

French Constitutional Council Widely Approves Surveillance Law - HugoDaniel
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/shame-on-france-french-constitutional-council-widely-approves-surveillance-law

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realusername
(French here). This is a really sad day for the country. I don't really know
what to add here to the conversation, it was pretty much expected after the
massive amount of laws during the past 10 years that tried to limit freedom of
speech and increase the surveillance, it's just the next step.

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...

~~~
leap_ahead
(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.

~~~
realusername
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.

~~~
leap_ahead
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.

~~~
realusername
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 !

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hiq
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.

~~~
etiam
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.

~~~
jacquesm
> 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.

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cm2187
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.

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tptacek
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.

~~~
cm2187
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.

~~~
tptacek
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.

~~~
loup-vaillant
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.

~~~
punee
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...](http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/shleifer/files/shleifer_corrected_proofs_1.pdf)

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."

~~~
loup-vaillant
> _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.

------
loup-vaillant
(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.

~~~
leap_ahead
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.

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stzup7
Correct.
[http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=...](http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichCodeArticle.do?cidTexte=LEGITEXT000006070719&idArticle=LEGIARTI000006418646&dateTexte=&categorieLien=cid)

~~~
martius
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.

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CWuestefeld
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.

~~~
loup-vaillant
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.

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coldcode
"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.

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rndmind
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.

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aikah
"socialists"... more like fascists. A sad day indeed.

~~~
loup-vaillant
First, there is no connection.

Second, the only thing socialist about our government is the name. They're
capitalists like the other big party.

~~~
vixen99
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?

~~~
HugoDaniel
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.

~~~
stock_toaster
I think that is generally referred to as "Corporatism" these days.

