The key is that, while there is suspicion (the people arrested have a far left ideology, have been to Syria to fight against the Islamic state, own weapons and encrypt all of their communications), there is no crime nor proof of an intent to commit a crime.
These people have been sent to prison because they are suspicious, not because of an action they have done (something made possible as a special case of an older antiterrorism law). And, amongst other things, using Signal and Linux with the encryption-on settings are explicitly listed as some of the things making them suspicious in the eyes of the law.
Yesterday the French government dissolved an environmental movement (which I don't like btw), amongst the reasons stated[0] are that they leave their phones at home or switch them off, refuse to talk to the police when arrested, or even that they organize their protest over the internet.
When accused of authoritarian tendencies the government usually answers "go to China or North Korea to see what a dictatorship is like".
They have not been dissolved because they left their phone at home, they have been dissolved because it was a violent organisation that was systematically attacking the police and destroying property.
And given the sort of stuff they brought to their protests: swords, machettes, baseball bats, jerrycan, bricks, fireworks, petanque balls, Molotov cocktails, fire bombs, etc, it is particularly disingenuous to pretend they have been dissolved for not talking to the police when arrested.
I was thinking about an uber or courier service that takes your phone for a walk
Pretty much relying on the assumption that investigators will find stationary phones suspicious when they spy on you
Could put them in those charging lockboxes seen as airports and festivals, the infrastructure is already there
Guess I’ll market it to climate activists in europe lol
edit: maybe those delivery robots are even better couriers, since it fits the idea of getting a courier to come back to you better than an uber on the other side of town. risky but the fun kind.
> the people arrested have a far left ideology, have been to Syria to fight against the Islamic state, own weapons and encrypt all of their communications
Is there a place where we can read more about this? The article seems to explain none of that context, it only purports that people are suspicious and can be arrested for simply having good 'digital hygiene'.
Edit: Some relevant passages from TFA
> Likewise, the critical attitude towards technologies, and in particular to Big Tech (Google, Amazon, Facebook Apple and Microsoft, GAFAM), is considered as a sign of radicalisation. Among the questions asked to the defendants, one can read: Are you anti-GAFA?”, “What do you think of GAFA?” or “Do you feel a certain reserve towards communication technologies?”.
> These questions are to be read in light of one report from the DGSI titled “The ultra-left movement”, which states that “members” of this movement are alledgedly showing “a great culture of secrecy […] and a certain reserve towards technology”.
I believe the French Wikipedia page[0] is the most comprehensive place to get information on the subject. There is also a, much shorter, English page[1].
I don't know about this concrete case (and my french is not good enough to find out with ease) - but the context is likely, that they joined the YPG at some point.
It was/is a weird situation. They are very anticapitalist and marxist with some anarchist elements, but they got western support when they were fighting ISIS (and to some extent Assad/Putin) in Syria.
So in Syria communist rebells got US weapons and I believe US troops are still on the ground helping them. But back home in the west, those activists get prosecuted, because the PKK (the mother organisation of YPG) is considered a terrorist organisation (and likely they still are doing terrorism, even though it is of course a "separate" organisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Freedom_Hawks)
The law doesn't say being suspicious is criminal, but that organising with the intent to commit terrorism is, and that's what the prosecutor's will have to prove.
The real, actual problem is the unlawful detention.
> And, amongst other things, using Signal and Linux with the encryption-on settings are explicitly listed as some of the things making them suspicious in the eyes of the law.
In combination with other things, and in this article there are quotes from interrogations which explicitly ask "have you organised illegal activities through encrypted chat communications".
Yeah, as much as saying 'using encrypted communications' is a very cheap shot by the prosecution, this seems to be the gist of it, the combination and the organization
It's understandable yet sad that actively fighting against reactionnary movements puts you on a watchlist. Freedom fighters being equated to terrorists once again...
No, no, we're already down the slope and going fast, we are now at "dissolve informal ecologist organizations and raid their homes and families with antiterrorist groups and gear for the crimes of blocking some construction", "get friendly with neonazi groups and let them parade in Paris, let them attack prides and leftist bars".
As others have mentioned, context matters a lot. The arrested group came back from Syria (where they fought alongside YPG against ISIS) radicalised, and were monitored ever since then. Their alleged crime isn't using Signal, it's just that a French anti-terrorism law allows to be arrested for "organisation with the intent to commit terrorist acts", which the DGSI(internal intelligence services) claims a radicalised group of people calling for a revolution, using encrypted communications, having a bunch of hunting weapons and ammunition, and materials for explosives is. A big stretch on the surface, but they were monitoring them for years, so who the hell knows what else they have.
