Today the French National Assembly approved a dangerous new proposal which would allow intelligence services to violate user privacy and harm freedom of expression. The so-called “French Patriot Act” was first introduced shortly after the killings at the newspaper Charlie Hebdo in January of this year. Sadly, the government used the killings as a pretext to push forward legislation that will give the intelligence services the ability to monitor communications with almost no judicial oversight. […]
As we have seen in the U.S. with the USA PATRIOT Act, and in other countries around the world, once a repressive bill is passed it can be used for decades to target users. The world mourned after the Charlie Hebdo attacks, but allowing mass surveillance of all citizens is the wrong response.
The bill was approved by a vote of 438 to 86. You can read more about the troubling provisions in the text at our blog post here.
Feeding the All-Seeing Spider: On May 5, the French “National Assembly” will vote on a dangerous proposal to reform intelligence services. This week Access joined a coalition led by our friends at La Quadrature du Net along with 18 other organisations to oppose the bill and take action.