French Constitutional Council Widely Approves Surveillance Law(laquadrature.net)
laquadrature.net
French Constitutional Council Widely Approves Surveillance Law
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/shame-on-france-french-constitutional-council-widely-approves-surveillance-law
9 comments
(Russian here). I so much understand you brother (or sister). We've got an even harder wave of prohibitive laws and the local IT industry has been brought to its knees. Companies have been leaving, people have been leaving. I haven't seen any appealing job openings for close to two years. I myself am thinking of emigrating, even thought about France, but now I'm not sure it was such a good idea.
>> So much potential is wasted... That's the most tragic thing indeed. You can import food, clothes, cars and so on but you can't import talent. When it goes, it's final.
>> So much potential is wasted... That's the most tragic thing indeed. You can import food, clothes, cars and so on but you can't import talent. When it goes, it's final.
Thank you for this comment. I guess you can understand how depressing it sounds, I go back in France every 2/3 months and everything is worse everytime I go there, and I can do nothing about it. It's really crashing at high speed.
I also have a friend in Moscow I discuss with regularly. I can speak basic Russian but I don't mention it normally because it's really a Tarzan-like level, the language is really beautiful. I really hope things are going to improve there also. France is definitely not the place to go for IT, I'm sorry for that.
I also have a friend in Moscow I discuss with regularly. I can speak basic Russian but I don't mention it normally because it's really a Tarzan-like level, the language is really beautiful. I really hope things are going to improve there also. France is definitely not the place to go for IT, I'm sorry for that.
I'm sorry you're going through that kind of feelings, they're pretty heavy to live with on a daily basis. A month under that stress counts almost as a year.
I've always liked France and its culture, and I speak French on some level, I guess that's why I take personally all bad things that I hear from France, as if they concerned mon pays natal.
If you'd like we could exchange privately, I could attempt to cheer you up (from the position of a person living in a place that has fallen much lower than yours), though I realize there's not much I can say to remedy the gloom you're seeing around you.
I've always liked France and its culture, and I speak French on some level, I guess that's why I take personally all bad things that I hear from France, as if they concerned mon pays natal.
If you'd like we could exchange privately, I could attempt to cheer you up (from the position of a person living in a place that has fallen much lower than yours), though I realize there's not much I can say to remedy the gloom you're seeing around you.
Thanks, we could have some discussion sometimes, you can reach me at my email address (on my profile), I cannot guarantee that my Russian will be good enough for a conversation but I will try !
The education France has provided me with would probably have cost me much more anywhere else in the world. I have always wished to stay here to work, if only to pay some of it back to my country. With a degree in the STEM fields, I expected it would be easy.
I did not expect political issues to get in the way. I did not think the misuses of our surveillance system would one day be even remotely on par with those of the US or the UK, to the point that I do not know today where my privacy is breached the more.
Of course we say "let's encrypt", we foster the use of Tor and the likes, but that misses the point. There should not even be a case for such a law which will help nothing but totalitarianism and is even a disincentive to investments in France. Still our politicians and administrations have paid little heed to La Quadrature du Net's and other actors' comments. Instead the government drafted this law in haste, seemingly to curtail the democratic process which should have taken place in its entirety, especially for a change that big regarding our freedom.
The way I see things, I have two options: leave for another country that still deems privacy as a fundamental liberty, or stay in France and get involved in politics in the hope that I can help reverse the current situation.
I do not think I have the skills to get involved in politics, nor do I have the desire to. I guess I will soon be part of their statistics on "brain drain", although right now I feel more ousted from France than attracted to anywhere else.
I did not expect political issues to get in the way. I did not think the misuses of our surveillance system would one day be even remotely on par with those of the US or the UK, to the point that I do not know today where my privacy is breached the more.
Of course we say "let's encrypt", we foster the use of Tor and the likes, but that misses the point. There should not even be a case for such a law which will help nothing but totalitarianism and is even a disincentive to investments in France. Still our politicians and administrations have paid little heed to La Quadrature du Net's and other actors' comments. Instead the government drafted this law in haste, seemingly to curtail the democratic process which should have taken place in its entirety, especially for a change that big regarding our freedom.
The way I see things, I have two options: leave for another country that still deems privacy as a fundamental liberty, or stay in France and get involved in politics in the hope that I can help reverse the current situation.