The real problem is the unlawful detention of one of the men, for which a court finally intervened and he has been freed under surveillance.
> As others have mentioned, context matters a lot.
No, it does not. While this group is indeed suspicious, detaining them without a proof (and using whatsapp as your proof) opens a serious precedent. Now anyone can be detain for that. And it'll be used for serious suspicious cases later but also will be used against someone like you because someone in the police didn't like how you walk.
Of note for US readers, France legal system is not a jurisprudential system as in the US. That is, a judge's ruling does not become law - i.e must be followed as law by another judge -, only parliament can make law.
The only instance having a form of jurisprudence power is Cour de Cassation, but that's only indirect: being the ultimate instance of recourse CCass rulings for similar cases have high chances of having similar outcomes. They may (or may not) influence other court rulings but a) they are not law and b) reaching to CCass is not guaranteed, so other courts judges are completely free to rule differently (as long as they abide by law)
That said, holistically these precedents matter as they may give broad strokes on mindset trends from the powers at play.
It should be very clear IMHO; they have nothing, if they caught the group with "a bunch of hunting weapons and ammunition" then they can arrest them for that and that'd be a lot more serious ground for the argument of "intent to commit terrorist acts".
Since it seems they don't have anything, they are criminalizing normal tools and dev tools because your average reader/citizen doesn't know the difference between a hacker and a cracker, let alone the right of privacy vs conspiring. The only nice thing IMHO is that everyone uses Whatsapp and no one considers it "criminal", so by bundling Signal etc together with Whatsapp they are making themselves look like they are exaggerating for the average person.
Depending on when it occurred, traveling into Syria could be a crime in itself. France and other EU countries banned the travel to Syria unless you were associated with a limited number of groups(humanitarian, journalism, diplomatic mission etc.). Joining any warring party was explicitly prohibited.
Not in this current context. You can't detain someone willy nilly for 'intentions' without such intentions being explicitly stated as proof in letters, emails, messages, threats etc.
>You can't detain someone willy nilly for 'intentions'
AIUI that's lawful in the UK, you can detain people under the terrorism act with only suspicion of intent. It does make some sense, it weighs the level of evidence inversely with the potentially large-scale of awful outcomes. (My understanding hear may be flawed/wrong.)
In order for that not to slip into fascism you need a forthright government that is honourable and believes in the rule of law ... both things the current UK government has proven they do not have.
Both rule of law and liberal democracy are increasingly damaged. Our institutions are so weak that we are one election away from a complete disaster.
Our constitution always concentrated a lot of power in the hand of the president but there is no effective counter-power left. The government set multiple precedent that violate freedom of assembly and association and parliamentary rights. I skipped a lot of authoritarian practice that happened and are still happening but the situation is egregiously bad
I don't say that because I am a political opponent. I voted for this government in 2017, I am a founder, I am pro business. But also I am a father of two and I would rather raise my children in a democracy.
I am seriously pessimistic about this situation. EU knows and complains about Poland & Hungary but France is going to be a shitshow of a far worse magnitude. We should NOT get a pass because Macron knows how to play the game
As you can see from other replies:
- the French people did not care that they had to sign a paper to get out to walk
- that we closed libraries and forbade people from buying clothes in supermarkets
- that Macron has been in charge of the country's finances for over a decade with horrid results (+600B€ in debt)
- that Macron did everything he said he would not, and said a lot of things that would be treason in a reasonable civilization
We are the rooster that sings with it's feet deep in shite.
It's gonna get ugly when it hits the fan.
"the French people did not care that they had to sign a paper to get out to walk"
1- Don't you think this is quite political? Like what is your benefit from saying this out of context? If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing? (I'm not even saying that's the case I'm just saying you don't seem to take that possibility into account at all)
2- From my observations French people -constently- complain about this. So I wouldn't say they didn't care about it. You're doing it right now.
France's Debt-to-GDP[0] went up about 17 points during the first year of covid, compared to Canada's 20 points. In the following years it's gone down about 3 points, which is about the same for Canada. I don't really know who else to compare France to, since Germany, UK, and USA all have their own weird complications and Italy was hit early by covid in a way that most countries were not.
No matter who was in charge of France there was going to be a giant spike in debt during at the very least covid, and now dealing with this Ukraine mess.
[0] I greatly prefer net Debt-to-GDP, which is a closer approximation to a country's actual balance sheet, as a measure, but it isn't frequently reported and most people tend not to care.
Hold your horses...
First of all not all french citizens think or act the same way, and as for the rest Macron is not the first president (and certainly not the last) to screw up.
I'm convinced that whatever president they elect, they'll complain just as much.
