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I've been following the debate in France, and the political response to concerns about the new surveillance law has been extraordinarily tone-deaf - the parliam

by motdiem 12y ago

I've been following the debate in France, and the political response to concerns about the new surveillance law has been extraordinarily tone-deaf - the parliament has been very much in a "you're either with us or you're a terrorist" mode from the start. Hopefully, now that ovh and other French vendors have started to be vocal about it, some aspects of the law might be improved. I'm not holding my breath though.

mercurial 12y ago
Neither am I. On the other hand, what does difference will it make in practice? As far as I understand, the law is in a large part about making legal all the currently unlawful telecommunication interception done by the intelligence services, and making sure that nobody is accountable for anything. So in this regard, it does not change the statu quo - intelligence services will more bound by the law than they were before, and there is zero political will to introduce even something as ineffective as the FISA secret courts.
- linschn 12y ago
  I don't understand this argument. If something illegal is going on anyway, how is making it legal the right answer ? Surveillance being illegal protects us from it being used against us in legal proceedings. Even if we can't prevent spies from spying, at least we don't have to worry about the evidence they collect being used in court.
  - mercurial 12y ago
    > If something illegal is going on anyway, how is making it legal the right answer ? Where do I say that? What I am saying is that French intelligence services do not care what the law say, and the government is not interested in having existing laws enforced. As long as there is no independent entity to control their activity, with real power, these laws may as well be printed on toilet paper. > Even if we can't prevent spies from spying, at least we don't have to worry about the evidence they collect being used in court. That is a fair point, but if law enforcement agencies like Tracfin are already using this data anyway, it means we are not protected with the current laws.
  - dagw 12y ago
    at least we don't have to worry about the evidence they collect being used in court. That's a distinctly US concept. In Europe in general all evidence is a priori admissible no matter how it was collected. It is them up to the lawyers and judges to argue that the way this evidence was collected makes it inadmissible in this situation on a case by case basis. So as long as an argument can be made that the illegality of the method used to collect the evidence didn't affect the reliability of the evidence then it can be used.
    - sergiosgc 12y ago
      > In Europe in general all evidence is a priori admissible no matter how it was collected. That is not the case in Portugal and, since our laws are mostly inspired by French laws, I'd imagine that is not the case in France. Illegally obtained evidence, or evidence where there is a relevant probability that the chain of custody was compromised, is not admissible in court.
  - draugadrotten 12y ago
    > Surveillance being illegal protects us from it being used against us in legal proceedings. Even if we can't prevent spies from spying, at least we don't have to worry about the evidence they collect being used in court. That is an argument to make surveillance legal. If the illegal surveillance is indeed useful in court proceedings to prosecute other illegal actions, then it makes sense to make the surveillance legal so that the true criminals can be brought to justice. The legal principles of appropriate measures should still apply - surveillance should not be used to prove jaywalking but rather be used to combat more serious crimes. Appropriate use of surveillance should be legal. The problem with illegal surveillance is when it is used to record legal behaviour and control citizens behaving legally but perhaps indecent. Such as recording amoral behaviour of political dissidents or political opposition and later releasing it to the press to gain politically. Gathering evidence of homosexuality of a priest or union leader could be another example, and use this surveillance to stop the union leader from becoming a problem for the political power. Also, surveillance used today can be used by a future power for nefarious purposes. Imagine that Hitler would have been able to access 10 years of video recordings of synagogues, which may have been originally recorded for the purpose of protecting the synagogues from attacks. The recordings can be used for something else entirely in the future. Surveillance in general is a very powerful weapon and should be treated like all powerful weapons - with respect and very carefully.
