Sarkozy's Big Sister Watches France

The French state has a long history of spying on its citizens, as we have seen here before. There has never been much fuss over the Renseignements Généraux, the police intelligence service which snoops in cafes, work places and housing estates and currently holds files on some 20 million people. A vetting by an RG officer used to be the first the step to a press card for foreign correspondents in Paris.

France barely noticed when President Sarkozy, a long serving Interior Minister and law-and-order champion, beefed up the internal spy services earlier this year by combining the RG with the DST, the counter-espionage and anti-terrorist agency that equates to Britain's MI5. The new super-agency is called the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur.

In the past couple of weeks, however, a revolt has broken out. The spur was the revelation of a new data base that will track the lives, opinions and even sexual habits of what could be a big slice of the population.

Called EDVIGE* -- an acronym and also old-fashioned woman's name -- the system is authorised to store data on anyone aged 13 upwards who is thought "likely to breach public order". "Big sister", as it has been dubbed, will also track everyone active in politics or trade unions and or in a significant role in economic, social or religious institutions. Listed people will have only a very limited right to consult their files.

Insiders are pointing out that this is what the police RG and its predecessors have done for centuries.  "EDVIGE is just a cut and paste of the 1991 decree on the RG data base," said Alain Bauer, a criminologist.

The opposition has taken off because Sarkozy's government was forced by the National Commission on Information Technology and Freedom (CNIL) to publish last July 1 the hitherto secret decree that created EDVIGE. This alerted rights groups to the potentially vast scope of the new network. 

"With just a few clicks of the mouse, any government official or civil servant will have access to intimate data," said François Bayrou, a centrist politician and fierce opponent of Sarkozy.

Michel Pezet, a lawyer and former member of the CNIL agency, wrote in le Monde: "The EDVIGE database has no place in a democracy. There is nothing in the decree that sets limits or a framework. Whether the database is used with or without moderation depends only on orders from up high."

The main judges' union, civil liberties defenders, gay rights groups and leftwing lawyers have joined the mutiny against what the opponents are calling a new "electronic Bastille". Several suits against it have been filed at the Conseil d'Etat, the highest civil court, and an online petition has gathered over 103,700 signatures (http://nonaedvige.ras.eu.org).

Leading newspapers -- at least those which do not support Sarkozy --  have joined the anti-EDVIGE campaign this week. Le Monde said that it was legitimate for a state to defend its security with an intelligence base "but the defence of public order cannot justify such a threat to individual liberties."

Of course France is not alone. "Homeland Security" in the USA and the fight against Islamic terrorism in Britain have brought new, extra-judicial surveillance of the population. Defenders of EDVIGE are also pointing out that everyone is electronically tracked these days and that people volunteer their biographies and private details on Facebook and other networking sites.

That's true, but it is impossible not to see as sinister a police system that lists 13-year-olds who are deemed potential trouble-makers and keeps tabs on everyone anyone with a remotely public role -- including journalists of course.

-------

*EDVIGE stands for a mouthful of bureaucratese:  Exploitation Documentaire et Valorisation de l'Information Générale. Here's the full government decree setting it up. Note that it authorises the agency to record "data relative to the environment of the person, notably including people who have or had a direct, but not accidental, relationship with him or her".

Sarkozy's internal spooks have another even more secret system called CRISTINA (Centralisation du Renseignement Intérieur pour la Sécurité du Territoire et les Intérêts Nationaux). 

Comments

[Dodo]

“The French state has a long history of spying on its citizens” LOL CB !
Yes. For most indignation of the Anglo Saxon Echelon staff !
I had a better name for EDVIGE : Escabot.

I prefer the French System telling “we have a database with political information”, it is there and, BTW, you can ask what is on this record, better than the Anglo Saxon counterpart who “officially” don’t exist but they lost every week in subway, train or forgotten laptop
With love,
your Big Brother
:)

[Pierre]

No doubt Edvige's critics make sense.
Howevere we (Frenchies) have Edvige (an others "fichiers"). You (Brits) have the CCTV and the world number one DNA data base.
Pour le pire et parfois aussi le meilleur...

[Mauvezin]

“The French state has a long history of spying on its citizens” LOL CB !
************************
How many cams in UK !!!?