> EU knows and complains about Poland & Hungary but France is going to be a shitshow of a far worse magnitude.
I am French too and this sounds greatly exaggerated. Either you don't really know about the situation in Hungary or you have a very twisted view of what's happening in France (maybe induced by the medias). You should take a step back.
There is definitely a tendency to authoritarianism and confusionism from the current government, directed at political opposition.
"Security" laws extending the powers of the police and creating new ways to criminalize protest have been passed at a constant rhythm over the years since Sarkozy's time. After the state of urgency of 2015, part of the dispositions where simply put into law permanently.
Police has been increasingly violent during protests, bringing back old forbidden tactics and squads formerly dissolved for their violence (voltigeurs).
While there has been no dissolution of leftist movement and no political violence from the left since "action directe" in the 80's, there have been multiple ones (or attempts) in recent times, like the one from yesterday of an ecological movement.
Anti-terrorist laws are used to detain ecologists or protesters indefinitely, like in the case of the "8th november" affair from this topic, which has seen a person kept in solitary (hence, tortured) for 16 months without even being convicted.
What I say is that IF France becomes an illiberal democracy, it is going to be far worse for EU than what happened in Hungary. Hungary and France are absolutely not on the same scale
"Either you don't really know about the situation in France or you have a very twisted view of what's happening in Hungary /Poland (maybe induced by the medias). You should take a step back"
Classic French answer confusing the fairly good situation in the country for a disaster.
France has been for the past sixty years and remains an extremely technocratic country. Counter-powers are still everywhere in the administration. The judiciary system is fully independent and works well. The balance between the parliament and the executive is extremely in favour of the president (which is still elected every five years during free elections) but counter-powers exist. They can’t be used by the opposition because despite spending all their time crying wolf and explaining this is the end of the world, they remain a minority and have nothing to propose anyway.
The issue in France remains the same it has always been. The population is old, largely apathetic and would much rather be on the dole than produce anything of value. Meanwhile the unions are extremely unrepresentative of the population as a whole and remain stuck in the Trotskyist heydays of the past.
Oh yeah everyone must work harder, for some reason we have more technology than ever before and more people than ever before, but we all must work harder.
There's enough food and energy if we so choose but no; artificial crisis from coughs to barbarian hordes on the horizon mean you must be poorer and work harder.
We could all just actually wake up and realise they are lying they are always lying. They dare not tell the truth for you'd realise how much they lie when truth would shine so bright.
France kinda has a history of things going bad, their rulers overreaching, and people then taking matters into their own heads,...
I somehow hope this time it can end less violently, but with how much (a lot of french) people hate macron, you never know...
The larger problem is, that it is spreading to other countries and EU itself (just think of how many times EU tried to stop/backdoor/outlaw encryption). Add a new upcoming crisis, recession in germany and the long-term problems brought with eu expansion, and things are about to get even worse.
This sounds like the normal mode for french politics. How many times has your government collapsed over the last 200 years? You're on the 5th republic or something right?
I am not French but my opinion of the current government is at rock bottom after how Macron recently went to China to basically suck up to Xi Jinping, completely ignoring human rights violations and all. And for what?
Oh it's not just Xi. He likes dictators and human rights abusers, even those that no one will touch with a ten foot pole. Most recently, he received Mohammed bin Salman at the Élysée.
I think the situation in France is quite similar to other EU countries, even the formerly holy nordic ones.
> [...] l’utilisation de messageries chiffrées grand public, sont instrumentalisées comme autant de « preuves » d’une soi-disant « clandestinité » qui ne peut s’expliquer que par l’existence d’un projet terroriste.
Sure, using encryption must mean I have terroistic ambitions... they say public officials lack creativity, but... but at least the government got convicted for their attempts at prosecution. Means the justice system is still functioning.
I'm from Brazil and I'd say we've just had that disaster election you fear a few years ago.
I used to laugh at the absurdities of the Trump government thinking it would never happen here and alas, it did. And it was even worse than most could have ever imagined.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't like the previous government and already dislike the current one's direction, but when you take one person that truly doesn't give a f**, they can ruin a country in ways you didn't even know existed.
But I don't really see a way out though. Most politicians here (probably everywhere if we're honest) are corrupt so you always choose between the lesser of many evils. The obvious solution is to actually use our collective power to rebel and really enact change - something ironically we say the French are good at - but it simply never happens. Looking at the French protests against the rise of retirement age gave me hope. But then you look at the outcome and it's always the same: we lose.
I honestly think the system has won. Capitalism successfully made everyone (myself included) just comfortable enough to not really take action. We are the proverbial frogs in boiling water and slowly but surely normalizing this insane world we live in today giving away all our hard-fought rights to our capitalist overlords.