    - sergiosgc 12y ago
      > The problem with illegal surveillance is when it is used to record legal behaviour and control citizens behaving legally but perhaps indecent. That is not the only problem. If illegal surveillance can be used as evidence, you have the tool of selective prosecution. Totalitarian states were known for using and abusing selective prosecution.
- bigbugbag 12y ago
  There is a difference in practice: first France will become a digital police state by law, judges will be out of the loop, it may help to dodge the current prosecutions by the human rights league and international federation of human rights and lastly it will introduce a global and permanent surveillance with dpi of the like that France has sold to Myanman, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kazakhstan and other places. Additionally part of the IT industry will relocate itself outside of France to continue to exist. As France is in the middle of a multi year process of replacing the copper network with optical fiber, it means that France is on the path for a 50 years additional delay before the digital world changes its society right when France was catching up. Lastly the practical difference is that this law may push the country to the far right extremist nationalist and racist party Front National at the next elections, which would inherit of those tools and have everything to turn France in a totalitarian state. On a side note, this law has spawned a reboot France movement which aims at leveraging the Internet and crowndfunding to get change the whole political system to an actual democracy based on the internet: http://rebootlafrance.fr http://rebootlafrance.fr
  - mercurial 12y ago
    > There is a difference in practice: first France will become a digital police state by law, judges will be out of the loop, it may help to dodge the current prosecutions by the human rights league and international federation of human rights and lastly it will introduce a global and permanent surveillance with dpi of the like that France has sold to Myanman, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kazakhstan and other places. Additionally part of the IT industry will relocate itself outside of France to continue to exist. I am under the impression that the law is about legalizing what the state is already doing. Did I miss something? As France is in the middle of a multi year process of replacing the copper network with optical fiber, it means that France is on the path for a 50 years additional delay before the digital world changes its society right when France was catching up. I am not sure what you mean by this. > Lastly the practical difference is that this law may push the country to the far right extremist nationalist and racist party Front National at the next elections, which would inherit of those tools and have everything to turn France in a totalitarian state. Don't they already have that? > On a side note, this law has spawned a reboot France movement which aims at leveraging the Internet and crowndfunding to get change the whole political system to an actual democracy based on the internet: http://rebootlafrance.fr http://rebootlafrance.fr They certainly have good intentions, but they sound like a small band of young geeks with little knowledge of politics and no funding. I am not convinced the issue will be solved by yet one more tiny political party. >
bontoJR 12y ago
> "you're either with us or you're a terrorist" It looks like is a very common argumentation for politicians. Another one is: "You don't have to care if you don't have anything to hide". I think both paths are extremely and deeply wrong. We can't put in prison the whole Afghanistan's population because just thousands of individuals embraced terrorism, in the same way we cannot track an entire nation just because 8-9 people are planning a terrorist attack. There are way healthier to do it.
- arcatek 12y ago
  > "You don't have to care if you don't have anything to hide" I never quite understood this argument. We have something to hide, that's the whole point. I don't want somebody to look at my phone messages. I don't want to share with the government every sily joke that I may say at home. Should I work on secret businesses, I certainly wouldn't want any random agent to read about what I'm working on. We all have something to hide, the whole argument is bogus ...

