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In this mailing:
by Soeren Kern
• May 6, 2015 at 5:00 am
- Critics say
the oversight role is illusory and that the law effectively
centralizes surveillance power in the hands of just a few
individuals.
- "A law
that will change our society should have been debated. Why was there
no public hearing? Why does the judge have no place in the
monitoring procedure?" — Laurence Parisot, former head of Medef,
the largest business lobby in France.
- "We
cannot accept a law that notably authorizes the establishment of
systems that not only locate people, vehicles or objects in real
time, but also capture personal data, based on what the drafters of
the law call, vaguely, 'the major interests of foreign policy,' 'the
economic, industrial and scientific' interests of France, 'the
prevention of collective violence,' or 'the prevention of crime and
organized crime.'" — Pierre-Olivier Sur, head of the Paris bar
association.
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Protestors in France, on May 4, 2015, denounce the
surveillance bill that was passed into law the next day. (Image source:
Amnesty International France)
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The French parliament has approved a landmark intelligence-gathering
law that gives the state sweeping powers to spy on citizens.
The government says the new law — which was fast-tracked after the Charlie
Hebdo attacks in Paris in January — is aimed at preventing Islamic
terrorism.
But privacy groups say the law, which has been referred to as
"the French Patriot Act," is so vague and intrusive and
centralizes surveillance power to such an extent, that it poses an
unacceptable threat to civil liberties in France.
The law on intelligence-gathering was adopted in the National
Assembly, the lower house, on May 5 by a large majority: 438 in favor, 86
against and 42 abstentions.
The bill has enjoyed broad support from France's two main parties:
the ruling Socialist Party, led by French President François Hollande,
and the opposition center-right Union for Popular Movement (UMP), led by
former French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
by Shoshana Bryen
• May 6, 2015 at 4:30 am
- If the U.S.
was wrong about what Israel was doing, what about what the U.S. was
doing?
- An American
air strike over Syria is said to have killed nearly 60 Syrian
civilians, including 13 children; 118 Iraqi civilians have been
killed by coalition airstrikes as of January 2015.
- "It is a
cruel and bitter truth that in the fog of war generally, and in our
fight against terrorists specifically, mistakes, sometimes deadly
mistakes, happen." — U.S. President Barack Obama.
- Will Obama
offer the same understanding to the army of a democratic ally,
Israel?
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U.S. citizen Adam Gadahn (aka "The American
Taliban") was killed this year in an airstrike from an unmanned
drone operated by the CIA. He was not the target. The house he was in
was the target, based on patterns of behavior.
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Obama Apologizes After Drone Kills American and Italian Held by
Al Qaeda (New York Times 4/23/15)
U.S.-Led Forces Killed Syrian Civilians, Rights Groups Say:
Airstrikes on village controlled by Islamic State kills more than 60
civilians, say two human-rights groups (Wall Street Journal 5/1/15)
This is not a "gotcha" column. But before reviewing
American drone and airstrike policy, it is not inappropriate to remind
the president and company that hubris is an unattractive trait.
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