France announces crackdown on people reading extremist Web sites

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/03/22/us-france-crime-idUSBRE82I07N20120322

by dctoedt • 14 years ago

81 69 14 years ago

dctoedt2• 14 years ago

FTA, quoting French president Nicolas Sarkozy, in the wake of the death of the guy who confessed to murdering schoolkids and soldiers: "From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hate and violence will be punished."

yaix• 14 years ago

It's election time.

cnxsoft• 14 years ago

I've read (on French news) that he said he would crack down on extremist ideas. Defining what "extremist ideas" is probably up to him...

adnam• 14 years ago

From Wikipedia: striking just below the knee cap with a tendon hammer produces a signal which travels back to the spinal cord and synapses (without interneurons) at the level of L4 in the spinal cord, completely independent of higher centres.

riffraff• 14 years ago

I am not an expert of french politics but this looks clearly as a play to the coming elections. And as most election-driven declarations it's overly stupid, and will probably never be implemented.

stfu• 14 years ago

This has so much conspiracy potential. It is all to familiar: Conservative politician down in the polls, "Terror" craze happening out of the blue with a superb timing for the election, that even the FT can't resist from titling "Sarkozy stands to gain most from arrest...".

mcantelon9• 14 years ago

The lone gunman is now dead, etc.

Judging how Sarkozy seems to have dealt with former political rival Dominique Strauss-Kahn, setting him up with a "rape", it's entirely possibly. French intelligence likely had the ability to pull strings in the terrorist community and Sarkozy likely has the ability to pull strings with French intellience.

tucson3• 14 years ago

There is a huge difference between saying Sarkozy might gain politically (FT title), and saying Sarkozy "timed" the shootings of 6 people which is what you implied. Or did I misunderstand?

victork2• 14 years ago

I am French and that smells bad, really bad. This is the kind of law or rules that are born in the heat of the moment; these "think 'bout the children" moments. What happened in France is really sad, but it is what it is: an act by an isolated person. This is not a repeated pattern that needs a law to solve it.

I am very far from being an extremist but I have consulted websites that are considered extremist, just because sometimes I stumble on them while browsing the internet, or just by curiosity, because I think I ought to "know my enemies". The definition of extremist is also very blurry, and will probably be abused in the future.

atestu• 14 years ago

> these "think 'bout the children" moments

Actually in France it's already illegal to visit pedopornographic website. While the intention is good, it can be used as an excuse to get a citizen's browsing history, and it's hard to defend a man's right to see kiddie porn…

marvin• 14 years ago

Yes, the reaction is very telling when you compare it to Norway's reaction after the Utøya massacre last summer. Perhaps the difference is that Norway's terrorist attack was by a local - but it seems to me that there is a cultural difference here in how we react to these events. Just look at the knee-jerk reaction blaming everything from rap music to computer games whenever there is a school shooting in the US. These knee-jerk laws are a huge problem for democracy.

Gmo2• 14 years ago

Please, don't mix up the "French" with their (our) president ...

Many French people disagree with the "always-in-the-moment" laws of the president. So please, don't try to see a cultural thing where it is not.

doe88• 14 years ago

Maybe it's my cynism's speaking but I think this is done on purpose. They know it will be easier to pass some nasty laws after these kind of awful events so they take advantage of the situation and bring up these laws they were maybe already thinking about for some times but wouldn't dare to expose. And boummm security++; democracy--; Job well done.

fab13n• 14 years ago

In all fairness, the title is misleading, if not disingenuous.

- An announce has been made by a president who's not so likely to be reelected next month. If he's kicked, his law proposals are moot.

- This president has a compulsive habit of making dramatic/populist announces right after impressive crimes made the news; he made this one a couple of hours after a terrorist has been killed in a botched arrest.

- Most of these announces are never followed through; when they are, the _Conseil Constitutionnel_ often cancels or neuters them for unconstitutionality; disproportion between the intended effect and the restrictions on freedom of speech is a legitimate cause of unconstitutionality (cf. e.g. the recently cancelled law about the Armenian genocide);

- The French parliament is in vacancy until it will be reelected, about one month after the President, so no big law can be voted right now.

It would be awful indeed if this law was enabled, but it's quite unlikely to pass.

masklinn• 14 years ago

> An announce has been made by a president who's not so likely to be reelected next month.

W. wasn't so likely to be reelected either...

MehdiEG• 14 years ago

I'm French as well and, quite frankly, I don't see anything special here. It's just business as usual as it has been for the past 5 years. It goes like this:

1) A tragic but isolated incident occurs.

2) Our dear President jumps into action, calls a press conference and, with a dramatic tone of voice, announces that he will pass a new law that will protect us all against this happening again.

