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It's going to be a reflection about
the decline of the civil liberties
in France and really the very sad
and dramatic year that France has
experienced from the start
of the year in 2015 with the attacks
on Charlie Hebdo.
So the recent attacks in Paris
this November, all of that as
tragic as it is.
But sadly, this is also had the effect
of increasing push by the French
government to put legal frameworks in
place to not really make things easier
or better for citizens, but for the
secret services in France.
And that is what the two speakers
in this talk will be addressing right
now, as well as attempts of
French NGOs to push against this
kind of legislation.
So I'd like you to give a really, really
big, warm and respectful welcome
to our next two speakers, Tazi Denn,
who is the co-founder of a nonprofit ISP
in France and also the member of a
federation of nonprofit ISPs,
and Adriano al-Shami, who's the campaign
coordinator at La Guardia, to
do net. Applause, please.
Hello, everyone.
Um, so I
have to warn you, I have to do a little
disclaimer, this talk would be very
depressing.
So keep calm, please keep
calm, hug your neighbor.
Everything will be OK and let
go. So we want you to give this talk,
because as you have seen a lot
of things as happened in France all this
year and Geraldine said it.
And so we wanted to share this with you
and to give you an insight on what's
going on. So, yeah,
let's start with
2015 in a nutshell.
Yes, 2015 was a very
black here in France for freedom
and not bioterrorism, attacks on security
and the misery of voting, a permanent
atmosphere of terror.
It began with the terrorist attacks in
January, followed by the intelligence
law in March, then by an international
surveillance law in September,
then by November attacks.
And that was a state of emergency and new
threats about liberties.
Yeah, so the thing
is, it's not just 2015, it
started a while back,
and since 2013
actually there have been several measures
and laws put in place and
one of the first is the Military Planning
Act.
So it was kind of the first
reaction to the post, to the Snowden
revelations in France.
Uh, and, um, so
this is general
low on military planning included a
measure about giving
an unrestricted access for the police
to the ISP networks,
giving them access to metadata in real
time.
Yes. And this measure was
voted to protect fundamental
interest of France against economic
espionage and terrorism.
And as far as the beginning of
the of the problem, then
in 2014,
we had a new law about terrorism,
uh, voted in the emergency
process because your apartment
is a new way of democracy in France
when you talk about terrorism.
And there were several, Mizoram,
mostly inefficient to prevent people
from becoming terrorists.
And one of them was the birth of
a provision to allow police
to block websites for apologia
and glorification of terrorism.
A very, uh, strange,
uh, formulation.
And police can directly ask
the ISP to block by DNS
access to websites.
And of course, it is with
the no control by judge.
The list of blocked websites remain
secret. And, uh, you have no information
to citizens and to the owners of the
websites.
Yeah, and that's not all for
this law. Also, glorification of
terrorism was removed from the the
only low framing freedom of speech in
France to the.
And so it was put in through the penal
code. Um, and
to the effect of this is that is is
that glorifying terrorism
is now just like an act of terrorism
itself, like it's ruled by the same
judges and so on.
Um, and also the sanctions,
uh, if this glorification
is made using the Internet, are
increased.
And after Charlie attacks in January
this year, many people will judge for
glorification of terrorism.
And a lot of them were drunk people
or very young people.
And it shows the program to define
exactly what is glorification of
terrorism.
So that was for 2014.
And then came 2015.
And the intelligence flow,
it was a low prepared since two
years approximately.
And the January attacks
offer the window open the window for the
government to to push the law.
Uh, and
and during two months between the
Sharia's attacks in January and the
presentation of the law in March,
it will it was an intense debate in
France about must we have our
French Patriot Act or not?
And the Internet was always presented
as responsible for radicalization
and terrorism.
And encryption was targeted in France
and in other countries like the
United Kingdom, for example,
even even if nothing proved that
encryption was used by terrorists,
and even the news cartoonist
of the famous cartoonist from Charlie
Hebdo was not a fool about all this.
And you make this wonderful cartoon
about the situation.
And I think it's very, uh, it speaks
by itself.
So what were the arguments
for the low?
Yes, you are the government's
arguments and the reality and
the first arguments why that
the objective of the law is to create
a legal framework for intelligence
services. But in fact, France
was under the threat to be condemned by
the European Court of Human Rights.
So it was very, um,
uh, complicated for the government.
Yeah. And then also, uh,
one argument of the government was
we needed to replace the only law on the
matter on surveillance dating back
to 1990, 1991.
