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French Bill Carries 5-Year Jail Sentence For Company Refusals To Decrypt Data For Police (dailydot.com)
Patrick O'Neill writes: Employees of companies in France that refuse to decrypt data for police can go to prison for five years under new legislation from conservative legislators, Agence France-Presse reports. The punishment for refusing to hand over access to encrypted data is a five year jail sentence and $380,000 fine. Telecom companies would face their own penalties, including up to two years in jail. M. Pierre Lellouche, a French Republican, singled out American encryption in particular. "They deliberately use the argument of public freedoms to make money knowing full well that the encryption used to drug traffickers, to serious [criminals] and especially to terrorists. It is unacceptable that the state loses any control over encryption and, in fact, be the subject of manipulation by U.S. multinationals."
Well the primary problem with this is how are they going to put a company in prison for two years?
If they want access to encrypted data, just give it to them. If they need it decrypted, that's their problem.
Who exactly goes to jail? The CEO? The CTO? The employees who supposedly know how to decrypt the data? How do you establish who has that ability? Suppose no one has that ability. Suppose the devices are designed so only the end user can decrypt the data. Do you jail the engineers who designed such devices? Do you jail the retailers who sold such devices? How does this work? How does the government prove a specific employee at a company has the ability to decrypt the data, or in the alternative, how do they prove which individual was responsible for creating a situation where the data can't be decrypted?
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
It is unacceptable that the state loses any control over encryption
if you have such a hard-on for total control, you should NOT be part of any government.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I would hope that corporations faced with these unreasonable demands simply close up shop in the country. Google CEO going to go to jail? Well, Google pulls out of France and has no presence. Good luck French people with your search queries. If a corporation caves to one country then it will just embolden then next country. Better to draw a line in the sand and tell them to fuck off.
Shh.
Outlaw encryption entirely.
Although that is obviously an exaggerated statement of the ridiculousness of the current situation we're in, I'm afraid it might turn into reality soon. There will be audacious attempts at banning encryption, and they will be laughed out. Soon after this they'll "compromise" with government-mandated backdoors in most-used consumer products. Then we'll, of course, be wondering how the hell did we end up there.
We live dangerous times, people. Keep a tight grip of your privacy and take a moral stance against government control.
-SR
here's the funny thing, he was the Ambassador to France from 1776 to 1785 and he couldn't talk any sense into them.
Ummm, that's not quite true. He did persuade them to help the Americans in their Revolution. Without that French help, we might be under the British encryption laws right now, which aren't really much better than the proposed French law!
If I can be modded down for being a troll, can I be modded up for being an orc, or a balrog?
They deliberately use the argument of public freedoms to make money knowing full well that the encryption used to drug traffickers, to serious [criminals] and especially to terrorists.
The same argument applies to cars, guns, knives, shoes... all used by drug traffickers, criminals, and terrorists. Knife companies should be required to install a failsafe so that the blades can be remotely deactivated at the government's request.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Without strong encryption in the hands of the people, criminals will be able to rob people blind, crack their bank accounts, use their credit cards.....
Governments need to get it through their head that there is no electronic lock that can keep criminals out if the Government can get in.
Please, do not put all my fellowmen(and women) in the same basket. The quote comes from "a French Republican" not from a reasonable person!
"Les Republicains" are known to have a ridiculous police state slant. Because of them we did not have the equivalent of Miranda rights until recently. I am not sure that prosecution has to share police reports and investigative reports to the defense lawyer. And remember that in France, the defense can not really conduct its own investigation.
It is unacceptable that the state loses any control over encryption
News flash - the state hasn't had control of encryption for decades. Even the US classifying encryption as a munition didn't do it.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Companies should ensure all software sold to the French government have backdoors or have encryption weak enough to be useless, which uh would mean the French government wouldn't want to buy their software!?
The above is trying to illustrate a contradictory scenario that in many ways may happen if companies try to follow the French law. Sure in the case of phones and communication it is intended at non-government parties, but where does that line cross?
The other issue as we have recently seen is that enties of national interest will just use their own tools and the result will be a law that only hurts "law abiding" citizens.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
This is not a signed law, this is a proposal, from opposition. And even if it passes, it also need to pass in the senate.
While this is alarming about the state of our legislators' technical knowledge, note that this is only a proposal by people that lack the voting power to make this become an actual law.
But I pretty much like the other comments stating that "if you want access to encrypted data, there, you get all the encrypted data you want". It might be a good idea to coin this idea to other members of parliament to see if they can change the wording to that.
Public freedoms are no longer permitted.
I think they're only saying that the public has no right to achieve privacy when their owners, errr, the government is concerned.
And really, if you had a herd of cattle holding secret meetings you'd want to know what's up too. They're probably not talking about how great your hay is.
