French Man Sentenced To Two Years In Prison For Visiting Pro-ISIS Websites (theverge.com)

According to French media, a court in the department of Ardeche on Tuesday sentenced a 32-year-old man in France to two years in prison for repeatedly visiting pro-ISIS websites -- even though there was no indication he planned to stage a terrorist attack. Police raided his house and found the man's browsing history. They also found pro-ISIS images and execution videos on his phone, personal computer, and a USB stick, an ISIS flag wallpaper on his computer, and a computer password that was "13novembrehaha," referencing the Paris terrorist attacks that left 130 people dead. Slashdot reader future guy shares with us an excerpt from The Verge's report: In court, the man argued that he visited the sites out of curiosity. "I wanted to tell the difference between real Islam and the false Islam, now I understand," he said, according to FranceBleu. But the man reportedly admitted to not reading other news sites or international press, and family members told the court that his behavior had recently changed. He became irritated when discussing religion, they said, and began sporting a long beard with harem pants. A representative from the Ardeche court confirmed to The Verge that there was no indication that the man had any plans to launch an attack. In addition to the two-year prison sentence, he will have to pay a 30,000 euros (roughly $32,000) fine.

Comments

Thoughtcrime

[mspohr]

Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so long as he remained within the field of vision which the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well as heard. There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork.

—Part I, Chapter I, Nineteen Eighty-Four

Re:Thoughtcrime

[Anonymous Coward]

And yet another country loses to terrorism and fearmongering. What a shame. I've been to France before, it used to be a nice place.

Re:Thoughtcrime

[Anonymous Coward]

Frankly, possessing that shouldn't be illegal either. Making it, committing child abuse, yes, those should be illegal, but just having files on your computer should never be a crime. Murder is illegal, but videos of people getting murdered are perfectly okay.

Re:Thoughtcrime

[PopeRatzo]

You stupid sack of shit, if the demand for child porn is destroyed, there will be no incentive for child
porn to be made, and thus no children will be victimized by being used to make child porn.

Look how well that worked out for drugs.

Locking people up for small amounts of marijuana sure destroyed demand for marijuana oh wait...

Re:Thoughtcrime

[Capsaicin]

1984 was made about a Collectivist (Leftist) dystopia.

That's both an oversimplification and a not uncommon misunderstanding of the text. A misunderstanding which reading the book will occasionally (but apparently not invariably) clear up.

As the text explains via the device of Emanuel Goldstein's inserted Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism --which is left deliberately ambiguous to the reader as to whether it is a genuine text of a genuine dissident or rather a work of the Party describing itself with dark irony --Ingsoc "rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does so in the name of Socialism" (doublethink)!

1984 should be read in light especially of Orwell's essay The Lion and the Unicorn in which Orwell sketched out what a distinctly English Socialism (as against the prevailing internationalism of the time) ought to look like. 1984 represents the exact opposite, a totalitarian state neither actually Socialist nor English. A state whose sole purpose had become the exercise of power for its own sake. To label it Leftist or Anti-Leftist, or even Fascist is entirely to miss the point of the work. [There is also the implied accusation that the Soviet Union has rejected and vilified every Socialist principle, of course, remember Orwell fought with the Trotsyist POUM in the Spanish Civil War.]

The present situation is however to be distinguished from that describe in Orwell's dystopia on the basis that the sentence has been handed down by a court, duly according to a Law itself duly enacted by the French Parliament. A Leitmotif of 1984 is that Big Brother represents a state entirely unburdened by Law. Orwell is explicit: not only is there no Law in 1984, there is nothing even resembling it, not even a simulacrum of Law such as Stalin's show trials.

That being said, and the real dangers posed by Islamism notwithstanding, it might reasonable be argued that we as a voting public ought to guard ourselves against laws which criminalise mere browsing. While it may be seductive to think that punishing those who frequent obviously nefarious sites such as Islamist or anti-feminist ;p websites, there may come a time when our own browsing habits will not be appreciated by those upon whom we choose to bestow power.

Re:Thoughtcrime

[ShanghaiBill]

thus no children will be victimized by being used to make child porn.

Banning it makes this problem worse. If child porn was legalized and regulated, it could be made with cgi animation, adult actors posing as children, etc. There is no evidence that viewing child porn causes the consumer to commit more child abuse, and some evidence that it is preventative. In Japan, pedophiles can buy child-sized sex dolls, and although data is limited, it appears that this reduces their desire for real children by providing an alternative release.

Our treatment of pedophiles is based on knee-jerk populism, not scientific evidence. We often punish pedophiles just for seeking psychological help. It would be harder to design a dumber system even if we tried. We really should think of the children.

Re:Thoughtcrime

[Joce640k]

That totally applies in the USA as well.

Please tell us how you'd go about getting off the "no-fly" list, and how people get on it in the first place.

Well

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, if he didn't want to blow things up, this will change his mind quick.

Well that's terrifying

[Hadlock]

For two reasons:
 
1) no valid crime (in my opinion) was committed
2) it's a two year sentence, besides pissing off a bunch of people, what purpose does this serve?
 