[Thanks Mauvezin. I'm not making comparisons with the UK in the post, but since you do, no other country in western Europe has a history of anything like the French RG police. They date back in various forms to the revolution and then Napoleon III and have been a political tool ever since..CCTV surveillance is something else. CB]

[richard.jones]

It's a very serious issue, but when the people of a country are waged war upon, rather than the nation and its institutions per se, countermeasures that check those same people under attack for patriotism and so on is an unfortunate but kinda natural next step.
Unfortunately once that step is taken we are in to (rather like Kant's world)
a series of databases checking a government prescribed level of political, social, economic, cultural,'environmental' conformity, which given today's global mobility is an extremely difficult and certainly not always fair process.
It's made worse by the preclusion of personal access. These systems, [and DODO from what the legend above says EDVIGE is no different to those of the UK or USA], do NOT permit a person to see if they are listed or what the state has collected to their detriment and the state offers no right of rebuttal to their harvested, probably third party data.
I think Eric Blair was a century premature in his observations on how our world would develop. By 2084 we will probably be a globe upon which three or four blocs fight incessantly whilst watching Paris boil at 40°C in August. CCTV will be everywhere and so on.
I wish I could see a peaceful or easy solution but at the moment I can't.
I have however Küng's Islam - Past, Present and Future and Bobbit's Terror and Consent at hand in the hope these texts may lead me to propose a solution and turn Edvige into Energy wherein the good and wonderful of each citizen and what he has, can or could do to help the human condition is joyfully listed and open to change by its register.

[Dodo]

"Listed people will have no right to consult their files." CB
Are you sure ?
The decree says
"Conformément aux dispositions prévues à l'article 41 de la loi du 6 janvier 1978 susvisée, le droit d'accès aux données s'exerce auprès de la Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés."
I understand that : if I am listed, I can have access to the file by the CNIL WHEN the divulgation to myself of this informations don't represent a menace to the French State.
It seems OK to me.

Indeed the art 41 says "Lorsque la commission constate, en accord avec le responsable du traitement, que la communication des données qui y sont contenues ne met pas en cause ses finalités, la sûreté de l’État, la défense ou la sécurité publique, ces données peuvent être communiquées au requérant."

[There are so many conditions attached to access -- requiring the intervention of CNIL and a ministerial decision on whether or not public safety is involved -- that the result is that people will not have access. Perhaps I should have written "very limited rights to consult their files" .. That's the view of the groups protesting this week. CB]

[Dodo]

Richard
The more I read the law, the more I am convinced CB did a mistake there.
Read what the art 41 says about
http://www.cnil.fr/index.php?id=301#Article41

If the informations on you are irrelevant (in French ne mettrait pas en cause les fins qui lui sont assignées), you can access them direct.
If it is relevant (s'appliquent à la finalité du fichier) so you need to ask the CNIL
If you are not Bin Laden like (I hope) and the comunication don't represent une menace to the French State, you have access to your file.

[Blendi Progri]

I have an issue with the 'super agency' issue.

In USA, when Bush created the Homeland Sec, to me it seemed more of a show, acting like the state was doing something.

There's nothing super about it, except one more gigantic bureocratic tangle. FBI, CIA, ATF, KFC etc continued to do their job as before and if nothing else this extra link seems to make the job more compled with toing and froing and blame dispersed everywhere.

I remember Tom Ridge going on TV often like a broken semaphor changing the colour of the threats. One day it was purple, the next was orange, red, pink (I made this up ;) and the only result was panic buying, good 'ol american folks buying candles,water, food etc; I bet supermarkets were eagerly waiting for deeper and scarier colours.

In a different scale, The Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA)in UK was set up not long ago to be kind of a super-agency with wide powers to prevent serious threats and crimminal activity. As reported in this newspaper and many others, it took them 2 years or more to investigate a small number of crime lords:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article3919686.ece

Many people dont even know that they exist, at least in UK folks arent given to melodramas and the usage of colour-threat-code isn't paraded around a lot. Though few tzars were created here also ( anyone rememebrs the drugs tzar?) but they disappeared very fast and teh results werent that great.

But who knows the new super-agency may work for France.Let's see.