And besides, the public agrees
Who else would provide the hay?
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
So I'll be the asshole who states the obvious...
So let's pretend all companies, everywhere, comply with decryption requests. What do you think happens next?
It doesn't take rocket science to realize that the next step...the very next step..is for the "bad guys" to go off and roll their own encryption, based on very well known standards.. And then..you're right back where you started.
So, to the organizations who are fighting this, I say; let it happen. You have virtually nothing to loose. And, next week, when you are asked to decrypt something that you don't have any ability to, you can justifiably laugh in their fucking faces for being so fucking worthless.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Breyer's view on international standards for US law is considered a fringe view.
If you accurately represented his opinion, it would indeed be shocking.
Since you didn't, it is called a "straw man."
There is nothing at all fringe about the idea that European law is connected to American law; indeed, English Common Law was adopted from the start. The earliest legal document that gets cited in US law is the Magna Carta; look it up if you think that was an American document. ;) The reality is that the Constitution bans "cruel and unusual" punishment, which is and always was based on the current culture. It is perfectly reasonable to look to what is considered "cruel" and "unusual" by our formal allies, especially those ones who share certain parts of common law with us. If you read the Declaration of Independence, you know that the Framers of the Constitution did indeed care about European recognition of the United States as being a valid legal entity.
You extract his position on a specific and detailed debate, and convert it to a poorly generalized argument that is easily attacked. That is one floppy straw man.
Maybe someday you'll care about the things you choose to talk about enough to actually read his book for yourself.
Look, I know this is slashdot, so what I'm proposing may seem radical, but RTFA.
This is an amendment proposed by "Les Republicans", the opposition party, and will be rejected by the majority socialist group in the assembly. The government is against this amendment.
Who is the fool who should be fucked?
If you accurately represented his opinion, it would indeed be shocking.
Since you didn't, it is called a "straw man."
Actually, while GP is being a bit hyperbolic, I think the argument would more accurately be called a "slippery slope" type, rather than a straw man. GP may overestimate how far Breyer is willing to go, but your post underestimates the radical shift in judicial philosophy that is occurring.
There is nothing at all fringe about the idea that European law is connected to American law; indeed, English Common Law was adopted from the start. The earliest legal document that gets cited in US law is the Magna Carta; look it up if you think that was an American document. ;)
And it is you who seemingly misunderstands the issue here. Yes, English Common Law was adopted because it was already in practice. The very definition of Common Law is that matters beyond the written Constitution are frequently resolved by citing relevant court precedent (which is often important, since the law never covers all cases explicitly).
The early US really had no choice here if they wanted to retain a Common Law system. Previously, the Colonies had been governed by English Common Law, and lawyers here had been trained in that system and would cite those cases as precedent (which were themselves often built on English cases). To simply erase all of that history after the US declared independence would be to put a huge amount of cases in legal "limbo" where judges could effectively rule whatever they wanted to with no governing precedent.
So, the citation of earlier English law was required to maintain continuity in the early US. And the very concept of Common Law allows citation of predecessors, whether native law or not. Thus, the Magna Carta may be one of the earliest legal documents that gets cited (and not as often as most legislators seem to think -- there are only one or two concepts there that still have direct import on modern law, and contrary to what you imply, that document is NOT directly binding on US law; it's mostly relevant in the precedents it has created). But English law derived some concepts in turn from medieval French law. And medieval French law in turn inherited concepts from ancient Roman law.
And there are still legal concepts dating back to Roman law which get cited in cases, if not actual documents.
The point is that these are all HISTORICAL citations from systems that are the DIRECT ANCESTORS of our own legal system. That's basically how Common Law works in finding previous precedent and concepts codified in previous rulings.
The reality is that the Constitution bans "cruel and unusual" punishment, which is and always was based on the current culture.
Yes, and the notion is traditionally based on COMMUNITY standards. This goes for a number of legal issues, such as the idea of pornography/obscenity, where we think of Justice Potter Stewart's classic line, "I know it when I see it."
In the case of pornography and "cruel punishment," standards do change, but in previous law the idea was to look at COMMUNITY standards, whether local or for the nation as a whole. Citation of other countries' ideas would generally be confined to historical precedents.
It is perfectly reasonable to look to what is considered "cruel" and "unusual" by our formal allies, especially those ones who share certain parts of common law with us.
I agree it's "perfectly reasonable." But it isn't standard practice in US law (or rather, it hasn't generally been, until it started in recent years). The much more common citation of Common Law in other countries would be to look at historical cases dating before the US. The other time courts would occasionally look to other nations would be to resolve a NOVEL issue for which precedent did not exist yet in the US.
That's an entirely different