by motdiem 12y ago

mercurial 12y ago

Neither am I. On the other hand, what does difference will it make in practice? As far as I understand, the law is in a large part about making legal all the currently unlawful telecommunication interception done by the intelligence services, and making sure that nobody is accountable for anything. So in this regard, it does not change the statu quo - intelligence services will more bound by the law than they were before, and there is zero political will to introduce even something as ineffective as the FISA secret courts.

linschn 12y ago
I don't understand this argument. If something illegal is going on anyway, how is making it legal the right answer ? Surveillance being illegal protects us from it being used against us in legal proceedings. Even if we can't prevent spies from spying, at least we don't have to worry about the evidence they collect being used in court.
- mercurial 12y ago
  > If something illegal is going on anyway, how is making it legal the right answer ? Where do I say that? What I am saying is that French intelligence services do not care what the law say, and the government is not interested in having existing laws enforced. As long as there is no independent entity to control their activity, with real power, these laws may as well be printed on toilet paper. > Even if we can't prevent spies from spying, at least we don't have to worry about the evidence they collect being used in court. That is a fair point, but if law enforcement agencies like Tracfin are already using this data anyway, it means we are not protected with the current laws.
- dagw 12y ago
  at least we don't have to worry about the evidence they collect being used in court. That's a distinctly US concept. In Europe in general all evidence is a priori admissible no matter how it was collected. It is them up to the lawyers and judges to argue that the way this evidence was collected makes it inadmissible in this situation on a case by case basis. So as long as an argument can be made that the illegality of the method used to collect the evidence didn't affect the reliability of the evidence then it can be used.
  - sergiosgc 12y ago
    > In Europe in general all evidence is a priori admissible no matter how it was collected. That is not the case in Portugal and, since our laws are mostly inspired by French laws, I'd imagine that is not the case in France. Illegally obtained evidence, or evidence where there is a relevant probability that the chain of custody was compromised, is not admissible in court.
- draugadrotten 12y ago
  > Surveillance being illegal protects us from it being used against us in legal proceedings. Even if we can't prevent spies from spying, at least we don't have to worry about the evidence they collect being used in court. That is an argument to make surveillance legal. If the illegal surveillance is indeed useful in court proceedings to prosecute other illegal actions, then it makes sense to make the surveillance legal so that the true criminals can be brought to justice. The legal principles of appropriate measures should still apply - surveillance should not be used to prove jaywalking but rather be used to combat more serious crimes. Appropriate use of surveillance should be legal. The problem with illegal surveillance is when it is used to record legal behaviour and control citizens behaving legally but perhaps indecent. Such as recording amoral behaviour of political dissidents or political opposition and later releasing it to the press to gain politically. Gathering evidence of homosexuality of a priest or union leader could be another example, and use this surveillance to stop the union leader from becoming a problem for the political power. Also, surveillance used today can be used by a future power for nefarious purposes. Imagine that Hitler would have been able to access 10 years of video recordings of synagogues, which may have been originally recorded for the purpose of protecting the synagogues from attacks. The recordings can be used for something else entirely in the future. Surveillance in general is a very powerful weapon and should be treated like all powerful weapons - with respect and very carefully.
  - sergiosgc 12y ago
    > The problem with illegal surveillance is when it is used to record legal behaviour and control citizens behaving legally but perhaps indecent. That is not the only problem. If illegal surveillance can be used as evidence, you have the tool of selective prosecution. Totalitarian states were known for using and abusing selective prosecution.
bigbugbag 12y ago
There is a difference in practice: first France will become a digital police state by law, judges will be out of the loop, it may help to dodge the current prosecutions by the human rights league and international federation of human rights and lastly it will introduce a global and permanent surveillance with dpi of the like that France has sold to Myanman, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kazakhstan and other places. Additionally part of the IT industry will relocate itself outside of France to continue to exist. As France is in the middle of a multi year process of replacing the copper network with optical fiber, it means that France is on the path for a 50 years additional delay before the digital world changes its society right when France was catching up. Lastly the practical difference is that this law may push the country to the far right extremist nationalist and racist party Front National at the next elections, which would inherit of those tools and have everything to turn France in a totalitarian state. On a side note, this law has spawned a reboot France movement which aims at leveraging the Internet and crowndfunding to get change the whole political system to an actual democracy based on the internet: http://rebootlafrance.fr http://rebootlafrance.fr
- mercurial 12y ago
  > There is a difference in practice: first France will become a digital police state by law, judges will be out of the loop, it may help to dodge the current prosecutions by the human rights league and international federation of human rights and lastly it will introduce a global and permanent surveillance with dpi of the like that France has sold to Myanman, Libya, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Kazakhstan and other places. Additionally part of the IT industry will relocate itself outside of France to continue to exist. I am under the impression that the law is about legalizing what the state is already doing. Did I miss something? As France is in the middle of a multi year process of replacing the copper network with optical fiber, it means that France is on the path for a 50 years additional delay before the digital world changes its society right when France was catching up. I am not sure what you mean by this. > Lastly the practical difference is that this law may push the country to the far right extremist nationalist and racist party Front National at the next elections, which would inherit of those tools and have everything to turn France in a totalitarian state. Don't they already have that? > On a side note, this law has spawned a reboot France movement which aims at leveraging the Internet and crowndfunding to get change the whole political system to an actual democracy based on the internet: http://rebootlafrance.fr http://rebootlafrance.fr They certainly have good intentions, but they sound like a small band of young geeks with little knowledge of politics and no funding. I am not convinced the issue will be solved by yet one more tiny political party. >

bontoJR 12y ago

> "you're either with us or you're a terrorist" It looks like is a very common argumentation for politicians. Another one is: "You don't have to care if you don't have anything to hide". I think both paths are extremely and deeply wrong. We can't put in prison the whole Afghanistan's population because just thousands of individuals embraced terrorism, in the same way we cannot track an entire nation just because 8-9 people are planning a terrorist attack. There are way healthier to do it.

arcatek 12y ago
> "You don't have to care if you don't have anything to hide" I never quite understood this argument. We have something to hide, that's the whole point. I don't want somebody to look at my phone messages. I don't want to share with the government every sily joke that I may say at home. Should I work on secret businesses, I certainly wouldn't want any random agent to read about what I'm working on. We all have something to hide, the whole argument is bogus ...