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.
Phones should be turned off or left at home anyways when protesting. Here are my 10 commandments for engaging in protests:
1: never bring your wallet/ID. If you need to buy things, bring cash
2: either shut off your phone or leave it with your wallet. Recording police violence can be useful, in that case get the aclu app, a burner phone with the app, or an action camera
3: never speak to police under any circumstance
4: you can beat the charge but you can't beat the ride
5: bring water, it's more useful than for just drinking
6: bring hats, sunglasses, etc to avoid being identified by the state if it gets violent
7: wear good running shoes
8: know your rights, both federal and local, and when to use them
9: take out any contact lenses in case police use tear gas
10: stay aware of your surroundings; listen to picket line enforcers/community organizers
These are all fine in the US, but in other countries not carrying proof of identity can get you into some trouble, as can refusing to talk to the police. Know your local laws.
It is what people say about Germany but my teacher says that she didn't have an id card for 10 years and only got one because of tour to a place organised by her university required to show id card to be put in their touring list. As far as her experience goes, no authority ever put her in trouble for not carrying an ID.
The same way that the police never put me in trouble for mu id card not having my address.
About not talking to the police, it is actually a right you have in Germany despite popular gossip saying otherwise.
The problem of not talking to the police is that the police can create reasons to put you in troubles for not doing so, as the police have the privilege of authority, power and legal/public trust.
But when questioned by the police, if it is worth, you have the right to have e lawer to answer it for you or to guide you on your answer according to laws.
Fair enough, good points. That's why it all about knowing your laws! Either way though, getting a charge for "obstruction of justice" is better than incriminating yourself.
never bring your ... ID
IRC illegal in France and plenty of other EU countries. That alone will cause you issues, even if they can't pin anything else on you.
never speak to police under any circumstance
Miranda rights aren't universal. For example, in the UK authorities may draw adverse inferences based on silence.
No, you don't need to have an ID: https://www.service-public.fr/particuliers/vosdroits/F11601
Protests in modern times should change. Protests should turn city blocks into crazy multiday parties that are able to evade police and attract more and more people the longer it goes on.
Bring hot tubs and beer. Have bands playing good music. Offer free massages to people who can't protest but are walking home from work and are kind of on the fence until you get your greasy protest hands on them and give em a beer and a little pat pat
If you stop a modern man, hand them a beer with back massage, that man will likely die for you. Good luck to any cops trying to shut you down when you got the 11th floor of the wall street stick market coming to your rally
Are you planning on protesting anytime soon? When and where. Youve sold it to me.
what does 4 mean?
You can always be found not guilty in court, but if the police want to take you in, it's better to just go willingly
Even if you’re innocent or the charge is BS, you still have to go through the process of being arrested, transported, booked, held in jail and posting bail.
Even if you are in the right and court will release you...that could be in 3 or 4 days time after you have spent time under arrest and had the "ride" to holding cell.
The ride is the trip to jail.
Beating the charge means you are found not guilty in court.
either shut off your phone or leave it with your wallet
I think that the issue here is that it only takes one person carrying a vulnerable phone with a microphone to allow monitoring a given group. Your phone may be off, but...
That's true, but it's better for the vulnerable phone to not be yours
You should definitely have a phone. Anyone who can afford one of those cheap phones where you just pay for minutes should have one. Get one that can take pictures/videos (I think most of them do nowadays?).
If you see police doing something illegal, the more cameras around the better. The ability to immediately upload that evidence to someone else or a safe cloud service is also important so they can't delete it and you can't lose it by the taking the device.
This is scary because it could be exploited very easily by bad actors and is a huge invasion of privacy
This is coming in the wake of protests against pension reform being rammed through and riots over police killing kids.
There's zero reason to believe "being exploited by bad actors" isn't the point.
Not only rammed through against the will of the people, but President Macaroon didn't even let Parliament have a say in it.
Not only rammed through against the will of the people, but President Macaroon didn't even let Parliament have a say in it.
The French state is a bad actor already.
“Bad actors” -> like the police?
So many people don't seem to realize that if you give the state this kind of access, you give it to anyone. It's just a matter of time. As soon as there's a system in place for them to do this, it's vulnerable to attack.
These types of laws are created to be abused. The state knows they'll be used to erode rights.