[azloon]

the few french posters here seem to be perfectly ok with all this.

does it make you wonder, CB, why you bother to warn them?

until enough people (besides george orwell) see 'big sister' as sinister/evil, we are all getting what we deserve.

in the 'mediated' world culture we increasingly live in, we all seem to drift along noticing that all is not well but unable to do anything other than to understand it perfectly -- and then to be witness to our own slow, imperceptible decline (and ultimate demise?).

[Dodo]

I would like to say that I appreciate the paper Charles did for us on EDVIGE.
Very important topic, not only for the French, but for all, since the Patriot act to CCTV.
As result of the terrorism we have a reduction of our freedom in France and Anglo Saxon countries, war, hate; French bashing resulting in more anti Americanism and so on.
Well done;
“And the winner is” : …are all this guy who did the Parisian metro in the 80’s, 911 in NY, Spanish station in Madrid, and London Tub.
The more the US bash the French, the more the French call perfidious their neighbour, the more this guy are close to the victory.
As Dante said : Diviser pour mieux régner.

Coming back to the Charles’s paper.
The first sentence “The French state has a long history of spying on its citizens…” is, how to say, very CharlesBremnesque. It is the British trade-mark, the way they have to say : we love you but we are compelled to drop pepper in your Chateau Lafitte.
It is Ok,
However, I insist, there are not so many conditions attached to access.
Just one : the CNIL. They have address, phone number, and people speaking French and doing their job with professionalism, they are not partisan; they are not a government body. Indeed, as Charles correctly remembered, they OBLIGED the French State to follow THEIR rules. Read the presentation they did on their site.

This said I am against the EDVIGE, but for the true also.
BTW : Opposite to what it is said there is nothing on sexual habits in the files.
If the decree talk on “sexual habits” it is because if you write that someone is a militant of, let say, “The gay Parisian Homosexual” this someone can say that YOU IMPLY he is homosexual, even if it is not true.
The problem of some journalist is that they often need a jurist but they have no time for it.
So let go with “They track with sexual habits”. who care ?

[richard.jones]

@DODO,

Kali mera - just dumped out the whole law 24 paginas. Will get back after I've read and indigested but first impression is there are so many loopholes and so many bureaucratic procedure loops.....

[rocket]

Dodo

"So let go with “They track with sexual habits”. who care ?"

For more information on this subject please read Sexus Politicus. It seems that many people in French political circles do care.

The opium of the people is to believe that no one cares which renders the French political scheme all the more hypocritical.

http://www.amazon.fr/Sexus-politicus-Christophe-Deloire/dp/2226172556

It may give you a different perspective on how sex is used in French politics as it is in many countries.

But where the French really excel is in denunciation of supposedly mental illness and depression if one's behavior doesn't fit into the predetermined precut model which prevails in France especially in politics.

The use of depression is particularly convenient in order to discredit an opponent given the "penchant" to use anti - depressants in France.

[rocket]

http://tinyurl.com/5ee59f

An interesting read on watch lists gone wrong.

Fortunately this could never happen in France.(LOL)

[Dodo]

While surfing on the net looking for equivalent of the french RG, I found, en passant, the word : Streetwatcher.
Some kind of green RG.

According I could read : Children aged eight enlisted for to spy the parents.
Hummm

[Dodo]

“the few french posters here seem to be perfectly ok with all this. »
Azloon, CB told you : The RG files exist since the French Revolution.
Renseignement Généraux is one mission of the Gendarmerie Nationale.
2 hundred centuries the Gendarmerie is filling the files. Do you think the French were not aware of it ?

The French Authorities praise the information for operation of counter terrorism. It is a choice of the authorities. They believe that intelligence, monitoring potential danger, precise and complete information is the best way to prevent terrorism.
Of course intelligence has his own limitation. The Juge Brugère used to say “the problem is not IF a terrorist attack will happen but WHEN it will happen although the information”
But according the specialist it helped to prevent a lot of attack in France.

[Dodo]

Rocket,
Sorry, I expessed myself in a wrong way.
My point was : The file don't track the sexual habits. Period
However you read here and there "They track sexual habits".
It became a rumor, that journalist helped to spread and NO ONE CARE.
OK ?

