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French Version of 'Patriot Act' Becomes Law
Taco Cowboy writes: Thanks to the Charlie Hebdo massacre and other instances of terrorism, the French legislature has voted 438 to 86 in favor of the "Intelligence Service Bill," essentially a French version of the Patriot Act. It awards the French intelligence services sweeping powers to tap and intercept any kind of digital correspondence, including phone conversations, emails, and social media.
The bill decrees that hosting providers and Internet service providers in France must be equipped with a "black box" that can retain all digital communications from customers. "The new law would create a 13-member National Commission to Control Intelligence Techniques, which would be made up of six magistrates from the Council of State and the Court of Appeals, three representatives of the National Assembly, three senators from the upper house of Parliament and a technical expert. ... The only judicial oversight is a provision that allows the commission to lodge a complaint with the Council of State, but lawyers are doubtful that it could be convened on a routine basis." We previously discussed news that ISPs may leave France in protest if the bill was passed. Now we'll know shortly if those ISPs will live up to their word.
The bill decrees that hosting providers and Internet service providers in France must be equipped with a "black box" that can retain all digital communications from customers. "The new law would create a 13-member National Commission to Control Intelligence Techniques, which would be made up of six magistrates from the Council of State and the Court of Appeals, three representatives of the National Assembly, three senators from the upper house of Parliament and a technical expert. ... The only judicial oversight is a provision that allows the commission to lodge a complaint with the Council of State, but lawyers are doubtful that it could be convened on a routine basis." We previously discussed news that ISPs may leave France in protest if the bill was passed. Now we'll know shortly if those ISPs will live up to their word.
Now it seems France will learn the hard way as well that giving up freedom never buys you safety.
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
Only the National Assembly has voted; the bill must also pass the Senate. That said, given the multipartite consensus on it, there's not much chance that the Senate won't pass it.
You never know, though: given that the Senate is often deemed useless (in France, the Assembly has priority), sometimes it attempts to actually work on the bills, debate in more depth.
Also, the bill has been submitted to the Constitutional Council (which is unusual, before it's voted on). They too can veto it. We'll see.
Thinking about all those people that fought in the world wars for our freedom. I wonder if they would have fought if they knew their children would piss every freedom they fought for away in a generation.
"Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." - John F. Kennedy
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
That's the price all of us have to pay when we, the majority, cannot and/or dare not to, control the action of the few
No matter if it's USA or France of Belgium or the Netherlands or Germany, as long as our society can not (and/or dare not to) confront those Islamists and get them to ditch their barbaric behavior, all of us will suffer
Yes, governments are trying to get more control over you and intelligence agencies are wanting more powers because of actions of few Islamists.
I will never stop being amazed at human naivety.
Because the USA is also very religious. Faith and beliefs motivate good people to do bad things.
Thank you, Bradley Manning, Edward Snowden and so many others, for courageously defending humanity, my freedom and more!
Yet more accurately: faith is the very essence of 'not being able to realize when you're wrong'. Faith is about stopping yourself from questionning your beliefs. Nothing could be more antethical to the pursuit of truth and good.
Good, bad, whatever you're doing, if you can pause and ask yourself whether what you're doing is good or bad then you're already far above the basic zealots who won't pause nor ask themselves. And by zealot, I also mean the ordinary everyday-man, the Eichmann-sort that have faith in public/democratic authority figures, be they secular or religious.
You might want to review the Stanford Prison experiment. Giving someone power over other people and little accountability DOES turn people into bullies.
Maybe we deserve this world ?
hell, name ANY religion that has changed even one bit since its creation.
I'm going to ignore the rest of your post (sorry, not jumping into THAT quagmire) and nitpick the above. The answer is "pretty much all of them." In fact, it's especially odd that you said this in a post about islam, which claims that their god is the same god ("of abraham and isaac") worshiped by both the christians and the jews. If that's not enough example of a change for you, when's the last time you saw a bunch of orthodox jews sacrifice an animal to yahweh? I won't even go into the changes that roman catholicism has seen over the last two millennia, but suffice to say that the current pope would probably be burned for heresy by his predecessors of just a century or two ago.
Religions, like everything, change over time. Changes can be small, or large, but they're always there.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?