3) The media happily reports this. The public is happy - our dear President is looking after us. The media however blissfully ignored the fact that, in French democracy, the President has no power whatsoever to create new laws, let alone to tell Judges who should be punished for what. There is this thing in our constitution called "separation of power" that both our President and the French media seem to be unaware of.

4) What happens next depends on the PR situation:

If another story quickly takes the top spot at the 8 o'clock news programme, the new law proposal is quietly buried by the legislators never to be heard of again.

If a new law really needs to be passed for PR purposes, a new law, comprised of nothing more than a rehash of existing laws, is passed. It's then added to the already huge pile of laws that never get enforced due to lack of resources in our judicial system. The end result is an ever growing and more and more complex set of laws containing an increasing number of redundant and useless laws, resulting in an even slower and inefficient judicial system. Maitre Eolas's blog is worth a read to get a better understanding of what actually happens with these new laws: http://www.maitre-eolas.fr/

So yes, business as usual. I'm sure there are plenty of lessons to be learned here and applied to doing PR in a startup though.

J3L24042• 14 years ago

Isn't free speech a constitutional right there?

mahmud• 14 years ago

It's illegal in France to deny an atrocity acknowledged by the State. If the government calls something genocide or a heinous crime, it's illegal for a citizen NOT to agree. It was meant to reign in holocoust deniers, making it illegal. Then it was used as a political pawn against Turkey, viz Ottoman crimes against Armenians.

In Britain two women are in court demanding their right to wear a cross to work.

In Germany it's even illegal to salute the German flag, or borders on social taboo.

Europe .. it's fucked, but it's better than the U.S.

Schlaefer2• 14 years ago

> In Germany it's even illegal to salute the German flag, or borders on social taboo.

Either it's illegal or a social taboo. And to my knowledge neither of them are true.

arcaseus• 14 years ago

The law making it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide has been invalidated by the constitutional council. The decision is quite interesting actually: - It is right to forbid denying the holocaust, as it has been recognised by an international jurisdiction (the Nuremberg court) - But it is wrong to forbid the Armenian genocide because it has been declared a genocide directly by the French government, so it could be used to censor anything. It seems a weird choice to me(I'm French), but it makes some sense. (http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionne... -- in French legalese)

Also, free speech isn't absolute even in the US, for example I think you must also have libel laws.

J3L24042• 14 years ago

In the US any politician proposing to ban access to certain opinions would be run out of town on rail, and rightly so.

rmc2• 14 years ago

In Britain two women are in court demanding their right to wear a cross to work.

Presume you're talking about this ( http://www.rt.com/news/uk-bans-wearing-cross-317/ ). This touches on religion, and whether the state wants to have a very multicultural/multiethnic workplaces, the wearing of overt religious iconography from one group can hinder that.

(Tis quite funny how the UK with an established state religion can be quite secular)

In Germany it's even illegal to salute the German flag, or borders on social taboo.

Probably depends on how you salute it. ;) One thing to remember in Europe, unlike the USA, there isn't as much flag waving or similar nationalistic stuff, unless there's a sporting match on. From seeing photos of the USA it looks like it's not uncommon for private citizens to have American flags outside. Here, if there isn't a sporting match on, it's either government buildings, or far right nationaists who habitually use their national flag. So behaviours that seem OK in USA, might seem weird in EU.

Some of this silly things are due to problems europe has had in the past (like religious persecution or extreme right wing nationalism)

jacoblyles• 14 years ago

>Europe .. it's fucked, but it's better than the U.S.

Not when it comes to free speech!

talmand2• 14 years ago

It probably wouldn't be considered a free speech issue since they are not targeting the speech, just those who consume it. I would imagine it's more of a privacy issue since they would have to track the browsing habits of every single person in France to make sure they are only viewing "acceptable" websites, whatever that happens to be on any given day.

read_wharf• 14 years ago

If you're allowed to say what you want, but no one is allowed to listen to it, then you don't have free speech. The logical reason for free speech is communication.

Gmo2• 14 years ago

The French (and I'd say Europe in general) have a very different view on what "free speech" entails compared to the USA.

rsheridan62• 14 years ago

Either you're allowed to say things or you aren't. There's no room for relativism here.

rmc2• 14 years ago

Most European countries do not have the same interpretation of free speech as the current US interpretation.

Free Speech definitions change over time, even in the USA. For lots of the 20th century movies didn't fall under "free speech", and before then blasphemy laws were not uncommon. Regions differ with other rights aswell, the free speech rights might be weaker in EU than USA, but employee or anti-discrimination law is stronger in EU than USA say.

iterationx• 14 years ago

If we do not believe in freedom of speech for those we despise we do not believe in it at all. -Chomsky

suprgeek• 14 years ago

"From now on, any person who habitually consults websites that advocate terrorism or that call for hate and violence will be punished"

Who defines "habitually", "advocates Terrorism" "call for hate and Violence"?

These terms and phrases are so overtly broad that a person visiting Reddit could easily qualify.