It is going to. Lawmakers only needed the legislation to let police do so. I’m really pissed about it because I know – as how the vote system is as of now – it will be welcomed by elderly voters…
Source : Am French (as my English shows).
But lawmakers agreed to the bill late Wednesday as Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti insisted the bill would affect only “dozens of cases a year.”
Precisely why it should not be passed! That's not a good reason at all. It's not worth eroding people's rights if it only affects a few cases in my personal opinion. It shows that the law doesn't need to exist in the first place.
Also... what kind of argument is that? It may be dozens a year but once it is normalized with those dozens, it will become few dozens and on and on it goes.
Not a general slippery slope argument, but rather, it's clear how it makes future erosion easier.
Today: People named Joe who live at this address can be harassed freely and that's perfectly legal. Tomorrow: It's not so extreme! Look, see, we've never universally respected these rights anyway. There are cases where we legally ignored them. We're just expanding existing rules to cover more cases.
People always abuse these back doors. Always. To think otherwise is to be ridiculously naive
I always love when governments ask for powers to stop only a few cases, and act like it’s justification. Maybe, just maybe, do your job.
It's like the Apple case for building a backdoor that makes everyone less safe to catch one criminal. They ended up not needing it anyway.
Honestly one of the worst parts is I hate how police/the government can/will abuse these abilities if given a chance, because sometimes those few cases where they could be used they could potentially be really useful.
I work in 911 dispatch, we don't always have a totally accurate location from a cell phone, people sometimes repeatedly hang up on us, put their phone down and walk away, refuse to answer when we call back, or are too hysterical to answer any questions. Being able to put their phone on speakerphone remotely, keep them from hanging up on us, turn on their camera, etc. so we can see/hear at least some of what's going on could be really useful sometimes to help make sure we're sending the right kind of help to the right place. Being able to turn on a phone camera to see where a barricaded subject is in a building or room, see what kinds of weapons he has, hear what he's saying, etc. could be really useful sometimes. Sometimes someone will butt dial us or their kid playing with their phone will call us a few dozen times in a row, and it would be kind of nice to be able to come over their phone speaker and just say "Hey, you keep calling 911, if you don't have an emergency can you please stop?"
But cops would rather use those capabilities to harass protesters and such.
Technically, any number bigger than 24 counts as "dozens" ...
WTF Macron? What happened to “Liberté, égalité, fraternité”? This is some “bullshité” if you ask me.
He never gave a shit.
I remember Macron once was like "well, US is too free for us, China is too restrictive, we need to be in the middle".
The UK already fell to the multinational capitalist greed machine. Looks like France is falling, too. Any and all means to squash the protest of citizens of the society that might hurt the gdp output of the beloved economy.
Because everyone seems to have forgotten, an economy is supposed to be a tool to better distribute goods and services for the benefit of society. When a society lives in service to, and is harmed for the benefit of the economy, your society is ass backwards.
I don't think people profiting from the current economy would necessarily agree though. 🌚
I don't think the people profiting significantly from the current economy tend to dwell on the negative effects their actions have on other human beings, especially human beings below them on the socioeconomic ladder, as that tends to be the sole metric by which capitalists, the ones with significant capital not their self-hating peasant sycophants, weigh human life.
Economic success tends to come from sociopathic behaviors, how much you are willing to exploit others to disproportionately benefit yourself. We reward such manipulation leaps and bounds beyond any form of actual, prosocial labor.
A rapist likely wouldn't agree rape is wrong.
A serial killer likely wouldn't agree murder is wrong.
A capitalist likely wouldn't agree, at least if they were being honest about how they conduct themselves professionally, that exploitation or insatiable greed is wrong.
What exactly does this have to do with the multinational capitalist greed machine? It seems to me that governments of societies across the entire spectrum of economic systems have quashed protests with at least as much unreasonable force.
We do need to keep our governments in check to retain our freedom and privacy, but this is true universally.
This is a response to protests from the people from their leader circumventing their legislative process to raise the retirement age to satiate the capitalists who don't want their taxes to go up to pay back into the system that provided the infrastructure and means for their success in the first place.
Those protests are continuing and getting worse due to increased use of police force, and its cutting into GDP, the only thing the capitalists care about. How much value did we accumulate? How much did the beloved economy grow metastasize? Better find a way to kill the people's voice, or our quarterly earnings won't reach shareholder expectations!