We get upset and yell at the void, Twitter, HN, blog posts and don't actually DO anything. I truly hate myself for that. Meanwhile those that actually do something, have their efforts stifled away by governments with ease.
Perhaps I am a bit too pessimistic about this, but from where I stand, there's no way out.
I'm from the UK. Corbyn's Labour seemed to me to be a glimmer of hope; but he was pushed out by the MSM and a cabal of his own party's rightist officials, and replaced by a man who immediately on getting the leadership, repudiated all his manifesto promises.
So I no longer have anyone to vote for, and I favour revolution.
I know that that particular reply of mine doesn't help your particular case, but it was sickening to see how much of the supposed French people's liberties and citizens rights were broken back then and how most of the French intelligentsia was just cheering the government from the side.
The case reported in this article started when French people who went to fight in Syria among Kurdish militants came back to France and were put under surveillance.
Even if the prosecution is using unconvincing evidence, which I don't know, this is hardly a sign of impending doom.
I live in France as well, and personally do not feel the same negativity as you.
What I don't appreciate at all is our share of idiots that think that blocking the country is a proper way of protesting (see "gilets jaunes"). That is not democratic, when a minority imposes their will to the silent majority.
I'm always appalled by comments like these that justify their sympathy for authoritarian practices simply because they align with their interests. I'm in Paris, France, and police brutality has been increasing hand in hand with the corrupt nature of our government over the last decade, and it's horrifying.
The apple is completely rotten; the way our election system works and all the dirty tricks you can do when you're in power mean people are not left with any other choice but to revolt. This does not bode well for our country.
Polls showed that a large majority of French supported the Gilets Jaunes or supported the recent strikes. Foolowing your reasonning, the minority imposing their will to the silent majority is the government.
Furthermore, independently to our opinion about the Gilets Jaunes, the way this government use the police on the protest can be questioning for a democracy. Even the journalist of the right Figaro newspaper protested several times against police brutality against journalists.
Furthermore, independently to our opinion about the recent strikes (supported by 100% of the democratically elected trade unions), the fact that the government twisted the constitution to avoid a democratic vote of the democratically elected parliament on the legislative text is "puzzling"
What gilets jaunes or blocking whatever have anything to do with violating parliamentary rights ? Or making protests of disappointment (edit: disapproval) illegal everywhere the president go ?
What can anyone do about a president that abuses its power ? This is a basic democratic issue and I am pessimistic because a lot of people like you just don't seem to get it, so we won't address that and when it is going to be too late it will be too late.
You might like or trust the current government but what about the next one ?
When they came for the protesters you did not speak out because you was not a protester... Beware when they come for you there will be no one left to speak out. (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_they_came_)
If you care about democracy, you have much more relevant menace in France. People are screaming about Macron for some reason. Because they were told he is a DiCtAtOr!! Because he didn’t fold to unions. Apparently unions are to be obeyed otherwise you are a dictator? While obeying to elected government is dictatorship? It’s a nice inversion.
The true authoritarian menace in France comes from the far right and far left. Melenchon is in love with authoritarian leaders (see bolivarian alliance), he can’t help screaming at people that disagree with him. His political career should have been ended by just a few of his outbursts. But he gets a pass for some reason. And don’t get me started on the far right, screaming that we are in a dictatorship while admiring Putin…
Of course you can criticize Macron, he’s far from perfect, but if you care about democracy, focusing on him being THE issue is outright ridiculous. We have far more serious threats. You are completely missing the big picture. And people being told to fight Macron instead of the extremes is a serious threat. I can’t believe I have to explain that.
Well, democracy is not 0 or 1, there are shades... So for sure Macron is not a dictator, but French democracy "grade" was not super high and it did went down.
French 5th republic is sometimes nicknamed "presidential monarchy"... Electing the parliament quite at the same time as the president did reinforced the power of the president. The rise of the far right basically made that the one in the best position against far right at the first round of presidential election (with less than 20% of French people voting for him) be sure of being a Presidential Monarch for 5 years. (Notes that the leftist like Melanchon support a new constitution with more democracy, more counter power, less power for the president...)
Note also that in France people working do democratically vote for unions (even if you are not unionized), and quite 100% of those votes went to union that are strongly against las Pension Law. According to polls more than 90% of the workers were against this law. And Macron could not pass this law in the elected parliament, and had to twist the constitution to pass it... This can be seen as problematic for many.
When it come to protest, a lot of NGO and international bodies criticized the way France handle it. Many people are afraid to prostest in France now. Even the journalist of the righ wing newspaper le Figaro protest several time against police brutality against journalist in protest. NOte that France is the only country in EUrope to use many kind of weapon against protestors, weapon that can kill .
