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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/05/france-passes-new-surveillance-law-in-wake-of-charlie-hebdo-attack http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/05/fra

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/05/france-passes-new-surveillance-law-in-wake-of-charlie-hebdo-attack http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/05/france-passes-n... > The new bill, which allows intelligence agencies to tap phones and emails without seeking permission from a judge, sparked protests from rights groups who claimed it would legalise highly intrusive surveillance methods without guarantees for individual freedom and privacy. https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/07/france-new-surveillance-law-a-major-blow-to-human-rights/ https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2015/07/france-new-su... > The surveillance measures authorized by this law are wildly out of proportion. Large swathes of France’s population could soon find themselves under surveillance on obscure grounds and without prior judicial approval. http://www.nytimes.com/live/paris-attacks-live-updates/turkey-warned-french-twice-about-attacker-official-says/ http://www.nytimes.com/live/paris-attacks-live-updates/turke... > The Turkish authorities warned their French counterparts twice in the past year about one of the attackers, Ismaël Omar Mostefaï, a 29-year-old French citizen who was known by the authorities as someone who had radical Islamist beliefs, an official said on Monday. > The official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, in line with government protocol, said the government never heard back from France and only received an “information request” about Mr. Mostefaï after the Paris attacks. http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/16/paris-attacks-france-airstrikes-isis-raqqa-syria-live#block-5649aeb0e4b0ced428cb2be8 http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/nov/16/paris-atta... > During an investigation, the Turkish authorities identified Mostefai and notified their French counterparts twice – in December 2014 and June 2015 – the official said. > “We have, however, not heard back from France on the matter,” the official said. “It was only after the Paris attacks that the Turkish authorities received an information request about Omar Ismail Mostefai from France.” I'm just going to leave this here since I suspect most people aren't aware that France passed legislation enabling what is effectively total population surveillance as well as was warned about one of the attackers, repeatedly, while they had this capability. Similarly, while I understand it doesn't "sit right with you" there is really no debate to be had. The facts are pretty clear the problem is operational, not the scope of the powers available. France had the surveillance authority, was warned twice about at least one of the terrorists, yet failed to act. This isn't a problem solved by providing them with more power but rather with operational and management changes. If they can't do it with total authority to spy on anyone they can as well as with warning from a friendly government...yeah. Similarly, such changes are not political acts but simply the acts of responsible managers that do not require publicity.

cryoshon 11y ago
It was the same deal here with the Boston bombers. Mooks already hot on the radar due to passage of information from other friendly intel operations manage to somehow organize and perform a large scale attack. It's almost as though preventing terrorism isn't the main focus of these totalitarian programs or something. Anyways, if anything, failures of intelligence like these should elicit budget cuts and re-strategizing rather than re-investment into a proven failed avenue-- a failed avenue that, when functioning properly, deprives the population of human rights, and when failing, fails silently and violently at the expense of the same public that was also hurt during the "successful" period. A sober approach is to accept that there is no way to prevent people from killing each other; after all, even in prison people manage to kill each other.
- fweespeech 11y ago
  Ah I'm not advocating budget cuts but I do think a certain understanding that ignoring intelligence from friendly governments is the kind of thing that ends your career. Similarly, the organization needs to adjust to avoid similar lapses in judgement in the future.
- AnimalMuppet 11y ago
  > It's almost as though preventing terrorism isn't the main focus of these totalitarian programs or something. I suspect that the main focus is preventing as much terrorism as operational constraints permit. Some of the people fingered as "possible terrorists" are not terrorists at all; maybe their friend or their brother is trying to recruit them, so they show up as a possible. How much are you willing to infringe on those peoples' lives in order to prevent terrorist attacks? How much of that will society put up with? The problem is that you often don't know someone is a terrorist until they actually do something. You may suspect, but you don't know. But you also suspect 10 times as many people who never do anything ("10" being a made-up number, but I'm pretty sure it's more than 2). What's your threshold for cracking down? How many innocent people do you jail to prevent 130 innocent people from being killed?
  - jacquesm 11y ago

cryoshon 11y ago

It was the same deal here with the Boston bombers. Mooks already hot on the radar due to passage of information from other friendly intel operations manage to somehow organize and perform a large scale attack. It's almost as though preventing terrorism isn't the main focus of these totalitarian programs or something. Anyways, if anything, failures of intelligence like these should elicit budget cuts and re-strategizing rather than re-investment into a proven failed avenue-- a failed avenue that, when functioning properly, deprives the population of human rights, and when failing, fails silently and violently at the expense of the same public that was also hurt during the "successful" period. A sober approach is to accept that there is no way to prevent people from killing each other; after all, even in prison people manage to kill each other.

fweespeech 11y ago
Ah I'm not advocating budget cuts but I do think a certain understanding that ignoring intelligence from friendly governments is the kind of thing that ends your career. Similarly, the organization needs to adjust to avoid similar lapses in judgement in the future.
AnimalMuppet 11y ago
> It's almost as though preventing terrorism isn't the main focus of these totalitarian programs or something. I suspect that the main focus is preventing as much terrorism as operational constraints permit. Some of the people fingered as "possible terrorists" are not terrorists at all; maybe their friend or their brother is trying to recruit them, so they show up as a possible. How much are you willing to infringe on those peoples' lives in order to prevent terrorist attacks? How much of that will society put up with? The problem is that you often don't know someone is a terrorist until they actually do something. You may suspect, but you don't know. But you also suspect 10 times as many people who never do anything ("10" being a made-up number, but I'm pretty sure it's more than 2). What's your threshold for cracking down? How many innocent people do you jail to prevent 130 innocent people from being killed?
- jacquesm 11y ago