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France Broadens Surveillance Powers; Wider Scope Than NSA
krakman writes "With the NSA disclosures, French media was 'outraged'. Yet they appear to be worse than the NSA, with a new law that codifies standard practice and provides for no judicial oversight while allowing electronic surveillance for a broad range of purposes, including 'national security,' the protection of France's 'scientific and economic potential' and prevention of ;terrorism' or 'criminality.' The government argues that the law, passed last week with little debate as part of a routine military spending bill, which takes effect in 2015, does not expand intelligence powers. Rather, officials say, those powers have been in place for years, and the law creates rules where there had been none, notably with regard to real-time location tracking. French intelligence agencies have little experience publicly justifying their practices. Parliamentary oversight did not begin until 2007."
https://freedomboxfoundation.org
Ezekiel 23:20
Now everybody wants what the NSA has, and the next time someone brings up human rights, every dictator will brush off the criticism, and will be JUSTIFIED in doing so.
I'd rather take the chance of mass surveillance being misused
This sort of attitude is why we're rapidly losing freedom and privacy in some areas.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
You know, jackboots feel pretty much the same whether they're European or Muslim. Neither 'side' has a particularly defensible history. The harder question to answer is how effective a surveillance society actually is. Does monitoring every phone call, watching every street corner help you much?
My guess, given the lack of examples the NSA / FBI / CIA have trotted out is that the answer is 'no'. I'd rather take the chance that somebody will 'slip through' rather than live in a police society. Even counting up every terrorist action everywhere, one doesn't create a particularly dangerous environment. If you want to be rational about this, you would first ban cars, alcohol, cigarettes, guns, knives, kitchen utensils and cell phones. They are arguably more dangerous than 'terrorists'.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
They feel much better when I am the one wearing them. That goes for pretty much all footwear, except perhaps stiletto heels.
I would like to die like my grandfather did - sleeping. And not screaming in terror, like his passengers.
This summary displays the European Union flag
As a french citizen, I am getting more and more upset to see the European flag used instead of France's one for stories about France. 10 years ago I was very fond of the EU, but now I realized EU is not a democracy and I am not a EU citizen. It is quite the contrary, as EU project is to destroy democracy.
I wish Slashdot could add a logo for France, even something full of clichés, it will make me more comfortable.
I think what we have learned is that given the opportunity, no country's intelligence/police/security apparatus is truly more ethical than that of other countries. There's a huge difference between cheap, public words spoken by politicians and what's really going on behind the scenes. If they have the technical option, they will collect and spy and monitor whatever they can.
The NSA gets a bad rap, since (a) it has access to most information and thus is most scary and (b) in the US there is the constitution, which at least in principle should curtail certain government activities, giving critics something to use in their fight. In other countries there often aren't the constitutional documents, which aim to codify personal freedoms and liberties in the same way. Therefore, in the US the surveillance opponents at least have a document in their support that they can point at, while the same people in other countries often have no such thing. In that respect, the surveillance debate in the US could be more forceful with at least some ammunition for the opponents. In this regard, other countries aren't that lucky.
However, in the end it's all academic: Surveillance/intelligence agencies will do whatever they damn well feel like doing. Whatever local laws they have will matter little. These are agencies that have secrecy baked into their DNA. They know - for the most part - to keep their activities away from the public and also the politicians for that matter.
Pass whatever laws you want, it won't matter anymore.
If you are referring to the USA, we know we are being watched. It's in the news every day.
SJWs are the new boogeyman. -Me
Non sequitur much? If a substantial portion (something between 30%-50%) of Muslims in France publicly profess that their loyalty to the Ummah is greater than their loyalty to they country they live in, given that French intelligence agencies probably follow the polls, I wouldn't fault them for profiling them out.
Ezekiel 23:20
After the NSA covering the world, whats left? Spying on cows? They must be attacking us farting all the way to global warming.
Are they really outraged? We know the French can get barricades-and-guillotines outraged, or at least their forebearors could.
Or is this more "I shall say snippy things at parties?"
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Christian Jackboot, Canadian Cork boots, Elvis's Blue Suede Shoes, etc, it doesn't really matter what footwear an oppressor wears, it's where he puts it.