When it comes to journalists. Aside of being target by police during the protest, we've seen also a growing Judicial pressure against them. And now the government is talking about law where they could be spied...
"Because" of terrorism we've seen different law reducing the privacy of people... and many exceptional law that are hijacked to target people who are political opponent but not terrorist (like a police raid without judge OK against peaceful ecologists, or using antiterrorist law to forbid some peacefull protest)
Even the normal law are "twisted" is a problematic way. Like arresting random protesters and keeping them for the night. Or arresting the leader of a group for a fake reason and then searshing his phone flat computer for intel...
FOr sure France is not a dictature, but things are not good and are not going in a good way
In the mean time, the French government is also sending out a call for projects [1] that increase cybersecurity, digital sovereignty and promote encryption of data. Just not for the common folk, but for startups.
I find it funny (/s) that my current project is funded by the French government to develop end-to-end encryption in web applications [2]. Am I a terrorist too?
The investigation partly relies on notes seized from the defendants which mention various privacy tools: GrapheneOS, LineageOS, Signal, Silence, Jitsi, OnionShare, F-Droid, Tor, RiseupVPN, Orbot, uBlock Origin…
According to investigators: "these elements confirm they were willing to live clandestinely".
According to the prosecution: "these notes consituted a real playbook allowing anonymous use of a phone, showing the person was willing to live in secrecy and hide their activities".
The French version (readable with a translation extension) does, but it's just one of a long list of things including GrapheneOS, LineageOS, Jitsi, FDroid, Tor, RiseupVPN, etc.
Maybe this is like a logic bomb but for authoritarians. Try to convince Macron or random police officers that they too are _potential_ terrorists and watch them go cross eyed.
Readit News
These people have been sent to prison because they are suspicious, not because of an action they have done (something made possible as a special case of an older antiterrorism law). And, amongst other things, using Signal and Linux with the encryption-on settings are explicitly listed as some of the things making them suspicious in the eyes of the law.
That is a slippery slope.
When accused of authoritarian tendencies the government usually answers "go to China or North Korea to see what a dictatorship is like".
[0] https://twitter.com/mart1oeil/status/1671467485931921408
And given the sort of stuff they brought to their protests: swords, machettes, baseball bats, jerrycan, bricks, fireworks, petanque balls, Molotov cocktails, fire bombs, etc, it is particularly disingenuous to pretend they have been dissolved for not talking to the police when arrested.
You can read the actual decret in French: https://twitter.com/GDarmanin/status/1671450289298198528
Pretty much relying on the assumption that investigators will find stationary phones suspicious when they spy on you
Could put them in those charging lockboxes seen as airports and festivals, the infrastructure is already there
Guess I’ll market it to climate activists in europe lol
edit: maybe those delivery robots are even better couriers, since it fits the idea of getting a courier to come back to you better than an uber on the other side of town. risky but the fun kind.
China and North Korea exist on completely separate spectrums.
Is there a place where we can read more about this? The article seems to explain none of that context, it only purports that people are suspicious and can be arrested for simply having good 'digital hygiene'.
Edit: Some relevant passages from TFA
> Likewise, the critical attitude towards technologies, and in particular to Big Tech (Google, Amazon, Facebook Apple and Microsoft, GAFAM), is considered as a sign of radicalisation. Among the questions asked to the defendants, one can read: Are you anti-GAFA?”, “What do you think of GAFA?” or “Do you feel a certain reserve towards communication technologies?”.
> These questions are to be read in light of one report from the DGSI titled “The ultra-left movement”, which states that “members” of this movement are alledgedly showing “a great culture of secrecy […] and a certain reserve towards technology”.
Don't see any mention of Syria or weapons.
So caring about one's human right to privacy is a "culture of secrecy" now
[0]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_du_8_d%C3%A9cembre_202... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_December_2020_incident
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Defense_Units
It was/is a weird situation. They are very anticapitalist and marxist with some anarchist elements, but they got western support when they were fighting ISIS (and to some extent Assad/Putin) in Syria.
So in Syria communist rebells got US weapons and I believe US troops are still on the ground helping them. But back home in the west, those activists get prosecuted, because the PKK (the mother organisation of YPG) is considered a terrorist organisation (and likely they still are doing terrorism, even though it is of course a "separate" organisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Freedom_Hawks)
Like more than half of HackerNews :/
you mean as opposed to the people who went to Gitmo for wearing casio F-91W watchs back in the early 2000s[0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casio_F-91W
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seton_Hall_reports#Detainees...
