always been tightly controlled and even today it is permitted only for authentication and integrity. Confidentiality is essentially at the whim of the gov't.
France ranks right up there with China as far as many U.S. gov't agencies are concerned when it comes to "make sure the cloud data doesn't ever transit there".
They're just jealous and are looking for tips.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
I've got a record from protesting. I've got a file from the letters, phone calls, meetings, and statements I've made. I've enjoyed many phone taps and calls to my friends and family from "concerned" authorities over the years.
How about you? What's your excuse for not getting off your fat ass?
Sadly it's not terribly different. And I'd have to say that the "elite" are not really the key. It's getting a large enough group to agree to take a risk that will cause a tipping in the population. We go through glorious stages where this happens, revolt in Rome, civil wars, revolutions... in recent times the fight to win union rights cost a lot of people in the US limbs, lives, income and that comfort.
But it's very difficult to get people to risk that comfort now. It's nearly impossible actually. A paranoid person may think that it's designed that way to keep it all on the side of those in power. Hell, even the unhappy elite as you point out are not unhappy enough anymore to take that risk. They've been given too comfortable a leash.
If just one group in the USA said NO tomorrow and stopped working you could cripple the entire country in under two weeks. If just all the sales people, or all the nurses, or all the IT support staff... I'll give you an ideal group: Semi-truck drivers. There are less than 100k. And if they stopped driving and took their distributor caps when they went home there would be no food, water, gas, heat, or power in the entire US in about two weeks. I'd imagine if they had a list of just 10 reasonable demands those would be met in no time. If they were willing to risk it.
But... they'd get the phone calls to tell them go back to work or I'm sharing your online history with your wife. Or one of them would have their money frozen over a dodgy tax return and he'd post it on FB. And then the rest would cave because they would not want to risk it.
We've been trained to believe that individual comfort in the short term is more valuable than anything else. And we're unwilling to risk it to find out if the altruistic idyllic fantasy could become real. This is directly opposite of previous groups who did affect change.