Besides that, it's not a chance that 'mass surveillance' will be misused by the government, it's only a matter of when.
If it can be misused for the purposes of furthering political power, it will be, it's always been as simple as that.
Two words, you cheesemonkey: Rainbow Warrior.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
We could start with the entire process of getting on an airplane. Due to my 4th amendment rights, I should be able to board a plane without being searched by a government agent unless there is reasonable suspicion that I'm committing a crime. If the airport's or airline's private security wishes to search me, that's between me and them as private entities.
There's also the 100 mile zone where the Department of Homeland Security claims they don't need warrants for searches.
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2008/10/aclu-assails-10/
Cops are more likely to kill you than terrorists, and apparently only about 20% of that 5-10% go to mosques regularly. That means it's 1-2% of the population are moderately religious, let alone zealots. It's also probably a safe bet that at least 75% of the zealots within that subpopulation are zealots because bigoted asshats like you want to 'send a message' that feeds the persecution complex that breeds the very zealotry that you cower before.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Is Islam a race now?
This isn't about terrorists. Sure, that factors into it, but under this law, the police can now get access to surveillance information. No judicial oversight necessary.
They can do it for economic reasons, which means spying on foreign companies. That might be more advantageous to the average French than counterterrorism.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Don't worry. Knowing the French, they will just use these expanded surveillance powers searching for and punishing users of forbidden "franglais" terms. Violators will be captured by SWAT teams wearing stylish berets and ascots, then locked in solitary confinement to read "The Little Prince" over and over again for as long as it takes until the next time the jailers go on strike.
"95% of all Slashdot
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjbPi00k_ME
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
If say 30 -50% of them profess their loyalty to the pope before the country then do you profile them?
That's not comparable. The "ummah" isn't a person or even an institution, it means "community." What the racist fuck has lost his head over is the equivalent of someone saying he's 'loyal' to his fellow christians no matter what country they live in.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
No. Every french governement since the 4th republic has legally spied on the French public with little/no reaction by the press or public. Pompidou asked Kennedy "How can you control the population whe you do not control the radio or the TV as we do?"
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
Knowing how hard it is to figure out a problem in other people's code I am dubious my own inspection would cough up anything placed there by someone determined to obfuscate it.
This is true, its very difficult and time consuming to read even a modest amount of code.
But add your eyes to mine, and several hundred others, (maybe thousands), and once verified, all you need do is look at changes. Look very carefully at changes.
Its harder to obfuscate code these days, because its harder to easily turn data blocks into code blocks without attracting attention
to the fact that you did so. DEP has found its way into almost every operating system these days.
Still there are ways to use horribly insecure encryption while making it look secure. The hardest code to verify as being secure is precisely the code designed to provide security.
Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Have you ever been an immigrant? Ever seriously talked to one? They left their home country for a reason - as often as not, because they have an oppressive autocracy, theocracy or dictatorship. They tend to love their new country more than their old, and why not? You love France because you were born there by random chance. They love it because they looked at every country in the world, and decided France was the best one to emigrate to.
So immigrants tend to embrace their new culture. Most people who fled Soviet Bloc countries turned into ardent haters of communism - why wouldn't people who fled Muslim theocracies turn out to be pretty ardent haters of Muslim theocracies? They may keep the religion, but in a more moderate, modern form instead of the controlling throwback currently dominant in the Arab region.
And those are first-generation immigrants. What about their children? They'll raise them Muslim, of course, but they'll raise them *French*. They'll be well-educated and (knowing children) liberal. They'll hear the stories about how bad the home country was, and unless their new country does something to disillusion them (like your racist shitspouting) they'll be patriotic for *that* country, not some country they've never been to and hear only bad things about.
Since you call them the "Fifth Column", look at the supposed Japanese "Fifth Column". According to US Army reports from the time, most Japanese immigrants were Americans first, and the concentration camps not only went against the best intelligence, but was outright counterproductive, turning Japanese-Americans against America. And then look up the 442nd Infantry Regiment - Japanese-Americans fighting for America in WW2. With 3800 members, they earned nearly 9500 Purple Hearts (severely wounded or killed in action), 4000 Bronze Stars (acts of heroism or merit in combat) and 21 Medals of Honor (the absolute highest award in the US military). Oh, and they fought many of their battle in France - your country, in a small part, owes its current non-fascist existence to immigrants fighting against allies of their native land on behalf of a country that imprisoned their families for the very logic you support.
