Why else would the New York Times report today that France is expanding its legal mandate for intelligence surveillance [caution, paywall, more here]– all on the eve of voting for the Privies?
Francois Hollande is already in the running for Privacy Hypocrite of the Year for criticizing U.S. surveillance while France is doing much the same thing. Now his government has adopted a law that underscores the hypocrisy of that complaint.
According to the Times, the law authorizes intellligence gathering with no judicial oversight and for purposes that go well beyond national security and counterterrorism to include “the protection of France’s scientific and economic potential.” (Though the Times can’t resist showing its hostility to US intelligence, claiming that French and US law provide “similarly minimal oversight,” despite the heavy involvement of US courts in NSA surveillance and the narrow to nonexistent scope of US intelligence for commercial purposes.)
Comments are closed.