[Gill]

Dodo, the so called "streetwatcher" is not at all like the RG but is something that many Britains are up in arms about as being another intrusion into our lives by surveillance. For those who do not know, a number of local councils over here are making use of laws that were meant to fight terrorism to spy on ordinary citizens. The crimes involved may be dropping litter, dog-fouling and the particularly heinous crime of putting the wrong type of rubbish into the recycling bin (this latter may be because people do not know which plastics can be recycled and which cannot and the Council has not given enough explanation).
Whilst these may be anti-social actions which need to be dealt with, it is the employment of neighbours (including children) as snoopers that most people deplore. Perhaps if enough people voice their views the government may be pressured into tightening the use of these surveillance laws to the anti-terrorist measures for which they were intended.

[christopher muir]

Western democracies may well be sliding down a Stasi slippery slope with citizens' data bases springing up everywhere. I recently watched an interview with a liberally-inclined US journalist arrested (for God knows what) at the Republican Convention. She expressed great concern about the destination of her finger prints and other information about her to an unknown data base. Eventually, as in East Germany during the Cold War, trust between friends might start to diminish.

[paul]

Let's be practical. You go on a demonstration, say for more wages or against Le Pen, and a plain clothes 'policemen' is paid to stand there takes notes on what you say, to photograph you and identify you as a danger to the state - and find out your religion and sexual habits. Then it might go to the prefecture and higher up to Paris.
It happens day after day in every town in France.
Is this acceptable in a country which claims every day to be teaching the world democracy (Fillon on Afghanistan)?
France is the kafkaesque country, a totalitarian mindset hiding under the appearances of democracy and tolerance. Its a system that has power over people. Everyone takes this for granted...

[philip travers]

Dont you think this work has very few rewards for those who do it,accept keeping its opponents readied to denounce it!?I think the French have lost the plot like other nations.They could however,occasionally expose themselves as information gatherers,by letting out something that made them laugh,they overheard,and pay those who they heard it off,if no-one is actually endangered.Insightful views,that have no political or criminal or business emphasis could be let out with the same deal.After all if no patent or copyright or intellectual property matters are involved and the insight was good and worthy of any citizen,then pay the piper by some means.Cultural differences are borne by the intelligent not by those who pre suppose their authority is the highest form of motivation as intelligence.There are many forms of criticism and defiance and outright opposition to any government institution,thats being human as much as the institution may have humans in it.Finding that humanity secretly is certainly costly and threatening,but it may be a relief for everyone that authority can find it and appreciate it as a function of being human too.

[Pierre]

@Azloon
"the few french posters here seem to be perfectly ok with all this."
Read again. They (Dodo or I) say au contraire that they are In Fine opposed to Edvige but bring different arguments.
@Rocket
"But where the French really excel is in denunciation of supposedly mental illness and depression if one's behavior doesn't fit into the predetermined precut model which prevails in France especially in politics."
I love these definitive generalisations... Might consider a compilation of all these kinds of clichés expressed around here. However: Quel rapport avec la choucroute?

About Evige if the issues reveals all but one french "travers" it is that debates take place AFTER the system is settled. I would here see the true sign of bureaucracy's power and public disinterest for democratic control.

BTW talking about files collected, how come that they seem to be so easily "lost" in England?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4695548.ece

[Pierre]

@Azloon
"the few french posters here seem to be perfectly ok with all this."
Read again. They (Dodo or I) say au contraire that they are In Fine opposed to Edvige but bring different arguments.
@Rocket
"But where the French really excel is in denunciation of supposedly mental illness and depression if one's behavior doesn't fit into the predetermined precut model which prevails in France especially in politics."
I love these definitive generalisations... Might consider a compilation of all these kinds of clichés expressed around here. However: Quel rapport avec la choucroute?

About Evige if the issues reveals all but one french "travers" it is that debates take place AFTER the system is settled. I would here see the true sign of bureaucracy's power and public disinterest for democratic control.

BTW talking about files collected, how come that they seem to be so easily "lost" in England?
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article4695548.ece

[Dodo]

“….find out your religion and sexual habits” PAUL
No ! No religion nor sexual habits.