But in fact, it was only a
question of extending the surveillance
to Internet and mobile communication,
which was not previously
in the in the law, and said arguments
well that the government wanted to
legalize existing practice and
needs of the service, which were in a
gray zone, they call it
a legal practice is not,
um, not a black, not
white, but a gray zone.
But it was just illegal
practices and used probably since many
years back, the services.
One of the arguments was that, well,
you see, this law is bringing an
independent control on the on the
surveillance activities and the
intelligence activities, but in fact,
that was the real controversy still
on the power in the hands of the prime
minister and the
the mission.
But the commission, that's just a
consultative advice.
Yeah.
And so one of the arguments
was that, you see, it's giving
the citizen a way to challenge the
surveillance now that it's framed
and so on.
But actually, yes,
in fact, defense secretary can be opposed
at each step of the citizen
challenge and the process is not undone
in the judiciary court.
So you cannot
challenge the state.
So here for the arguments
that we heard during the debate.
But what is the scope of this
intelligence law? That's something very
interesting because obviously
its scope for the
way it was sold in
the in the media as something targeted in
targeting terrorism.
But actually there are all sorts
of categories of people
or actions that are concerned by the law,
like collective violence likely
to seriously harm public peace.
That's something very broad and very,
uh, uh,
vague.
Uh, and so there are also, uh,
economic and and scientific strategic
interests of France and, uh,
international commitments and, uh,
basically everything and everyone
is concerned.
And, for example, protests against
nuclear power can even fit
in several of these categories.
And the law, uh, legalize offensive
and defensive, uh, espionage.
Yeah. And we don't have the time to cover
all this. And there is also immunity
for the intelligence services
or in the law.
Uh, but let's see some of the measures,
uh, the concrete measures that are
included in it.
So obviously there is targeted
surveillance like KG's democratization,
microphone cameras are included in
the law, are allowed by the law.
Uh, there are also in Sketchers.
Uh, and one
of the thing that crystallized the debate
was black boxes that were to
be put into ISP networks,
hosting providers and access providers,
uh, so that, uh, these black boxes
can detect weak signals
and algorithmically
and, uh,
yes.
So they put it into the law
in France and in the
into the law.
That's crazy.
So obviously we are
against the law.
Yeah. We were not very happy with
that. The campaign against the
surveillance law immediately and
coordinate a large coalition of
opponents. And our slogan was
everyone can be under surveillance and
was detained on a community website.
Uh, you are here.
So surveillance that if it means
under surveillance, that, uh, that
effort.
So the mobilization was really broad.
And it it came up very fast
with not just activists, but also
NGOs, lawyers, judges, journalists,
trade unions, digital economy also.
Um, and we.
Yes. And we started with
by your press conference and like whether
your office and it was not
by the newspaper at the at the beginning
of opponent's campaign.
And we were surprised to be
at the at the center of the, uh,
coalition.
But I think we are used
to be faster than all the NGOs because
we we know how to mobilize to
to analyze and to campaign and
that give us more experience, that
Internet ways to organize.
Yeah. So the organization, although
they're not organized in the opposition,
uh, group, uh, all around the debate
at first, at the very beginning, very few
MPs were against the law.
It was really something that was going
to pass. It was a it was a lost battle,
um, but, uh, a very
large citizen mobilization, uh,
has been organized through, uh, Alkira
like with our traditional tools.
Yes. We use them, for example,
the phone with, uh, which is
a website to facilitate calls
to members of parliament.
The only thing you need is a phone
number. And we just have five
weeks to convince
MPs that it was a very,
very good campaign.
But at the day it was a vote in the
National Assembly, 20 percent
of MPs vote against the law.
And for us, it was it was very,
um, it was like
a little victory
and.
And three weeks later, we
have the same progress in the Senate
with at the beginning,
nobody, nobody is against
the law and at the end, 20
percent of the senators against the law.
And during all of the campaign,
we provided legal amendments
and explanation to the member of
parliament. We explained again
and again the law to politician, to
the media in order to change the public
and political view and the law.
And it worked
because despite the
bad result, we are proud
to have forced the government to justify
itself every time about freedom.
And now the law was
called the intelligence law at the
beginning in media and
at the end was called the surveillance
law. And for us, it was very important
to change the world.
Yeah.
So this is not all.
We decided to also take the legal
fight.
And so we
there was a small group of people,
um, we decided to
write a, um, an amicus
curiae. It's a document that
you can provide that you can contribute
to a judiciary debate.
