France passes bill to allow police remotely activate phone camera, microphone, spy on people
A bill that would allow police in France to spy on suspects by remotely activating cameras, microphone including GPS of their phones has been passed.
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Did anyone actually read the article or did we all just head straight for the comments section after reading the headline?
If we team up, only one of us has to read the article and can write the TLDR so we can hit the comments quicker!
this became reddit faster than i expected!
Read it, didn't give information to dampen the initial outrage. Six months only for a dozen or so cases and not against doctors or journalist doesn't sound that convincing to me. A judge must grant permission also doesn't help imo as the act is still is a major privacy violation to all those who interact with the subject in any way.
The French government is pulling a "if you got nothing to hide, don't worry about it".
They say it's gonna be limited to "when appropriate" but history shows whenever this sort of system is implemented, it's scope of "when appropriate" gets broaden pretty quickly.
Did you? Headline sums it nicely to be honest. Only it's not just phones. It opens all same horror show of digital freedoms / privacy the headline implies. Awful development.
I read the article, what's in it that's not all there in the title? The only thing I can think of is that they "claim" it's only going to be used for specific things. But we all know how that goes...
How about the fact that it needs a judge's approval and that surveillance is restricted to very specific cases for a limited amount of time?
When people hold conspiracy theories about the government being some monolithic engine of evil, or people who don't believe government should exist because "muh freedoms", any time an arm of the government is used as a check they just don't care. It doesn't matter that their beliefs have no basis in reality - they will dismiss any evidence contrary to their beliefs because it's dangerous to their worldview. It wouldn't matter if 1,000,000 warrants are denied for every 1 warrant approved - the one approval is all the evidence needed to claim tyranny.
You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist to have serious misgivings about anyone, government or otherwise, being able to tap into your phone for any reason. They regularly go to the wrong damn house with warrants signed by judges and you want to trust them with full access to cameras inside our homes?
Except these warrants aren't granted for "any reason" and I'm fairly sure you know that as well. Like I implied in my comment, the government is not some monolithic entity where all government employees conspire to deprive you, John Q. Public, of all of your rights.
My claim is only that no matter how well implemented a program may be, certain individuals will still claim corruption where none statistically exists. The whole point of our society is to implement laws, execute those laws, evaluate if those laws are having a positive affect on mitigating the problem it's meant to solve, and change the law to address shortcomings or unnecessary bits.
Of course we should all be skeptical of the process, but arguing against change because we don't feel like the results are going to be what we like is irrational. Past behavior is important to keep in mind but let's not exaggerate and wax hyperbolic. It's simple: If our elected officials aren't implementing and reevaluating laws based on evidence/results, then it is our responsibility to remove those officials from power. If the roadblock to removing those in power are your fellow citizens, it's your responsibility to help gain consensus in your community.
Tearing down, or dismissing, the system is not reasonable; that's partly how in US politics we've become so polarized. People don't have patience anymore for conversation or debate; they want immediate and immaculate change with 100% certainty and that's unrealistic. Change is gradual and is never going to get it right out of the gate.
So come on, if you're French, engage with your community and your elected officials to ensure that this law is implemented (or retracted) as honest as possible and stay engaged. Opinions without reasonable action is how fascism takes hold. I'm not sure how this law will turn out but I'm willing to be surprised that it gets implemented honestly. And if you're not French, well, then I'm pretty sure yours and my opinions on how that citizenry chooses to govern is none of our business (outside of gross universal human rights violations and this is nowhere near the same galaxy).
It was always like that on reddit and will be the same here. Headline -> straight to the comments.
I guess it was inevitable with the influx of reddit users (I'm admittedly one of the recent converts myself). I just wish it took longer than it did.