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".
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".
It's par for the course in a country that bans paternity testing (to "protect the 'unity' of families"! ) [0]
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.
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.
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 ?
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...
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.
"knifes can be used to stab people, let's ban them altogether"
"cleaning supplies can be used to poison people, let's ban them altogether"
#logik
also, potential = guilty until proven innocent
The Home Office is looking for ways to reduce knife crime. We suggest that banning the sale of long pointed knives is a sensible and practical measure that would have this effect.
This is fine…
[1]: https://www.francetvinfo.fr/societe/justice/le-senat-donne-s...
Of course, the next step will be you are shopping abroad == you are suspiciously close to being a terrorist.
On the other hand, I can see enough countries willing to support such a requirement, forcing an enforcement on a larger scale.
I'm not saying there is no cause for concern - there usually is - but more often than not they have this tendency to overlook some elements and overblow some others to serve their narrative.
My recommendation would be to carefully read the source material and cross-read other reports to form one's opinion.
IOW the good part is that they're fact driven, the bad part is that they cherry-pick and use doomsday FUD-like tactics to drive their point home.
Why does it seem like the French government is always supporting the worst actors in any conflict? ISIS is (was) so evil and barbaric, they make Putin seem like a great guy. Why would volunteering to fight them ever be seen in a bad light?
Now, depending on who you ask, the PYD/YPG is "good, because they fight ISIS" (e.g. the official stance of the US) or "Terrorists, because they are basically just extensions of the PKK" (what Turkey says).
This leads to a lot of inconsistency in foreign policy within NATO. For example Sweden is pressured to crack down on PYD/YPG to be admitted into NATO. The US, like many others, have supported the YPG/PYD in the fight against ISIS. So I imagine Turkey is also pressuring other NATO countries like France in this case, to go after PKK collaborators including the adjacent syrian orgs.
So basically: why are the people volunteering to fight ISIS seen as terrorists within NATO? I'd guess these days to a large extent because Turkey says so.
In part, because the YPG is seen by the french state as a terrorist group, for various political reasons, and also because having leftists trained in handling weapons is seemingly more terrifying to the government than having neonazis trained in handling weapons. Make of that what you will.
A cynical person would say it's because corrupt leaders are afraid of potential consequences for their actions. But there's likely other, more mundane reasons too. :)
Fighting for a foreign nation or mercenaries is illegal, no matter if you're fighting the "bad guys"
This goes to show that France is not a totalitarian regime. The government fucked up, justice, as an independent power punished it and the illegally detained suspect is now free. The whole story is freely reported by French media.
So is it bad: yes. Is it tolerated and are dissenters being silenced: no.
For the rest, we will have to wait until the trial, but if the accusers don't have anything better than the use of Signal and uBlock, it probably won't end well for them, even if they represent the government.
What about HTTPS? Suspicious.
>French minister for the economy and finance, Domenica Strauss-Khan, has said she wishes to liberalise
Dominique Strauss-Kahn (they also butchered his last name) is definitely not a woman (but it's a "mixed" name indeed, that both men and women can have).
Back in those days it was also illegal to share radio frequencies used by the military (since comms were not always encrypted; details about frequency and modulation were secret), and a guy got prosecuted for doing just that.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/boston-college-prompt-...
[1] https://www.constituteproject.org/constitutions?lang=en&key=...
Of course that the message will still need to be encrypted in a way, but that won't happen by using Telegram or Signal or WhatsApp or by encrypting your hard-drive using dedicated software, but the new "encryption" should work in a sort of "out in the open for anyone to see way", like in the famous E. A. Poe The Purloined Letter [1] short-story, with the stolen letter that was "hidden" in plain view for everyone to see.
Again, I realise that this new strategy isn't ideal, that it will most likely make it harder to keep constant the rate of encrypted communication that is now carried out using dedicated apps, but the reality on the ground is that by using Telegram or Signal or any other dedicated app that focuses on technical encryption one just manages to paint a target on his/her back.
-----
terrorism
noun
the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.
"the fight against terrorism"
Governments would be wise, so long as I'm not doing anything to hurt anyone else, to mind their own business and fuck off.
Don't make me get out my AR-15 with its standard rapacity 45rd mag
I mean, we all know that president dissolving the parliment/congress/house is an unworkable mechanism for a sustainable government.
A government that is afraid of its citizens is the right kind of governance: it keeps them within their expected functions: "expected" is the operative word.
I do not support the protests that destroy public and private property.
Someone who supports such violence should have their house destroyed and looted and then affirm "well done!". Somehow this does not happen.
Neither the leaders who support squatting do not advertise their house address and when they go for vacation to incite the squatters to take their house and make it a trashbin.
There are different ways to protest but when you go for violence do not be surprised you get violence back (including non physical).
This is not talked to any political wing - as someone said the extremes usually meet.
They have been nothing but rational and respectful in everything they have done so far.
You can see it in the writing of the article, it's methodical, logical, and rely strongly on facts through quoting documents.
This have been consistent for years, something I give them a lot of credits for.
Besides, no matter the political orientation of the govt, I think it's safe to say no group at the top was not worth of opposition during the last decades. So it's nice to have movements like La Quadrature that keep them in check.
For the US guys here, the equivalent would be the FBI tracking down a few guys back from Afghanistan, monitoring who they talk to, see that they are curious about how to make bombs, how to encrypt your communications, etc, and write an article saying "oh look, the FBI thinkgs that buying sugar at the supermarket is suspicious", because among 1000 other evidence, the FBI at some point noted that "individual bought ingredients to a make a bomb and bought 25kg of sugar".
…automobiles, rental-vans…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1958_crisis_in_France
It amazes me that the constitution that was put in place then is largely unchanged today, insofar as the French president is still incredibly powerful, parliament is subservient, and the electoral system is deeply majoritarian.
I don't know exactly what it says about a society that it keeps a constitution that was imposed this way, but it isn't anything good. The frank craziness in this article (F-Droid, lol) is in keeping with that.
1. He can call for new elections of the Assembly (not of the Senate) ;
2. He names the Prime Minister and chooses to accept or not the government the Prime Minister then proposes ;
3. He's got minor powers regarding foreign policy.
And that's it.
Now what goes against the President:
a. Regarding [2.] which may seem a major power: the Prime Minister and his government can be kicked out basically at any moment by a vote of the Assembly. So there is no way the President could pick a Prime Minister and a government that doesn't suit the Assembly. Basically, the Assembly has the last word on it, and keeps this power all along the legislature.
b. The government decides and leads the policy (politics?) of the nation (article 20: «Le Gouvernement détermine et conduit la politique de la nation.»): the President is not supposed to have a say about it.
c. Once the President has named the Prime Minister, he cannot remove him. Nor can he remove any other minister. Only the Assembly can do it.
The problem is not the constitution. The problem is that the constitution hasn't got a sacred role as in the USA, and everyone in the various positions of power wipes his ass with it.
So, all what gradually happened more and more in the last few years, is Members of the Parliament voluntarily de facto abdicating their powers to the Government, and members of the Government voluntarily de facto abdicating their powers to the President. In the end they mostly take orders from above and act and vote as they are told to. Just because they enjoy their seat...
If anything, keeping the same constitution for more than 230 years is a horrifying thought to me.