I do not think I have the skills to get involved in politics, nor do I have the desire to. I guess I will soon be part of their statistics on "brain drain", although right now I feel more ousted from France than attracted to anywhere else.
Well articulated.
I feel similarly about Sweden. But assuming one does pack up and leave, where would one go? Without doing any real research on it I would have hoped that France, with it's strong historical record on liberty, would be a reasonably good option within Europe, but it seems that may have been no more than wishful thinking on my part.
I feel similarly about Sweden. But assuming one does pack up and leave, where would one go? Without doing any real research on it I would have hoped that France, with it's strong historical record on liberty, would be a reasonably good option within Europe, but it seems that may have been no more than wishful thinking on my part.
> But assuming one does pack up and leave, where would one go?
That is an extremely good question and one that I've spent considerable time and funds on trying to answer.
In short:
Nowhere. There isn't a country that does not have some critical flaw in their political system. If a country without such flaws were come into being it would not last because a country that would 'play nice' with its citizens and that would be efficient with its funds would be over-run by more aggressive neighbors unless it were heavily fortified by natural barriers.
The countries that come closest to this in the world today are Iceland and Switzerland.
That is an extremely good question and one that I've spent considerable time and funds on trying to answer.
In short:
Nowhere. There isn't a country that does not have some critical flaw in their political system. If a country without such flaws were come into being it would not last because a country that would 'play nice' with its citizens and that would be efficient with its funds would be over-run by more aggressive neighbors unless it were heavily fortified by natural barriers.
The countries that come closest to this in the world today are Iceland and Switzerland.
It may soon be time for extraterrestrial emigration. This planet is done.
I'm afraid that the most pragmatic answer is indeed to encrypt your traffic. Use reverse ssh tunnels, use VPN tunnels, get involved in such efforts and you will find many others doing the same. It might be up to the users to maintain their own privacy.
And what is even more worrying is that the examples of abuse of surveillance laws have been frequent.
President Mitterrand was spying on anyone who could expose his lies (bigamy, fake medical certificates). President Hollande was spying on the discussion between former President Sarkozy and his attorney.
Even in the US, president Obama was using his own surveillance powers to expose the sources of political journalists.
It doesn't take a lot of imagination to consider how badly these laws can be abused.
President Mitterrand was spying on anyone who could expose his lies (bigamy, fake medical certificates). President Hollande was spying on the discussion between former President Sarkozy and his attorney.
Even in the US, president Obama was using his own surveillance powers to expose the sources of political journalists.
It doesn't take a lot of imagination to consider how badly these laws can be abused.
Is it just as valid to say that Obama's administration was using its surveillance powers to investigate journalism sources that had straightforwardly broken the law by leaking classified information? James Risen is the most famous of these cases, and his indicted source leaked counterproliferation secrets.
I agree that surveillance authority should be tightly restricted, far more than it is today.
I'm just on false-equivalence watch. The investigation of Jeffrey Alexander Sterling does not sound equivalent to a sitting head of state snooping directly on his political rival and their lawyer.
I agree that surveillance authority should be tightly restricted, far more than it is today.
I'm just on false-equivalence watch. The investigation of Jeffrey Alexander Sterling does not sound equivalent to a sitting head of state snooping directly on his political rival and their lawyer.
I don't think that in any of the cases I mentioned the president himself was literally listening to some tapes.
And the protection of the sources that journalists enjoy is precisely because people leaking information to journalists are breaking laws and internal policies and would fear reprisals otherwise. This is an important counter-power.
And the protection of the sources that journalists enjoy is precisely because people leaking information to journalists are breaking laws and internal policies and would fear reprisals otherwise. This is an important counter-power.
Our law has for the most part never recognized any kind of privilege for journalists and their sources. Protection of sources is more like a code of conduct among journalists, not a part of the broader social contract.
To me, this makes sense. Literally anyone can be a journalist. Nobody elects them, and nothing but the market has any voice in what they do. I think it's better that way, too: you can see how fraught government involvement with even the most reputable state-sponsored media outlets can be.
To me, this makes sense. Literally anyone can be a journalist. Nobody elects them, and nothing but the market has any voice in what they do. I think it's better that way, too: you can see how fraught government involvement with even the most reputable state-sponsored media outlets can be.