Once again, read the CNIL
The so called religious and sexual informations are called “EXCEPTIONNELS”
I gave you an example. Suppose you have a terrorist who meet every day people at the BAPTIST CHURCH of Paris.
According the law, since it is said that he meets people in a Baptist Church you IMPLY they are Baptist. It is why the law talk on “religion and sexual habits” in a EXCEPTIONAL WAY.
http://www.cnil.fr/?id=2241

The law is the law. Without this “sexual and religious” article the file would be :
This (supposed or not) terrorist use to contact the others at …….. (no name there)

Paul, this is a serious blog and a serious topic. No spin, pls.

[paul]

The point seems not to be taken that the French habitually spy on political parties, trade unions etc. and have done so for years (including the German occupation). The RG are very friendly people - I was interrogated by one. But there is no parliamentary culture of freedom of debate in France. In the eyes of the French police state (cf 1968) dissenters from the state line are all potential criminals. Why are trade unionists and the clergy and the political parties still being spied on in this way? No one forgets the bombs of Port Royal Rue de Rennes St Michel Rue des Roziers... But why target priests, etc. more than ordinary people?
The term exceptional - that loose term used also in other recent laws - will not prevent these points being recorded by an overzealous police fearful of presidential wrath.
On the other hand I might humbly point out that the French Defence Minister a member of the government has just come out against the EDWIGE datebase. Clearly he is in a position to know.

[Gill]

Oops, in my earlier post I referred to British people as "Britains" instead of "Britons". Apologies.

[dot king]

"Its a system that has power over people. Everyone takes this for granted... " Paul

Except perhaps for Hervé Morin the Defense Minister who only today was protesting against the introduction of EDVIGE - it's meeting opposition from all quarters, let's be a bit fair?

[dot king]

"the few french posters here seem to be perfectly ok with all this"
azloon

That's possibly because this whole Edvige debate was widely explored quite some months ago in France - it is in fact old news here.

[Dodo]

Yes Pierre,
No one here “support” this kind of practice, nor in France nor elsewhere.
Even if we understand that the intelligence need files and records, it can be a true danger.
1 – When the files are lost by criminal negligence. A wink for our British friends ;)
2 – For astonishing incompetent modus operandi. To see the link you gave. Another wink
3 – We are living in a ‘relative’ democracy in France, UK and USA. Imagine, good heavens, one of this countries under a fascist government and the use they can do of it.

On debates who take place, I suggest the broadcast “Du grain à Moudre”, past Wednesday on France Culture. I listened it in my car because it was at 18H when I came back from the office

http://www.radiofrance.fr/chaines/france-culture2/emissions/grain/fiche.php?diffusion_id=65889

[Daniel Strohl]

It seems to me that (some) of our AS friends "font une fixation" on the "sexual habits" of the French :) La France, patrie du stupre et du vice :)

PAUL,

"And a plain clothes 'policemen' is paid to stand there takes notes on what you say, to photograph you and identify you as a danger to the state - and find out your religion and sexual habits".

If French plain clothes policemen are able to photograph people, take notes on what they say ... and find out, basing on these valuable "informations", (their) religion and sexual habits, they are really "des flics super intelligents et perspicaces". If this were the case, I am sure we would be able to export them for a good price either to Washington or to Moscow to train their local colleagues or comrades apparently somewhat retarded in intelligence
matters ...

Seriously now : "But where the French really excel is in denunciation of supposedly mental illness and depression etc. "

Please, Rocket, would you be so good to give us some pertinent examples of that ? I really do not understand what you mean or to what or whom you allude to (apart your usual and more and more tiring one-sided irony :) ?

[rocket]

Pierre

"I love these definitive generalisations... Might consider a compilation of all these kinds of clichés expressed around here."

It's already been done by French authors themselves. I suggest you pick up a book from time to time.

[Pierre]

@Rocket
"It's already been done by French authors themselves. I suggest you pick up a book from time to time."

So you know what a book is? Do you also know that once you've picked it up you can open it and read (in french for instance)?
More seriously, be kind enough to give me the quotes of the French equivalent of Stephen Clark, Ted Stanger, Richard Chesnoff, Peter Mayle & cie (désolé de les mettre ici tous dans le même panier)...

[rocket]

Daniel

For starters try sexus politicus as I already mentioned.

[Dominique]

CB,

"no other country in western Europe has a history of anything like the French RG police"

Franco'Spain is not in Western Europe? Nor Mussolini's Italy? What about nazi Germany? did you hear about everyday surveillance in Sweeden?