France and the UK really have gone to hell in a hand basket. Dystopian bullshit. No wonder they are rioting.
We should be rioting as well, but we are too apathetic.
Don't riot - the destruction of property has a very serious cost that the rioting society itself will have to bear once all is said and done (whether we get the change we want or not) and it means that efforts and money will have to be put into simply rebuilding rather than progressing. Do mass strikes instead; it hurts them much more, the public is much more likely to be on our side, and the pressure to give in in order to restart the economy will be much greater.
Agreed. We are slowly going the same way.
Police
What could go wrong?
I don't imagine we're going to see stories in the near future about how the police abuse these powers :/
What's extra scary is the thought that there will be no stories coming out about how this is abused. Not to say that it won't be, just that the stories that will come out will be how scary the world is and how the police are the only ones keeping everyone safe. Meanwhile some cop is watching someone sleep, or shower, or anything else in the privacy of their own home.
If they are allowed to do these other countries will follow suit. This is a dangerous precedent in which no one is safe regardless of boarders.
During the 2020 protests in Portland, Or the US Marshalls flew a plane equipped cell phone snooping equipment over downtown for hours every day. The equipment acts as a mock cell tower so mobile phone traffic in the area gets routed through their tools before going to an actual tower. It also collects data from wifi in the area, in addition to whatever unknown abilities it has. This was around the time anonymous federal agents were picking up people off the streets in white vans and hiding in bushes shooting pepperballs at people walking by.
That sounds like a Stingray.
What kind of Orwellian shit is the french government pulling?
Look up the Pegasus Project. Governments have already been doing this. Now, they're just doing it more openly.
At least what the French are doing is in the open. I remember when the US Echelon program was leaked, what is their government up to now?
The fact that they're doing it out in the open is what really concerns me.
What are they doing in the dark if they're okay with telling on themselves about this?
France following in NSW foot steps
I've never been so happy to have the ability to root my phone and flash a new OS onto it. This shit is absolutely insane, I'm surprised there isn't more eyes on this from non-profits globally.
I've never been so happy to have the ability to root my phone and flash a new OS onto it.
Worry not, citizen! Soon they'll make that illegal too. :)
Because you have a certain phone, or certain skills, or certain equipment? What makes you able?
No special skills or even a certain phone, although yes some equipment can sometimes be required. Honestly, though, almost anyone with some free time and will power will be able to root (Android)/Jailbreak (iOS) their phone and subsequently change the operating system it uses.
A good starting place for me was the XDA forums which I'll link below, search for the section specific to your model phone and see what is available, software wise.
This is the same government that says using an ad blocker, vpn, custom rom, linux and or encrypted messaging service puts you at higher suspicion of being a terrorist.
I see them enacting these policies now as the large number of pro labor protests fighting the government all over the country on pensions “reform”.
Well I'm sure terrorists don't like seeing ads either but I'm not quite sure how they came to the conclusion that using an ad blocker makes you a terrorist.
France is a bit of a strange country though.
My guess in their logic is that you can't be ad tracked.
That is of course if you believe that this blatantly authoritarian measure was actually done in response to terrorism.
They're likely right for that assumption. Modern day terrorism I think would require a basic ability to use computers. It doesn't make it likely, but more likely is probably right. I don't expect much organized terrorism that's not going to use some of those tools.
You're right. If you're a normie well, you're a normie. Successor criminals and terrorists would not be tech normie's and would certainly use some of these tools.
I still find further empowering the prosecutor I am state to be disgusting though.
Damn France and Macron are really leaning into the authoritarianism lately
T his is not new. He just stopped giving a shit about hiding it.
Yeah, scratch a centrist and a fascist bleeds
The leaders of France seem to forget that their citizens used to make people shorter for less.
I brought this up at work and somebody said we sold our soul in the us with the Patriot act.
How do you say "All Cops Are Bastards" in French?
What the FUCK? Is there any uncorrupted government left on the planet?
uncorrupted government
Impossible, because that's an oxymoron.
Antarctica? The open seas?
Do either of those have a government?
Uruguay?
Read the article. Title is clickbait. It's only with approval from a judge. You know, alternatively they could just arrest and imprison the person, which is what every country is doing. Not saying it's without worrying, but there's important nuance that most are missing.
P.S.