I agree with your main point, but:
> nothing but the market has any voice in what [journalists] do.
That "market" is pretty specific, and has a strong voice, though. Most media are owned by a few big corporations, and basically say what those corporations will allow them to say. Those who don't quickly find it much harder to sell ad space, their main source of income.
Corporation-sponsored media are structurally just as bad as state-sponsored ones. For practical purposes, they might even be a bit worse.
One way or another, independent journalism needs independent income.
> nothing but the market has any voice in what [journalists] do.
That "market" is pretty specific, and has a strong voice, though. Most media are owned by a few big corporations, and basically say what those corporations will allow them to say. Those who don't quickly find it much harder to sell ad space, their main source of income.
Corporation-sponsored media are structurally just as bad as state-sponsored ones. For practical purposes, they might even be a bit worse.
One way or another, independent journalism needs independent income.
Independent from what? I hear that rhetoric a lot in France from people who read Mediapart, an "independently funded" newspaper and website. Their slogan is something along the lines of "Only our readers can buy us."
I always found it quite ironic that their readership seems to feel like that guarantees impartiality.
On the subject of media bias, I suggest reading Matthew Gentzkow's work or even just a survey like this one: http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/shleifer/files/shleifer_cor...
TL;DR: Nope, ownership isn't the main factor in media bias.
"As important, Gentzkow and Shapiro [6] show that, after controlling for a newspaper’s audience, the identity of its owner does not affect its slant.1 Two newspapers with the same owner look no more similar in their slant than newspapers with different owners. Ownership regulation in the US and elsewhere is based on the premise a news outlet’s owner determines how it spins the news. Gentzkow and Shapiro produced the first large-scale test of this hypothesis, which showed that, contrary to the conventional wisdom and regulatory stance, demand is much more influential in shaping content than supply as proxied by ownership."
I always found it quite ironic that their readership seems to feel like that guarantees impartiality.
On the subject of media bias, I suggest reading Matthew Gentzkow's work or even just a survey like this one: http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/shleifer/files/shleifer_cor...
TL;DR: Nope, ownership isn't the main factor in media bias.
"As important, Gentzkow and Shapiro [6] show that, after controlling for a newspaper’s audience, the identity of its owner does not affect its slant.1 Two newspapers with the same owner look no more similar in their slant than newspapers with different owners. Ownership regulation in the US and elsewhere is based on the premise a news outlet’s owner determines how it spins the news. Gentzkow and Shapiro produced the first large-scale test of this hypothesis, which showed that, contrary to the conventional wisdom and regulatory stance, demand is much more influential in shaping content than supply as proxied by ownership."
> Independent from what?
I don't know. I had 2 solutions in mind, and the rest of your comment suggests having the readers pay for the media doesn't work. The other solution I though of was basic income (it's the solution for many things.) Looks like true independence only comes from "fuck you money", that basic income would provide.
That said, even if your quote is accurate, owners of journals can just drop support if they notice they're talking to the wrong audience.
I don't know. I had 2 solutions in mind, and the rest of your comment suggests having the readers pay for the media doesn't work. The other solution I though of was basic income (it's the solution for many things.) Looks like true independence only comes from "fuck you money", that basic income would provide.
That said, even if your quote is accurate, owners of journals can just drop support if they notice they're talking to the wrong audience.
One thing a lot of people don't think about is the potential for abuse for financial reasons. Imagine insider trading with access to CEOs e-mail, industrial espionage, etc.
(French here.)
I guess this is time to escalate. Let's encrypt as much as we can. And maybe prepare for physical violence. This may get ugly in a few years.
I guess this is time to escalate. Let's encrypt as much as we can. And maybe prepare for physical violence. This may get ugly in a few years.
From what I heard French are obliged to surrender encryption keys at the request of authorities or go to jail for a few years for denying their request. The only thing that may be left is to pack your things and go.
You don't have to surrender the key, but you are required to at least decrypt things for the authorities.
However, I the twist seems to be in the word "susceptible": any encryption key is susceptible to be somehow used to commit a crime, while on the other hand a jury would probably "deny a request" of the authorities if they can't show enough evidences.
However, I the twist seems to be in the word "susceptible": any encryption key is susceptible to be somehow used to commit a crime, while on the other hand a jury would probably "deny a request" of the authorities if they can't show enough evidences.
