Jeremie from La Quadrature du Net writes, "France just turned into a surveillance state, adopting a sneaky surveillance framework in article 13 of its Defense Bill (Loi de programmation militaire). It drastically extends the exceptional regime of extra-judicial surveillance against terrorism, for broad motives, including for the purpose of 'preserving scientific and economic interests of France' which could enable total.surveillance of political activists, journalists, corporate watchdogs, etc."
Administrative agents from the ministries of interior, defense and.economy can now target hosters and Internet service provider and 'information and documents processed and stored' by them, which means virtually anything (including potentially the content of communications) -- without judicial oversight. Such minformation can be collected 'in realtime, including by soliciting the network' terms broad enough to allow plugging in listening devices on operators' networks, à la PRISM...
We strongly suspect that the purpose of this provision is to cover up what is already illegally being done... in any case this is a totally unacceptable shift towards
totalitarian surveillance state in France, an untolerable breach of the separation of powers and an enabler for catastrophic violations of fundamental rights on a massive scale... :(
Only a challenge to the Constitutional Court could help at this stage.
Will French Parliamentarians Consent to a Democratorship?
(Thanks, Jeremie!)
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