Absolute extremist attitudes like "nobody should be able" and so on, have absolutely no place in modern society. There's always nuance. Libertarianism doesn't work, and laws must be enforced. It sucks, but when there are forces that want to hurt people and destabilize societies, you can't go by the rule that everyone is a saint. The world will punish this attitude.
Yes, the world isn't perfect, but for ducks sake, quit sensationalizing anecdotes and representing them as "this always happens". That's dishonest.
So? Even with a warrant, thats not a power that people should have. No one, warrant or not, should be able to remotely activate your phone/camera/etc and monitor it. The fact that power exists means smart phones are an even bigger personal safety and privacy threat than they already were.. and if police can do it with a warrant, then there are gonna be people who figure out how to do it without one and for far more malicious reasons.
Ah yes it's ok to violate my rights, as long as a judge approves it.
I live in France. The government here is using every single tool they have to prosecute radical leftists and environmentalists while ignoring the fact that more than 60 % of the police force has fascist adjacent ideals. I do not want these people spying on me, period. This is not some libertarian horseshit, trust me.
I don't think you solve one problem by introducing another problem. The solution to over-criminalization is to decriminalize things. If a person is a danger to society, charge them with a crime and let a jury of their peers decide their guilt. Hacking into someone's property so that you can spy on them is absolutely not an alternative worth entertaining.
If the good guys can do it, even by the books, imagine what the bad guys can do.
Laws must be enforced, but not by treating privacy like a wet rag.
Persinally I hope we'll see some mainstream devices that comes with a hardware toggle for the mic and a manual privacy shutter for the cameras.
Keep in mind that privacy is really a recent concept. Human societies never had privacy before the industrial revolution. Everybody knew everybody else and what they were doing. I do want my privacy, but modern technology makes it too easy to create and grow any organization that can rival the state in power. While we do have the power to influence and control the state, we have no power over competing organizations that act like authoritarian states.
There needs to be a balance, an amount of power that the state can exercise, that's just right for keeping it as a monopoly on violence. Absolute privacy, where the state has transparency, is taking away all the power and advantages from the state and gives them to whoever wants to challenge that state.
In other words, nuance.
Uh huh, and if a rubber stamp judge gives wiretapping permission every time the cops ask for it?
Then your problem is the judicial system, isn't it?
I'm sure the judge will say no
Can we ban clickbait
Not quite done with the last riot and want a new one it seems.
They better riot fast. Normalized camera peeking will change the tone there very quickly.
People will be stuffing their phones into couches or running water and shit, and some AI will be able to detect patterns of surveillance evasion and they won’t even have to do anything official about it just send the surveillance avoider a message in the form of a camera turning to follow them or something like “hey, we noticed you’re being sus”.
And then there will be huge incentive slope toward not avoiding surveillance. So people will have to fall back on hiding their thoughts.
And the mental strain will be enormous. And that will sap their fight.
Dystopian fiction was not supposed to be a guide on what to do.
It was meant as a warning and a prophecy
What the fuck, France.
Modern Tech plus AI - authoritarian regimes can't ever be overthrown.
John Green's "this machine kills fascists" sticker on his laptop on Crash Course has aged extremely poorly. More like makes life easier lol
this machine kills fascists
I just learned about Woody Guthrie because of this comment. Thanks!
Yeah nah, I would like to think AI systems could be used to prevent authoritarianism, develop anti failure systems and maximize potential human potential, but hey I'm just chucking it out there...
I am interested in the "how" part. Do they have such a single interface available?
This is why we need to strip the US gov. of power, before shit like this starts happening (which ik, it kinda already is.)
Soon they’ll be checking if you’re talking about abortion or homosexuality or how horrible racists are. Then comes the knock on your door.
Hasn't the Patriot Act basically already enabled the feds to do this stuff and more for years now already?
Yeah but you guys still have the guillotines in storage or something though, right? Might be time to dust them off.
It bugs me that people will removed about privacy all day but won't do anything about it. Most people just go
Holy fuck, and this is coming from France
This has to be at least partly because of the civil unrest. Seems to me like a certain ruling class is getting antsy about Frances past and proclivity to remove noggins...
There has been an alarming absense of noggin removal in recent history, it's not like the evil bastards haven't been deserving, just nobody unlifes them anymore.
Well I guess it time to(( checks notes)) ah keep on Rioting
Hi France. Welcome to the United States.
Fuck this is depressing.