So what happens if you don't know, forgotten, or never had the encryption key?
> And maybe prepare for physical violence. This may get ugly in a few years.
French here too... This law is sad but keep in mind that our justice is still the only place where they makes sense. Overall, our country is still a great place to live.
French here too... This law is sad but keep in mind that our justice is still the only place where they makes sense. Overall, our country is still a great place to live.
Haven't left yet. :-)
But I can't help but agree with Benjamin Bayart's analysis: we are currently living 3 major crises at the same time: the end of free energy (we are at peak oil already), the ecological crisis (worse than the one that destroyed the dinosaurs), and the internet (which fundamentally changes the way we communicate, and that our power structures).
I don't see how we can resolve this peacefully. If there's a solution, we'd better think of it real fast.
But I can't help but agree with Benjamin Bayart's analysis: we are currently living 3 major crises at the same time: the end of free energy (we are at peak oil already), the ecological crisis (worse than the one that destroyed the dinosaurs), and the internet (which fundamentally changes the way we communicate, and that our power structures).
I don't see how we can resolve this peacefully. If there's a solution, we'd better think of it real fast.
bastille needs to go down again
I think this is awful, but is it wrong in the context the council was working in?
More specifically, consider how the US Supreme Court works. The Court's job isn't to decide what side is good and what side is evil. Their job is to determine what side is in accordance with the law, and if that law is consonant with our Constitution.
How similar to this is the French Constitutional Council? Were they given no choice, and forced to make an ugly decision because it is, indeed, what their Constitution allows?
If so, the answer isn't to bemoan the decision and criticize the Council, but to find a way to fix the French Constitution so that it no longer supports this decision.
More specifically, consider how the US Supreme Court works. The Court's job isn't to decide what side is good and what side is evil. Their job is to determine what side is in accordance with the law, and if that law is consonant with our Constitution.
How similar to this is the French Constitutional Council? Were they given no choice, and forced to make an ugly decision because it is, indeed, what their Constitution allows?
If so, the answer isn't to bemoan the decision and criticize the Council, but to find a way to fix the French Constitution so that it no longer supports this decision.
Having loosely followed the QPC that has just been rejected, I think it's pretty clear they had a case.
We should also see the details of this decision. They may have interpreted the law (and documented that interpretation) in a way that makes it less unacceptable.
Also, there will a couple other recourse for that same law. It's not over yet.
We should also see the details of this decision. They may have interpreted the law (and documented that interpretation) in a way that makes it less unacceptable.
Also, there will a couple other recourse for that same law. It's not over yet.
I don't know anything about the French constitution, but many constitutions contain very vague or general language and some are very old. Courts often have to rule based on analogies, especially where new technologies are involved.
"1984" is not only an instructional manual now, it has become a political must-have. At least in the US we have lip-service to privacy and freedom of thought.
Can anyone offer a detailed explanation of what the French Government has implemented?
There is a large movement in france to use encryption software. Hopefully this just fuels the fire.
There is a large movement in france to use encryption software. Hopefully this just fuels the fire.
"socialists"... more like fascists. A sad day indeed.
First, there is no connection.
Second, the only thing socialist about our government is the name. They're capitalists like the other big party.
Second, the only thing socialist about our government is the name. They're capitalists like the other big party.
Wiki: Capitalism is an economic system and a mode of production in which trade, industries, and the means of production are largely or entirely privately owned.
This is France is it?
This is France is it?
He probably meant that they prefer to serve the interest of big economic groups/industries above the people in the country they are empowered to rule.
I think that is generally referred to as "Corporatism" these days.
Indeed, that's a more accurate way to put it.
Sure, if you base your entire understanding of an economic system from the first sentence of a Wikipedia article.
You'll see it's much more nuanced just by reading the second paragraph. The French system is usually known as "dirigisme".
You'll see it's much more nuanced just by reading the second paragraph. The French system is usually known as "dirigisme".
The country has just reached a new low. I just hoped until the end that it would not pass but I was delusional. As a side effect, it's also going to destroy the few technological businesses we had left, like they needed that... I was really hoping that things would change and that the country could finally take advantage of massive amount of bright minds we have here... So much potential is wasted... Anyway, that will be for another year...