If you are an example of the other 90-95% of France, I think your country might be better off if you do let the Muslims take over. I know my fair share of people of that religion, and none of them are as reactionary and racist as you seem to be.
And those are first-generation immigrants. What about their children?
That's actually the interesting question here. First-generation immigrants from Muslim countries in Europe are exactly how you've described above - they tend to appreciate and support the increased freedom of their new society. Their kids, for some mysterious reason, not so much. All the extremist Sharia BS is much more popular among Muslim second- and third-generation immigrant youth than it is among their parents. That's where you get those insane numbers from, like 20% of youth in favor of Islamic law in UK.
Perhaps it is because they don't know how life has actually been where they came from, while on the other hand there's a Saudi-funded and trained Salafi preacher in the nearby mosque who tells them epic stories about heroic mujahideen fighting the forces of Satan. One thing that our free societies aren't particularly good at, is immunizing people against aggressive brainwashing by professionals who know very well which strings to pull.
I honestly don't know why European countries don't put an absolute ban on any travel by Saudi clerics to their territory. That alone would cut forced radicalization of their youth significantly. Better yet, embargo KSA completely, and destroy it by economic means (which, due to the structure of their economy, is very feasible). Not only is that country breeding terrorism in our societies, but their own society is so retrograde and oppressive that it rivals North Korea. Dismantling it is both in our interests, and in the interests of most of their people (other than the ruling elite).
So, there is no actual freedom being lost then when boarding an airplane since you are still free to travel.
Just like freedom of speech isn't being infringed upon if you force people into a free speech zone; they're still allowed to speak, after all! Let's apply this logic to an entire city: If you live in a certain city, you sign away your fourth amendment rights and give the government permission to search you whenever they please. Don't like it? Move. You still have that freedom, so it's okay!
The searches for boarding an airplane go back about 40-50 years.
That's utterly irrelevant, and the TSA wasn't molesting people 40-50 years ago.
They are completely legal and don't infringe on your 4th amendment rights.
If you need a court to tell you how to think, then you're nothing more than a mindless drone. It's sad how people in a country that was founded on a distrust of government put so much trust in the government and even allow it to control how they think.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
So immigrants tend to embrace their new culture. Most people who fled Soviet Bloc countries turned into ardent haters of communism - why wouldn't people who fled Muslim theocracies turn out to be pretty ardent haters of Muslim theocracies? They may keep the religion, but in a more moderate, modern form instead of the controlling throwback currently dominant in the Arab region.
And those are first-generation immigrants. What about their children? They'll raise them Muslim, of course, but they'll raise them *French*. They'll be well-educated and (knowing children) liberal. They'll hear the stories about how bad the home country was, and unless their new country does something to disillusion them (like your racist shitspouting) they'll be patriotic for *that* country, not some country they've never been to and hear only bad things about.
Immigrants embrace the new culture when they have to, which isn't the case anymore, since they're more than enough to build their own communities. You can live in France without speaking french, without eating french food, without dressing like french people, without knowing french history or any part of french culture, and then wonder why you can't blend with french people. Muslims are also actively pushing for their religion into the public life, in a country where religion is becoming more and more a private thing. And for their children it's even worse, they won't have any chance to try to integrate because their parents already put them outside french society, and if their parents can't teach them proper french, they'll struggle in school, pushing them further away. And you end up with african flags used instead of french flags when celebrating, among other things, which isn't really patriotic (well it is, but not for France).
Without calling them a fifth column, you'd have to be deluded to believe the muslims are well integrated in France. It's not their fault though, problem lies with the immigration policy which allowed too many people in without caring about their insertion into french society which is very different from the one they came from.
Are you complaining about such a system or just jealous?
In the defense of French secret services -- they were only collecting the MIME-TYPES of the messages. For instance, you Mime might be caught in an invisible box, or being swept away by an invisible wind. Find out the type of mime, makes a big difference but doesn't involve personal information.
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