True, the US are not in Europe...i would have mentionned the FBI.

Charles, please!

[Dominique]

Big Sister? what about Big Brother?

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/au-royaume-de-big-brother_557742.html?xtor=RSS-186

[Dodo]

There is on Wikipedia a hilarious list of the top 53 sexual scandals in US.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sex_scandal
Since an anti-gay republican …. molesting two young boys to another one looking for sex in the toilette of the airport !
Every year we delight with a good old sexual scandal in Britain. Nazist orgy, the minister and the secretary etc…
I call it Tartuferie.
The sexual scandal have more class in France, at least ;)

A bishop and a president dying in the arm of their respective lover;
Le Président a-t-il encore sa connaissance ? Non, elle vient de sortir par la porte de derrière !
LOL
We also gave good laughs with our last three president !

Dear AS friends : we are not worst than you are in sex, and, pls, laugh with us.

[Lex]

I was thinking the other day that I have not been more concerned about these observation systems because the US government is less concerned about moral issues and domestic dissent than it has been in the past. As a homosexul university student marching in anti-nuclear demonstrations and partaking in other political activity that went against the status quo, I was concerned about the government collecting information about me. Now that I am a plump, middle-aged bourgeois who pays his taxes and tries to keep his accounts in proper order and does not partake of any illegal substances, I am less concerned.

Our societies have changed, and exposure as a homosexual or an adulterer or having had an illegitimate child are no longer things that can be used to blackmail us or cause us to be fired from our jobs -- in most places.

But, I think that we need to be concerned that we are now building -- or allowing to be built -- systems that can be used to oppress us or others in the event that the people who have control of them change their minds about what they will and will not allow. Systems that are so far reaching that the Nazis and the Khmer Rouge and Juan Peron could have only dreamed of.

We've gotten ourselves into a bit of a pickle, haven't we? While we were distracted looking for the Islamic terrorist hiding under the bed, the proto-fascist elements in our governments went and built these things. Now, what are we to do about it?

As we used to say in the US after the Freedom of Information Act was passed, when you write to inquire if you have a file or to ask for a copy, they open a file if you don't have one, and add a page if you do.

[Rick]

This was an interesting and informative article, despite the squealing of abnegationists.

[Daisy]

It'll keep the snitches in business.

[Jeanne]

I don't mind at all if the French government wants to keep a file on me, any more than I mind being seen by groups of police when I walk down the street. I feel much safer in Paris than I do in the US because I think the government is performing effectively one of the services that government is supposed to perform--keeping people safe. The police in Paris walk a beat in groups; they hang out in parked vans; they are there if they're needed; they are helpful if questioned; their presence keeps people calm. I like this, I like the fact that the government is checking up on people, and I like the fact that some years ago the police just blew a terrorist train bomber away on a street corner--and showed him crumpling to the ground on TV. It seems like there have been a lot fewer "terrorist" incidents in France since then. Speaking as an American, I'm not sure that freedom of speech, freedom to privacy, and intense public scrutiny of police behavior are always such good things. I think these attributes of American democracy have been carried in many instances way too far.

[Mauvezin]

> Dodo
"A bishop and a president dying in the arm of their respective lover;
Le Président a-t-il encore sa connaissance ? Non, elle vient de sortir par la porte de derrière !"
********************
Rappelez-vous le cardinal Danielou et son "epectase" :)

[Mauvezin]

>CB
" no other country in western Europe has a history of anything like the French RG police. "
************************
May be ,I don't know.
But no country ,in Europe,has the french record of revolutions and so on ..
95% of the RG files are full of bullshit or gossips known by everyone ie: untel drinks, has a mistress etc...
But it's very useful in case of blackmail or wrong accusations.
-----------------------------------
CCTV surveillance is something else...
****************
....but worse,IMHO
Fouché and Berthelot

[Daniel Strohl]

Rick,

Hereafter a link to a long and interesting article (in French) about the British Big Brother, which (at least IMHO) overpasses "haut la main" his French counterpart; apart from the astronomical number of CCTV cameras - at least in London - one may note that children aged ten and over may be filed in the already rather fat DNA register, which continues to grow at the steady rate of one entry per minute. I know, I know - it is not comparable with the horrible French thing :)

http://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/societe/au-royaume-de-big-brother_557742.html?p=3

DODO,

"Dear AS friends : we are not worst than you are in sex, and, pls, laugh with us".

