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France announces crackdown on people reading extremist Web sites
- dctoedt 15y agoFTA, quoting French president Nicolas Sarkozy, in the wake of the death of the guy who confessed to murdering schoolkids and soldiers: "From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hate and violence will be punished."
- yaix 15y agoIt's election time.
- cnxsoft 15y agoI've read (on French news) that he said he would crack down on extremist ideas. Defining what "extremist ideas" is probably up to him...
- adnam 15y agoFrom Wikipedia: striking just below the knee cap with a tendon hammer produces a signal which travels back to the spinal cord and synapses (without interneurons) at the level of L4 in the spinal cord, completely independent of higher centres.
- riffraff 15y agoI am not an expert of french politics but this looks clearly as a play to the coming elections. And as most election-driven declarations it's overly stupid, and will probably never be implemented.
- stfu 15y agoThis has so much conspiracy potential. It is all to familiar: Conservative politician down in the polls, "Terror" craze happening out of the blue with a superb timing for the election, that even the FT can't resist from titling "Sarkozy stands to gain most from arrest...".
- mcantelon 15y agoThe lone gunman is now dead, etc. Judging how Sarkozy seems to have dealt with former political rival Dominique Strauss-Kahn, setting him up with a "rape", it's entirely possibly. French intelligence likely had the ability to pull strings in the terrorist community and Sarkozy likely has the ability to pull strings with French intellience.
- deleted 15y ago[deleted]
- mc32 15y agoWhile one may agree or disagree with Sarko, I think the personal history of Mr DSK would ague against this having been a "set-up". The CIA, MI6 and all the other covert organs can't do someone as heinous as Assad but on the other hand they can at will, just pull framed rapes and crazy whackos killing and terrorizing people to create a desired result? It reeks of "wanting to believe" as much as a balding man with a hot partner will "want to believe" the partner is not cheating when all the signs out there are signaling cheating.
- icebraining 15y agoNot that I believe this was made by the French Intelligence, but why do you assume the CIA can't do Assad? Why can't they just not be interested in doing so?
- mc32 15y agoI meant in a way that was not traceable back to them --or traceable back to any state secret agency. You're right, if you mean they could, using any means --such as a recognizable drone. What I mean is, if they supposedly could pull off something like this crazy guy (in this case fall guy, if we are believe the conspiracy) why would they not pull the same to get rid of a problem in the ME --who just about everyone but Russia and china want gone?
- mcantelon 15y ago
- victork2 15y agoI am French and that smells bad, really bad. This is the kind of law or rules that are born in the heat of the moment; these "think 'bout the children" moments. What happened in France is really sad, but it is what it is: an act by an isolated person. This is not a repeated pattern that needs a law to solve it. I am very far from being an extremist but I have consulted websites that are considered extremist, just because sometimes I stumble on them while browsing the internet, or just by curiosity, because I think I ought to "know my enemies". The definition of extremist is also very blurry, and will probably be abused in the future.
- atestu 15y ago> these "think 'bout the children" moments Actually in France it's already illegal to visit pedopornographic website. While the intention is good, it can be used as an excuse to get a citizen's browsing history, and it's hard to defend a man's right to see kiddie porn…
- marvin 15y agoYes, the reaction is very telling when you compare it to Norway's reaction after the Utøya massacre last summer. Perhaps the difference is that Norway's terrorist attack was by a local - but it seems to me that there is a cultural difference here in how we react to these events. Just look at the knee-jerk reaction blaming everything from rap music to computer games whenever there is a school shooting in the US. These knee-jerk laws are a huge problem for democracy.
- Gmo 15y agoPlease, don't mix up the "French" with their (our) president ... Many French people disagree with the "always-in-the-moment" laws of the president. So please, don't try to see a cultural thing where it is not.
- doe88 15y agoMaybe it's my cynism's speaking but I think this is done on purpose. They know it will be easier to pass some nasty laws after these kind of awful events so they take advantage of the situation and bring up these laws they were maybe already thinking about for some times but wouldn't dare to expose. And boummm security++; democracy--; Job well done.
- J3L2404 15y agoIsn't free speech a constitutional right there?
- mahmud 15y agoIt's illegal in France to deny an atrocity acknowledged by the State. If the government calls something genocide or a heinous crime, it's illegal for a citizen NOT to agree. It was meant to reign in holocoust deniers, making it illegal. Then it was used as a political pawn against Turkey, viz Ottoman crimes against Armenians. In Britain two women are in court demanding their right to wear a cross to work. In Germany it's even illegal to salute the German flag, or borders on social taboo. Europe .. it's fucked, but it's better than the U.S.
- Schlaefer 15y ago> In Germany it's even illegal to salute the German flag, or borders on social taboo. Either it's illegal or a social taboo. And to my knowledge neither of them are true.
- JumpCrisscross 15y agoIt's taboo to be overly nationalistic, e.g. fly the flag on a private residence year-round.