You can't change a person's ideologies by imprisoning them, not without brainwashing them. This seems like the wrong way to address these problems. Imprisoning and fining people for their thoughts and beliefs is likely to cause more people to think this way, rather than deter it.

Re:Well that's terrifying

[Anonymous Coward]

2) it's a two year sentence, besides pissing off a bunch of people, what purpose does this serve?

Telling every citizen that Big Brother is watching them, and that if they know what's good for them they'd better be careful to only read from government-approved news sources, and fap to Church-approved pr0n.

And giving Trump/Pompeo/Sessions/Pence a legislative proposal to one-up Theresa May's snooper's charter by this time next year.

Re:Well that's terrifying

[TheGratefulNet]

if he was not a terrorist before, he certainly WILL BE, once they let him out.

nice job, frenchies. smart. real smart.

we have to go back to calling you surrender-monkeys again. sigh...

Re:Well that's terrifying

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

You can't change a person's ideologies by imprisoning them

Yes you can. Just you watch how that man thinks when he gets out in two years.

Re:Well that's terrifying

[Capsaicin]

1) no valid crime (in my opinion) was committed

1) On what basis do you argue that Article 421-2-5-2 was not duly enacted as a valid law of France?

2) On what basis do you claim your entitlement to an opinion on a matter of French constitutional law?

Re:Well that's terrifying

[h33t l4x0r]

nice job, frenchies. smart. real smart.

The US has thrown people in Gitmo for nothing more than wearing a Casio watch.

Disturbing, but practical

[Anonymous Coward]

If you see mosquito larvae infesting a pond, do you kill the larvae or do you wait until they grow into mosquitoes and bite you before swatting them?
If you see a smoldering ember in a tinder-dry forest, do you stamp it out before it destroys homes, or do you wait to see which way the wind blows?
If you see someone falling into mental illness, do you treat them early or do you wait until the illness has gripped them and who knows what happens?

It is a very interesting ethical question that this poses. If the guy's family noticed changes, if the guy admits he wasn't consuming any other media other than pro-jihadist propaganda, and if the guy showed outward signals of becoming fundamentalist, wouldn't you act now rather than wait for him to become a major problem?

Re:Disturbing, but practical

[aXis100]

Do you think that 2 years jail when no crime has actually been committed is appropriate though?

Sure, target him for treatment, counselling and intervention programs, but the actions taken seem like a really slippery slope to though crime.

Re:Disturbing, but practical

[mark-t]

Regardless of how fundamentalist he might have been becoming, there was no indication that he would have ever committed an actual crime. This is like arresting someone for drunk driving when all they have done is gotten drunk, and you never even gave the guy a chance to call a cab or friend to pick him up

Re:Disturbing, but practical

[richardellisjr]

He's not a mosquito, he's not a smoldering ember, he's likely not even a mentally ill person. Imprisoning anyone for researching alternative viewpoints (even if you believe to be evil) is wrong and you don't punish people for it. This man did nothing other than basically research and as far as anyone can tell had no plans to do anything further.
In my 20s I downloaded a copy of the big book of mischief. I never tried to make anything from the book, probably good I didn't or I might not be here now, however by the logic that convicted this guy I could have faced years in prison... for curiosity.
No matter which way you cut it this is wrong.

Stupid move

[manu0601]

The smart way of dealing with this is to monitor the suspect.

Now he will have a good time completing his training in prison, where he will be in touch with real specialists

Harem Pants?

[drinkypoo]

Well, it's a good thing he was stopped before he could release a low-grade hip-hop album...

Re:I peruse iffy websites all the time

[PopeRatzo]

Sometimes it take a day or three. It doesn't mean I agree with the website, it means I'm intrigued by something, or "aw hell no" by something.

I think the problem was the harem pants. They offended the French sense of fashion. If he had just gone with the beard and maybe a man-bun, he'd have been on the cover of French Vogue.

I imagine some wannabe jihadi in MC Hammer pants singing "Can't Touch This" in arabic. Don't look at me like that. It's how I deal with the world.

Random observation

[buss_error]

A few years ago I went through TSA with my laptop. Naturally they wanted to search it. No problem. I thought.

I'd forgotten that at the time, my documents directory auto synced whenever I logged into my network at home. At the time, I was writing a fiction story.

All kinds of excitement occurred.

Now I keep all my stuff in the cloud outside of "five eyes" treaty partners and any time I think I might have an "interaction" with LEO, I mercine wipe my drive and install fresh. I still get harassed because obviously I "must be a terrorist" because I don't use windows. Solution; Small windows boot partition by default and some random porn files. (If they don't find anything, they just keep looking. So I give them a little something obvious to keep them off my back.)

When did we start being more afraid of our own government than of terrorist? The world has gone crazy except for you and me, I'm slowly slipping away and I was never too sure about you.

It's either this or Nazis ... pick your poison

[Pinky's Brain]

The natives won't accept a Nice every couple of months.

So either the security services prevent it from happening by any means possible, or the natives will do so through ethnic cleansing.