I join in, and most open-minded AS will do the same ... Laughing is good for everything.

DOMINIQUE,

"True, the US are not in Europe...i would have mentionned the FBI"

Sans compter quelques autres "machins" (le mot n'est pas de moi :) comme le NSA avec Echelon, la CIA et tutti quanti ...

[richard.jones]

For those interested - M. Strohl, Valentin, maybe Dot King - sehr schönlicher Postkarten, gnädige Frau Dot, vielen Dank!
The COURGE results for the 'absolute shower' in my Civilisation class is in the poor American tourists thread.
You should apply to your nearest CnIL office to get access. :-))
I will publish COURGE II 2 morro

[sebastien]

Rick, I'm puzzled by what you mean by "abnegationists". Apart from abnegator, which is obviously irrelevant, the closest any of my dictionaries get is abolitionist or abortionist, and I can't believe many of those have been squealing on this thread.

[Daniel Strohl]

Mauvezin,

Si je connaissais l'anecdote, je ne connaissais pas le mot épectase ! On s'instruit à tout âge ...

[Dodo]

Mauvezin:

This President Felix Faure story is absolutely hilarious: Where is the legend? Where is the true?

With this priceless « Il voulait être César, il ne fut que Pompée » by Clemenceau.

[Lex]

"Speaking as an American, I'm not sure that freedom of speech, freedom to privacy, and intense public scrutiny of police behavior are always such good things. I think these attributes of American democracy have been carried in many instances way too far." -- Jeanne

That's exactly the point. To be willing to surrender your rights -- that people have been fighting for in Europe since the 12th century -- is just plain foolish, and it abnegates everything awful that has happened in Europe and the Americas in the past seventy odd years.

The French shot a terrorist in the street. Did they? Showed it on telly. How positively modern of them. The British shot dead a terrorist in the Tube. Oops, sorry, Brazilian electrician, acting dicey. Our bad. God only knows what the Americans have been up to.

Does it then follow that universal suffrage, citizenship for Jews, abolition of slavery, collective bargaining, trail by jury, free & fair elections, etc. are threats to domestic security? Or only if they are "carried...way too far."?

I think if you take a closer look at modern German, Italian, Spanish, Argentinian and Chilean history, you will be able to find clear cut examples of how when one right goes, the others follow suit.

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the
populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H. L. Mencken

[richard.jones]

To the COURGE followers – Valentin, M. Strohl et al,

Given the schoolkids report was rendered meaningless by the blog format I will not do the same for the just finished adult Greek mother tongue sample.

The results were quite reasonably as I predicted, even a little better, amongst the 5 that had degrees from a Greek or foreign university. The results for the educated to High School in Greece (albeit on a small island) were far better than I expected.

Then I realized why. In the sample of 10, 7 are of the age where they would have had obligatory Ancient Greek for 2 years at school. 5 out of that 7 did just that: the other 2 had already left Greece. These 5, 4 from the High School Group and 1 from the graduate group produced excellent results.

If I discard those tests then the remaining 5 tests were all in the 50% to 60% level of assimilation of the same Herodutus text as I gave my school students. There was no great difference between university and high school education.

So it’s done. The key result for me is that there is probably a higher level of bridgeability between Ancient and Modern Greek in the educated classes than I thought, but from the tiny sampling I’ve done with less educated people – our cleaning lady, the guy who runs the periptero (kiosk) on the corner – they seem to pick up only one or two words.

Done and finished. Now about Edvige in the next post.

[Mauvezin]

> Dodo
With this priceless « Il voulait être César, il ne fut que Pompée » by Clemenceau.
****************
Ce serait vrai , au point que la "connaissance" Marguerite Steinheil fut alors surnommée la"Pompe Funèbre".