- Schlaefer 15y agoUsually you wont find a flag pole on private property in the cities and it's clearly far, far, far, far, far away from e.g. US levels of showing the flag, but it's hard to picture a Schrebergartenkolonie[1] without a german flag (even the wikipedia picture show one: [2]). Same is true for private properties where flag poles are more common (rural or costal regions). I agree it's not a custom, but it's not definitely no taboo. [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)#Germany http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allotment_(gardening)#Germany [2]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kleingaerten.jpg http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kleingaerten.jpg
- iterationx 15y agoIf we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all. -Chomsky
- suprgeek 15y ago"From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hate and violence will be punished" Who defines "habitually", "advocates Terrorism" "call for hate and Violence"? These terms and phrases are so overtly broad that a person visiting Reddit could easily qualify. If the French govt. really moves a law along these lines, they would have taken a giant step away from Freedom towards Govt. Censorship of the worst kind. I suspect this is just some pre-election bluster from Sarko to bump up his bad numbers. If and when this gets to the Law making stage, France needs a SOPA-style movement to kill this dead.
- valinor4 15y agoIt is not the first time that they use undetermined terms. There is a law which forbids "ostensible" display of religion (muslim veil) at school. What the hell means "ostensible" ? 15cm in diameter ? 12cm in lenght ?
- tomjen3 15y agoHopefully - otherwise any french subscribers to /r/beatingwomen are going to jail. In this case though, Sarko should 'just' have banned muslim propaganda, since the perp was muslim.
- rsheridan6 15y agoHe's probably going to use it as an excuse to suppress his Lepeniste enemies, even though they had nothing to do with it. They were pretty careful to call for the suppression of "hate" in general, not Al-Qaeda or anything that has to do with this gunman in particular. Maybe this doesn't translate well but in English, "hate" is a term of abuse for right-wing attitudes.
- NelsonMinar 15y agoWhen I was in France recently trying to use free WiFi I was required to enter my name, address, mobile phone number, etc on several of them. I have a screenshot of one captive portal page here: https://twitter.com/#!/nelson/status/178533010302451712 https://twitter.com/#!/nelson/status/178533010302451712 "Because of January 23, 2006's law, you have to register to use our wireless service. In accordance with the anti-terrorist legislation that came into effect on 23/01/2006, we are obliged to record the identities of users. The data collected in this form will be shared with the National Commission on Data Processing and Liberties and will not be used for commercial purposes or sold to third parties without your prior consent." I probably used 20 different WiFi nodes in France and I'd say about 4 of them tried to collect contact data like this. More info on the law here: http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/frenchlaw http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/frenchlaw
- nakkiel 15y agoFilling bogus information, is actually illegal. Either ways, the National Commission on Data Processing and Liberties is your friend in the story (CNIL in French). They go to great length to regulate access to your data. There are several cases of national agencies being forced to collect less data thanks to them.
- fchollet 15y agoWell it's just one more dumb thing said by Sarkozy. In a month he won't be president anymore, just ignore him already. I don't see the crime of "reading a website" being punished in this country any time soon.
- jakeonthemove 15y agoWell, this has the potential to snowball if implemented... That said, I've always been amazed at how people can go to another country, live and work there for years and yet speak in their own language (and not understand the local one) and refer to local citizens as "they; these; those", as if they're not part of the local culture. It may be hard assimilating, but the saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans" is true - in time, you end up being a Roman. This resentment builds up, that's how you end up with terrorists and other malevolent people...
- noarchy 15y agoIt may be temporary, but Marine Le Pen's campaign web site seems to be down at the moment. It would be easy to see her benefiting from the inevitable fervour over this loony gunman. Sarkozy would love to have a bit of that for himself, hence his seemingly-reckless statement.
- geuis 15y agoThe title of this story is "Gunman dies in hail of bullets as French siege ends" and has absolutely nothing to do with the throw-away line that the submitter used. Do not editorialize submissions on HN. This is not Digg.
- dctoedt 15y agoOP here; I quoted the relevant part in the first comment.
- geuis 15y agoFrom the guidelines http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html "You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it." "Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important."
- blendergasket 15y agoFrance announces crackdown on people not using VPNs/TOR to access extremist websites. In other news a lightbulb went off in the mind of yet another hacker, this time in France, who decided to devote his time to liberating the internet from the draconian control of governments and large corporations and working toward a censorship resistant infrastructure.
- nextparadigms 15y agoThis is no different than banning/censoring books for "extremist content". It will start with terrorism and a few months later it will expand to other topics, and we all know that's going to happen. Next in line is probably copyright infringement, because that's a favorite topic of Sarkozy. When exactly are the upcoming elections, so French people can get rid of Sarkozy once and for all?
- JumpCrisscross 15y agoThis is a predictable reaction from an incumbent one month away from a competitive election. It is not a failure of democracy for one arm of government to react like this - it's a failure if that populist whiplash becomes policy (or is debated seriously enough to spook). An analogy would be October 2012, Romney is hot on Obama's heels, and a shooter goes on a rampage in Times Square. It would not be unexpected for the President to call for greater monitoring, no limits to what will be done to safeguard the American people, yada, yada. Norway's reaction was anomalous in the shooter being Norwegian and the political climate being mellower than France in an election year.
- joeycfan 15y agoGee that's their fault. Anything before immigration reform, right guys?