The issue here is that they seemed to have used the encrypted communications to proof criminal behavior.
The real, actual problem is the unlawful detention.
> And, amongst other things, using Signal and Linux with the encryption-on settings are explicitly listed as some of the things making them suspicious in the eyes of the law.
In combination with other things, and in this article there are quotes from interrogations which explicitly ask "have you organised illegal activities through encrypted chat communications".
If I did, why in hells name would I tell you?
Why would you ask that in the first place? To catch out the incredibly dumb terrorists?
how is this defined?
They are basically saying "if you close the door of the toilets when you poop, you are suspicious".
Dead Comment
No, no, we're already down the slope and going fast, we are now at "dissolve informal ecologist organizations and raid their homes and families with antiterrorist groups and gear for the crimes of blocking some construction", "get friendly with neonazi groups and let them parade in Paris, let them attack prides and leftist bars".
Dead Comment
It's par for the course in a country that bans paternity testing (to "protect the 'unity' of families"! ) [0]
[0] https://idtodna.com/paternity-test-in-france/
Deleted Comment
The real problem is the unlawful detention of one of the men, for which a court finally intervened and he has been freed under surveillance.
No, it does not. While this group is indeed suspicious, detaining them without a proof (and using whatsapp as your proof) opens a serious precedent. Now anyone can be detain for that. And it'll be used for serious suspicious cases later but also will be used against someone like you because someone in the police didn't like how you walk.
Of note for US readers, France legal system is not a jurisprudential system as in the US. That is, a judge's ruling does not become law - i.e must be followed as law by another judge -, only parliament can make law.
The only instance having a form of jurisprudence power is Cour de Cassation, but that's only indirect: being the ultimate instance of recourse CCass rulings for similar cases have high chances of having similar outcomes. They may (or may not) influence other court rulings but a) they are not law and b) reaching to CCass is not guaranteed, so other courts judges are completely free to rule differently (as long as they abide by law)
That said, holistically these precedents matter as they may give broad strokes on mindset trends from the powers at play.
Since it seems they don't have anything, they are criminalizing normal tools and dev tools because your average reader/citizen doesn't know the difference between a hacker and a cracker, let alone the right of privacy vs conspiring. The only nice thing IMHO is that everyone uses Whatsapp and no one considers it "criminal", so by bundling Signal etc together with Whatsapp they are making themselves look like they are exaggerating for the average person.
Not in this current context. You can't detain someone willy nilly for 'intentions' without such intentions being explicitly stated as proof in letters, emails, messages, threats etc.
This is authoritarian pandering 101.
AIUI that's lawful in the UK, you can detain people under the terrorism act with only suspicion of intent. It does make some sense, it weighs the level of evidence inversely with the potentially large-scale of awful outcomes. (My understanding hear may be flawed/wrong.)
In order for that not to slip into fascism you need a forthright government that is honourable and believes in the rule of law ... both things the current UK government has proven they do not have.
No, this is matter-of-fact anti-terrorism.
One of many problems with western societies at the moment is the idea that we can be free while under surveillance.
Given the weakness of the elements assembled, why would the DGSI decide to withhold any decisive proof from the eyes of the justice system?
Both rule of law and liberal democracy are increasingly damaged. Our institutions are so weak that we are one election away from a complete disaster.
Our constitution always concentrated a lot of power in the hand of the president but there is no effective counter-power left. The government set multiple precedent that violate freedom of assembly and association and parliamentary rights. I skipped a lot of authoritarian practice that happened and are still happening but the situation is egregiously bad
I don't say that because I am a political opponent. I voted for this government in 2017, I am a founder, I am pro business. But also I am a father of two and I would rather raise my children in a democracy.
I am seriously pessimistic about this situation. EU knows and complains about Poland & Hungary but France is going to be a shitshow of a far worse magnitude. We should NOT get a pass because Macron knows how to play the game
We are the rooster that sings with it's feet deep in shite. It's gonna get ugly when it hits the fan.
1- Don't you think this is quite political? Like what is your benefit from saying this out of context? If signing this paper and being stricter helped the hospitals not being saturated and saved x thousands lives do you still think it was a bad thing? (I'm not even saying that's the case I'm just saying you don't seem to take that possibility into account at all)
2- From my observations French people -constently- complain about this. So I wouldn't say they didn't care about it. You're doing it right now.
No matter who was in charge of France there was going to be a giant spike in debt during at the very least covid, and now dealing with this Ukraine mess.
[0] I greatly prefer net Debt-to-GDP, which is a closer approximation to a country's actual balance sheet, as a measure, but it isn't frequently reported and most people tend not to care.
I'm convinced that whatever president they elect, they'll complain just as much.