Les Radicaux avaient, naguère, l'esprit d'un Clemenceau et ils n'ont, aujourd'hui ,que la gouaille d'un B.Tapie :(
---------

[qwerty]

Shocked at the Edwige fichier (is Sarkozy introducing Stasi practices in France, must we all enter into "la résistance", is he finally showing his true colours and France is about to become a police state?), I was astonished to learn that the socialists and Rocard in particular were the first to want to officialise the creation of a "fichier" with private data, possibly to give a legal framework to existing practises.

for purposes of comparison with other democracies' practices in civil liberties, I found this in the Figaro:

Premier pays à s'être doté d'un fichier génétique, dès 1991, la Grande-Bretagne n'a fixé pratiquement aucune limite à son contenu. Elle possède aujourd'hui la plus importante base de données génétiques : quelque quatre millions et demi de personnes - soit environ 7,5 % de la population -, y figurent ! Tout individu soupçonné d'un crime ou d'un délit passible de prison peut y être inscrit. Scotland Yard croise systématiquement les traces relevées sur les lieux de crimes ou délits avec l'ADN contenu dans la base de données.

Pourtant, dénoncent des associations, environ un million des citoyens recensés n'auraient jamais commis aucun délit… Leurs profils, ainsi que les échantillons d'ADN, seront conservés à vie, même s'ils ne sont jamais condamnés ou acquittés. Selon le ministère de l'Intérieur britannique, 303 393 enfants entre 10 et 17 ans sont également fichés, dont près de 40 000 n'ont cependant jamais été condamnés. La presse relate ainsi l'histoire de deux écolières ajoutées à la liste pour avoir écrit à la craie sur le trottoir…

Aux États-Unis, des milliers d'informations en provenance du monde entier viennent chaque jour enrichir le fichier Tide, une liste regroupant les individus susceptibles de menacer la sécurité des Américains. Sa taille a quadruplé depuis sa création, en 2003. Et là aussi, les défenseurs des libertés dénoncent un manque de transparence, des erreurs et des atteintes à la vie privée. Le sénateur Ted Stevens raconte ainsi que son épouse Catherine est régulièrement contrôlée dans les aéroports, le temps que la police s'assure qu'elle n'a rien à voir avec le chanteur britannique Cat Stevens, alias Yusuf Islam, interdit de séjour aux États-Unis !

[richard.jones]

@DODO en particulier,

I've read the whole 24 pages and would say just reading the one article you cited that you are right. That article - 41 does say you have access, but read some of the others and you will discover that what we have here 'la lettre de la loi, mais pas l'ésprit de la loi'.
There is, for instance, a whole tract that prescribes punishment (severe) for any ill-intentioned or abusive access, without ever once defining what constitues abuse.
Futher, Google CNil, you will get a series of EU database references, Schengen voices itself regularly, the rights of access to any of these databases is not even mentioned.
I phoned the Swiss consulate this morning about my Evian affair and asked if this would be on Edvige. 'M. Jones, votre fichier policier Suisse ne compte que rien.' (Swiss French term, Dot)'Mais chez les français on assumerait encore une mention - ha - ha - ha.'
I telephoned the French embassy. I needed access I said, address of relevant Cnil office please, none known, but questioned as to my RIGHTS to even apply to any Cnil anywhere. No, not a French national I said, only lived there for over 40 years, and oh yes I can FAX you my 1938 French Army paybook. Raccrocher au nez!
I phoned the British Consulate who told me I should go to some website - I couldn't get it down - but it is really a Citizen's Advice Bureau for ex-pats and they would know. The Brit vice-consul said there are access rules to the Eurodata by nationality, and if you ask the EU they will say there are no national databases that are not overseen by the EU.
I telephoned a fairly close relative of my wife who is a Greek MP (Socialist - PASOK), he said it was all a joke. What Greece did was keep a shortlist of about 50 Greeks and 100 or so foreigners with Greek connections on a laptop and put the laptop in the safe everynight.'Am I on there?, I asked. 'It can be arranged,' he said.
I phoned another relative of my wife, MP but Nea Demokritia (ruling party) who has a strong intelligence, security background.
Nobody gets access to anything, ever he said, anywhere in Europe. The rules are vastly different he said regarding whose sins are on there - countries like Ireland, Greece, Slovenia with a few hundreds and France with 16 million and Germany with 12 million, mostly from the old E.Germany.
Lastly I phoned my closest friend, Jacques in Toulouse. He was arrested in the 50's and early 60's on a regular basis as one of Toulouse Rugby Club's best bar busters. Now, at 91, he wants to know if he's on Edvige. If anybody can get access he can!!!!!!