If the French govt. really moves a law along these lines, they would have taken a giant step away from Freedom towards Govt. Censorship of the worst kind.

I suspect this is just some pre-election bluster from Sarko to bump up his bad numbers. If and when this gets to the Law making stage, France needs a SOPA-style movement to kill this dead.

valinor4• 14 years ago

It is not the first time that they use undetermined terms. There is a law which forbids "ostensible" display of religion (muslim veil) at school.

What the hell means "ostensible" ? 15cm in diameter ? 12cm in lenght ?

tomjen3• 14 years ago

Hopefully - otherwise any french subscribers to /r/beatingwomen are going to jail.

In this case though, Sarko should 'just' have banned muslim propaganda, since the perp was muslim.

rsheridan62• 14 years ago

He's probably going to use it as an excuse to suppress his Lepeniste enemies, even though they had nothing to do with it. They were pretty careful to call for the suppression of "hate" in general, not Al-Qaeda or anything that has to do with this gunman in particular. Maybe this doesn't translate well but in English, "hate" is a term of abuse for right-wing attitudes.

NelsonMinar• 14 years ago

When I was in France recently trying to use free WiFi I was required to enter my name, address, mobile phone number, etc on several of them. I have a screenshot of one captive portal page here: https://twitter.com/#!/nelson/status/178533010302451712

"Because of January 23, 2006's law, you have to register to use our wireless service. In accordance with the anti-terrorist legislation that came into effect on 23/01/2006, we are obliged to record the identities of users. The data collected in this form will be shared with the National Commission on Data Processing and Liberties and will not be used for commercial purposes or sold to third parties without your prior consent."

I probably used 20 different WiFi nodes in France and I'd say about 4 of them tried to collect contact data like this.

More info on the law here: http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/frenchlaw

nakkiel• 14 years ago

Filling bogus information, is actually illegal.

Either ways, the National Commission on Data Processing and Liberties is your friend in the story (CNIL in French). They go to great length to regulate access to your data. There are several cases of national agencies being forced to collect less data thanks to them.

fchollet• 14 years ago

Well it's just one more dumb thing said by Sarkozy. In a month he won't be president anymore, just ignore him already. I don't see the crime of "reading a website" being punished in this country any time soon.

jakeonthemove• 14 years ago

Well, this has the potential to snowball if implemented...

That said, I've always been amazed at how people can go to another country, live and work there for years and yet speak in their own language (and not understand the local one) and refer to local citizens as "they; these; those", as if they're not part of the local culture. It may be hard assimilating, but the saying "When in Rome, do as the Romans" is true - in time, you end up being a Roman.

This resentment builds up, that's how you end up with terrorists and other malevolent people...

noarchy• 14 years ago

It may be temporary, but Marine Le Pen's campaign web site seems to be down at the moment. It would be easy to see her benefiting from the inevitable fervour over this loony gunman. Sarkozy would love to have a bit of that for himself, hence his seemingly-reckless statement.

geuis2• 14 years ago

The title of this story is "Gunman dies in hail of bullets as French siege ends" and has absolutely nothing to do with the throw-away line that the submitter used.

Do not editorialize submissions on HN. This is not Digg.

dctoedt2• 14 years ago

OP here; I quoted the relevant part in the first comment.

geuis2• 14 years ago

From the guidelines http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

"You can make up a new title if you want, but if you put gratuitous editorial spin on it, the editors may rewrite it."

"Please don't do things to make titles stand out, like using uppercase or exclamation points, or adding a parenthetical remark saying how great an article is. It's implicit in submitting something that you think it's important."

blendergasket• 14 years ago

France announces crackdown on people not using VPNs/TOR to access extremist websites.

In other news a lightbulb went off in the mind of yet another hacker, this time in France, who decided to devote his time to liberating the internet from the draconian control of governments and large corporations and working toward a censorship resistant infrastructure.

nextparadigms• 14 years ago

This is no different than banning/censoring books for "extremist content". It will start with terrorism and a few months later it will expand to other topics, and we all know that's going to happen. Next in line is probably copyright infringement, because that's a favorite topic of Sarkozy.

When exactly are the upcoming elections, so French people can get rid of Sarkozy once and for all?

JumpCrisscross3• 14 years ago

This is a predictable reaction from an incumbent one month away from a competitive election. It is not a failure of democracy for one arm of government to react like this - it's a failure if that populist whiplash becomes policy (or is debated seriously enough to spook).

An analogy would be October 2012, Romney is hot on Obama's heels, and a shooter goes on a rampage in Times Square. It would not be unexpected for the President to call for greater monitoring, no limits to what will be done to safeguard the American people, yada, yada. Norway's reaction was anomalous in the shooter being Norwegian and the political climate being mellower than France in an election year.

France announces crackdown on people reading extremist Web sites

Related Stories