I am French too and this sounds greatly exaggerated. Either you don't really know about the situation in Hungary or you have a very twisted view of what's happening in France (maybe induced by the medias). You should take a step back.
"Security" laws extending the powers of the police and creating new ways to criminalize protest have been passed at a constant rhythm over the years since Sarkozy's time. After the state of urgency of 2015, part of the dispositions where simply put into law permanently.
Police has been increasingly violent during protests, bringing back old forbidden tactics and squads formerly dissolved for their violence (voltigeurs).
While there has been no dissolution of leftist movement and no political violence from the left since "action directe" in the 80's, there have been multiple ones (or attempts) in recent times, like the one from yesterday of an ecological movement.
Anti-terrorist laws are used to detain ecologists or protesters indefinitely, like in the case of the "8th november" affair from this topic, which has seen a person kept in solitary (hence, tortured) for 16 months without even being convicted.
Dead Comment
France has been for the past sixty years and remains an extremely technocratic country. Counter-powers are still everywhere in the administration. The judiciary system is fully independent and works well. The balance between the parliament and the executive is extremely in favour of the president (which is still elected every five years during free elections) but counter-powers exist. They can’t be used by the opposition because despite spending all their time crying wolf and explaining this is the end of the world, they remain a minority and have nothing to propose anyway.
The issue in France remains the same it has always been. The population is old, largely apathetic and would much rather be on the dole than produce anything of value. Meanwhile the unions are extremely unrepresentative of the population as a whole and remain stuck in the Trotskyist heydays of the past.
There's enough food and energy if we so choose but no; artificial crisis from coughs to barbarian hordes on the horizon mean you must be poorer and work harder.
We could all just actually wake up and realise they are lying they are always lying. They dare not tell the truth for you'd realise how much they lie when truth would shine so bright.
I somehow hope this time it can end less violently, but with how much (a lot of french) people hate macron, you never know...
The larger problem is, that it is spreading to other countries and EU itself (just think of how many times EU tried to stop/backdoor/outlaw encryption). Add a new upcoming crisis, recession in germany and the long-term problems brought with eu expansion, and things are about to get even worse.
https://youtu.be/5Sf6hdnSqS4
I can't claim to be an expert in French politics, but harmful government should not be allowed to be stable.
The other bunch happened because they were precariously unstable governments.
Macrons pushing of retirement law change against both public and parliament is definitely not democratic.
> [...] l’utilisation de messageries chiffrées grand public, sont instrumentalisées comme autant de « preuves » d’une soi-disant « clandestinité » qui ne peut s’expliquer que par l’existence d’un projet terroriste.
Sure, using encryption must mean I have terroistic ambitions... they say public officials lack creativity, but... but at least the government got convicted for their attempts at prosecution. Means the justice system is still functioning.
I used to laugh at the absurdities of the Trump government thinking it would never happen here and alas, it did. And it was even worse than most could have ever imagined.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't like the previous government and already dislike the current one's direction, but when you take one person that truly doesn't give a f**, they can ruin a country in ways you didn't even know existed.
But I don't really see a way out though. Most politicians here (probably everywhere if we're honest) are corrupt so you always choose between the lesser of many evils. The obvious solution is to actually use our collective power to rebel and really enact change - something ironically we say the French are good at - but it simply never happens. Looking at the French protests against the rise of retirement age gave me hope. But then you look at the outcome and it's always the same: we lose.
I honestly think the system has won. Capitalism successfully made everyone (myself included) just comfortable enough to not really take action. We are the proverbial frogs in boiling water and slowly but surely normalizing this insane world we live in today giving away all our hard-fought rights to our capitalist overlords.
We get upset and yell at the void, Twitter, HN, blog posts and don't actually DO anything. I truly hate myself for that. Meanwhile those that actually do something, have their efforts stifled away by governments with ease.
Perhaps I am a bit too pessimistic about this, but from where I stand, there's no way out.
I know how you feel!
I'm from the UK. Corbyn's Labour seemed to me to be a glimmer of hope; but he was pushed out by the MSM and a cabal of his own party's rightist officials, and replaced by a man who immediately on getting the leadership, repudiated all his manifesto promises.
So I no longer have anyone to vote for, and I favour revolution.
I know that that particular reply of mine doesn't help your particular case, but it was sickening to see how much of the supposed French people's liberties and citizens rights were broken back then and how most of the French intelligentsia was just cheering the government from the side.
Actually, they came too late for the Gilets Jaunes!
> it was sickening to see how much of the supposed French people's liberties and citizens rights were broken back then
I agree with you, a bunch of idiots holding a whole country hostage was not at all what one would expect in a sane democracy.
