France, Up In Arms Over NSA Spying, Passes New Surveillance Law

An anonymous reader writes: French President Francois Hollande held an emergency meeting with top security officials to respond to WikiLeaks documents that say the NSA eavesdropped on French presidents. The documents published in Liberation and investigative website Mediapart include material that appeared to capture current president, François Hollande; the prime minister in 2012, Jean-Marc Ayrault; and former presidents Nicolas Sarkozy and Jacques Chirac, talking candidly about Greece's economy and relations with Germany. The Intercept reports: "Yet also today, the lower house of France's legislature, the National Assembly, passed a sweeping surveillance law. The law provides a new framework for the country's intelligence agencies to expand their surveillance activities. Opponents of the law were quick to mock the government for vigorously protesting being surveilled by one of the country's closest allies while passing a law that gives its own intelligence services vast powers with what its opponents regard as little oversight. But for those who support the new law, the new revelations of NSA spying showed the urgent need to update the tools available to France's spies."

Comments

You don't get it

[aepervius]

"Opponents of the law were quick to mock the government for vigorously protesting being surveilled by one of the country's closest allies while passing a law that gives its own intelligence services vast powers with what its opponents regard as little oversight." that is because in the spy game, everybody spy as much the other as they can. there is with almost certainty french spy right at this moment trying to intercept Obama's conversation. But getting caught, be it red handed or by a leak is a no-no - the biggest sin - as the government HAVE to pretend they are angry , etc... It is all theater for the plebe, while the spy and counter intelligence on both side sigh and go on as usual , maybe tightening their protocol. The bottom line is : this will change nothing in US - France relationship, it will just force US politician to be a bit contrite for a few days (maybe - if even), French politician to be angry for a few week, and then wait that the media move onto the next story and forget it all. And the shadow game then continue.

Re:Everybody should be pissed at NSA by now ...

[davester666]

These are always the best laws...enacted right after an 'emergency', with no debate. Helpfully, the law was pre-drafted and just in a filing cabinet waiting for the right circumstance to pass it.

Of course, I'm not exactly sure how this helps with the 'emergency', that the NSA was spying on the French gov't. I guess the emergency for the gov't was that they finally realized that the NSA knew more about everyone in France than the French Secret Service does. The new legislation should even it up, by greatly increasing their ability to spy on their own largely law-abiding citizens.

Problem solved! This calls for a round of embezzling.

Freedom

[jargonburn]

You're doing it wrong.

Those who shed their blood for freedom

[Taco Cowboy]

I have nothing but utmost respect for those who shed their blood for freedom, unfortunately human history is such that those who died for the cause almost always died in vain

Not because they didn't win the battle - they did

But because whatever victory they have achieved would, one way or another, be completely eroded by politicians

No matter which culture - no matter which era

No matter if the battle took place 2000 years ago or 2000 years in the future, politicians will always be the ultimate victor