Can't even jerkoff in peace now without someone watching
You say that like it's a bad thing. 😏
Found Louis C.K.
I wonder if Apple will make a public statement on this.
Yeah, that's my thought. It's all well & good to say they can, but how? It's not a capability of the OS, so the only way this could work is some kind of carrier patch (?) or an unpatched bug.
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...
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.
The Orbánization of the European right continues.
How very dystopic. Scary as hell.
As an Italian, I feel sorry for our transalpine relatives. Europe is experiencing a totalitarian shift in politics (again) and few people care. Instead of uniting strengths and change this direction together, we're pointing at each other in contempt, accusing one another of intolerance/fascism/inadequacy.
Liberté!
Égalité
The NSA did it first
Is this the law saying to law enforcement that if they were already able to, they're now allowed to? Or is it the law saying to phone manufacturers that they must make it possible?
The question is how soon before spyware software that barely hits the mark for police investigations gets turns into a tool for aspiring actors
But hey, that's just my two cents 🤣
Wasn't "not making this a thing" a point in The Dark Knight?
They tried, but "violating everyone's privacy works" was also an inescapable point. Really undercut the message by making it so effective.
If you read the article it's nothing like that. This place is already turning into reddit and that's not good.
Feel like this is a point of no return regarding a government choosing to side with the elite for the upcoming calamities instead of the people.
Obviously, not a surprising choice, but I’d just think France of all places would at least hesitate a little on such a brazen attack on liberty.
Fucking yikes. Now this is yet another reason to protest en masse. God speed, French folk.
This world is getting scarier by the day. Sad to watch our freedoms being taken in realtime, and so quickly. Digital currency is the real key. They will shut our money off unless we comply.
During the debate on Wednesday, the members of parliament in the camp of President Emmanuel Macron inserted an amendment limiting the use of remote spying to “when justified by the nature and seriousness of the crime” and “for a strictly proportional duration.” They noted that a judge must approve any use of the provision, while the total duration of the surveillance cannot exceed six months.
They said sensitive professions, including doctors, journalists, lawyers, judges and MPs, would not be legitimate targets.
I don't see any here over whether this is technically possible even if it is allowed -- I suspect not. How is the French warrant process, in general? Do they require probable cause and limited scopes?
the famous french motto of "the law applies differently to different people", right?
That’s a general principle in all countries, there are just various shades of it. Also you can count on police to use it illegally knowing that although they won’t be able to use it as evidence in court they can still use it to bust some heads and look for leads
Also, those statements appear to conflict. Why are they automatically excluding 'sensitive professions' yet stating 'it depends on the seriousness of the crime'?
Wouldn't Apple just tell the French police to go fuck themselves?
DROPOUTJEEP .... "A software implant for the Apple iPhone that utilizes modular mission applications to provide specific SIGINT functionality. This functionality includes the ability to remotely push/pull files from the device. SMS retrieval, contact list retrieval, voicemail, geolocation, hot mic, camera capture, cell tower location, etc. Command, control and data exfiltration can occur over SMS messaging or a GPRS data connection. All communications with the implant will be covert and encrypted."
I can't see why they would. Apple doesn't care about you, but they probably do care about retaliation from the French government.
Six months?!
3 more months of rioting.
I guess that's one way to get people to riot harder.
Yeah, that'll quiet down the protests
Things like this need to be regulated to the greatest extent
During the debate on Wednesday, the members of parliament in the camp of President Emmanuel Macron inserted an amendment limiting the use of remote spying to “when justified by the nature and seriousness of the crime” and “for a strictly proportional duration.” They noted that a judge must approve any use of the provision, while the total duration of the surveillance cannot exceed six months.
They said sensitive professions, including doctors, journalists, lawyers, judges and MPs, would not be legitimate targets.
Ah, of course they make themselves exempt
American teacher here. I shudder to think of the spying on teachers that could conceivably take place in some states in the US if this were passed. I hope things aren't like that for teachers in France
That won’t stop the police, if there is a back door in place they will use it. People are actually naive enough to think that they won’t are amazingly naive about the way these things work
I hate when Pandora's box gets opened.
Aww ye! Can't wait to get busted because those bouncing boobies shown in the video am enjoying does not follow the "rights of freedom" written by the law #42069. WOO FREEDOM!
Our leaders have purposefully failed us. We all need to break out the guillotines.