The case reported in this article started when French people who went to fight in Syria among Kurdish militants came back to France and were put under surveillance.
Even if the prosecution is using unconvincing evidence, which I don't know, this is hardly a sign of impending doom.
What I don't appreciate at all is our share of idiots that think that blocking the country is a proper way of protesting (see "gilets jaunes"). That is not democratic, when a minority imposes their will to the silent majority.
Furthermore, independently to our opinion about the Gilets Jaunes, the way this government use the police on the protest can be questioning for a democracy. Even the journalist of the right Figaro newspaper protested several times against police brutality against journalists.
Furthermore, independently to our opinion about the recent strikes (supported by 100% of the democratically elected trade unions), the fact that the government twisted the constitution to avoid a democratic vote of the democratically elected parliament on the legislative text is "puzzling"
What can anyone do about a president that abuses its power ? This is a basic democratic issue and I am pessimistic because a lot of people like you just don't seem to get it, so we won't address that and when it is going to be too late it will be too late.
You might like or trust the current government but what about the next one ?
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If you care about democracy, you have much more relevant menace in France. People are screaming about Macron for some reason. Because they were told he is a DiCtAtOr!! Because he didn’t fold to unions. Apparently unions are to be obeyed otherwise you are a dictator? While obeying to elected government is dictatorship? It’s a nice inversion.
The true authoritarian menace in France comes from the far right and far left. Melenchon is in love with authoritarian leaders (see bolivarian alliance), he can’t help screaming at people that disagree with him. His political career should have been ended by just a few of his outbursts. But he gets a pass for some reason. And don’t get me started on the far right, screaming that we are in a dictatorship while admiring Putin…
Of course you can criticize Macron, he’s far from perfect, but if you care about democracy, focusing on him being THE issue is outright ridiculous. We have far more serious threats. You are completely missing the big picture. And people being told to fight Macron instead of the extremes is a serious threat. I can’t believe I have to explain that.
French 5th republic is sometimes nicknamed "presidential monarchy"... Electing the parliament quite at the same time as the president did reinforced the power of the president. The rise of the far right basically made that the one in the best position against far right at the first round of presidential election (with less than 20% of French people voting for him) be sure of being a Presidential Monarch for 5 years. (Notes that the leftist like Melanchon support a new constitution with more democracy, more counter power, less power for the president...)
Note also that in France people working do democratically vote for unions (even if you are not unionized), and quite 100% of those votes went to union that are strongly against las Pension Law. According to polls more than 90% of the workers were against this law. And Macron could not pass this law in the elected parliament, and had to twist the constitution to pass it... This can be seen as problematic for many.
When it come to protest, a lot of NGO and international bodies criticized the way France handle it. Many people are afraid to prostest in France now. Even the journalist of the righ wing newspaper le Figaro protest several time against police brutality against journalist in protest. NOte that France is the only country in EUrope to use many kind of weapon against protestors, weapon that can kill .
When it comes to journalists. Aside of being target by police during the protest, we've seen also a growing Judicial pressure against them. And now the government is talking about law where they could be spied...
"Because" of terrorism we've seen different law reducing the privacy of people... and many exceptional law that are hijacked to target people who are political opponent but not terrorist (like a police raid without judge OK against peaceful ecologists, or using antiterrorist law to forbid some peacefull protest)
Even the normal law are "twisted" is a problematic way. Like arresting random protesters and keeping them for the night. Or arresting the leader of a group for a fake reason and then searshing his phone flat computer for intel...
FOr sure France is not a dictature, but things are not good and are not going in a good way
I find it funny (/s) that my current project is funded by the French government to develop end-to-end encryption in web applications [2]. Am I a terrorist too?
[1] https://www.bpifrance.fr/nos-appels-a-projets-concours/appel...
[2] https://github.com/SocialGouv/e2esdk/
Not yet, but give it time.
Dead Comment
But what is uBlock Origin's sin? A law-abiding citizen is supposed to be OK with seeing ads, or something?
Can someone who reads French please elaborate on what the linked piece is saying about it?
According to investigators: "these elements confirm they were willing to live clandestinely".
According to the prosecution: "these notes consituted a real playbook allowing anonymous use of a phone, showing the person was willing to live in secrecy and hide their activities".
Wait, is it illegal to *checks notes* have personal privacy?
I guess they lost that ability now, and are trying to criminalize private communication.
https://www.laquadrature.net/en/2023/06/05/criminalization-o...
He had no phone...
Maybe this is like a logic bomb but for authoritarians. Try to convince Macron or random police officers that they too are _potential_ terrorists and watch them go cross eyed.