And so one hundred and twenty two pages
were written describing what
was wrong in the law, uh,
comparing with the European commitments
of France and the European Court of
Justice case law and to us to
to sustain the appeal launched
by 60 members of the parliament to
to go before the Constitutional
Council to asking the law to be
censored.
And that's something like this.
You can read it on our website.
Yeah. And so this was written
not just by lawyers, but also
with a team of lawyers and activists.
That is very interesting.
And we put it online so that people
can review it and every people
can review it and and give
us feedback and comments and fixes.
And so it worked very well,
very, very well. We had 500,
uh, modifications in 24
hours. We were like the first
surprise to have so many comments.
And so this is a proof that
lawyers can work together and do pretty
cool stuff.
Angela, is the constitutional council
validated the law except
one small part of its small part,
all of the provision about international
surveillance.
It's not to say that international
surveillance is prohibited, of course,
just to follow the parliament, to vote
explicitly as a measure and not
just vote for future secret
decree to organize international
surveillance.
So the law was reintroduced before the
parliament in September.
Yeah, it's it has been
a nightmare like like with everything
that was alone on this.
Yes.
Not to mention the
most. And was in France.
It was two firsts, only three weeks to
two campaign. So we were all alone
and the law
legalized surveillance and all traffic
going in and out of France.
This is obviously mass surveillance
and has been clearly stated
as such.
And it's written in the law, not
targeted surveillance.
So it's the mass surveillance was
vetted and the law state
that authorization to spy
even for entire countries,
for companies or for
geographical zone.
So without any
prior control and there always
has been voted in three weeks without
any serious debate presented
just at the patch to the intelligence
law. Yeah, yeah.
I would say traffic going
in and out of France.
It's nothing like, well, this
is a map of cable cables
going in and out
of France. So this is pretty scary.
So at this very moment, uh,
we were like, OK, the battle is lost at
the end of October.
Yeah, end of October.
But we were like, OK, now it's
kind of a..
Well, we have to we have
still a world changer at the
end of a very hard period.
And we would continue our positive
agenda and campaign for
rights and freedom on the Internet.
Net neutrality, data protection,
copyright reform, some very positive
things.
And then and then came the
attacks.
And immediately after the attacks,
the attacks took place at a Friday
evening at 10:00 p.m.
and at 11:00 PM, the
French president declared a state of
emergency.
Uh, and the day
after the prime minister declared that
a law will be voted the next
week to extend the state of emergency
in its perimeter and duration
for three months.
And the law was voted with only six
votes against.
And there are very massive pressure
of the prime minister and the minister of
interior affairs.
So let's see what is the state of
emergency? You have to see that it's
a suspension of separation of powers.
It's something very exceptional
and it allows the police
to do searches 24/7
without any judiciary control.
Uh, there are also also
arrests. Um, people can
be forced to stay at home twelve hours
per day and not quite a
specific area.
And also, um, websites
can be.
Yes.
In the vision of a new provisional.
Yes. New provision, uh, adopted,
uh, last month.
The, uh, electronic search is allowed
into any system accessible
during a police search, any, uh,
which means that if the police come at
your place and see that you can access
from your computer other computers, you
can also copy the data of these
servers.
Most of all devices.
Yes. And the websites can be blocked
directly by an order by decision
from the minister of interior affairs.
And there are a provision
about dissolution of formal groups
or organization without any
judgment and forever, including
after the end of the state of emergency.
And all of this is not
operate with a judge, advise
it just with the intelligence
services information you have not to
through to, uh, prove something
before before, uh,
Blocher website or make,
uh, house arrest or police
search.
Yeah. So let us give you some
numbers of what happened.
So until now, we have, uh,
numbers given by the French National
Assembly, some kind of reporting.
Uh, and so far as of
actually the December the 17th,
there have been more than 2700
police searches, uh, three
hundred and sixty eight house arrest
and no websites blocked.
But the
other that's interesting.
The main problem.
Yeah, Internet was the main problem.
So and, um, we
decided to document the disaster,
uh, on the on the.
You we keep with the help of
people on the Internet and
every day, every article
on a newspaper about the state of
emergency is across
our region.
And for us, it's very important to
to grow the awareness of people and
politicians before voting next Mazrui.
So at this moment,
when we were documenting the disaster, we
were realizing that the targets
of these searches and also arrest
were not all the time terrorists.
Um, but there were like
everybody that could cause danger to
public peace, uh, would be considered
dangerous by the police and the minister
of interior affairs.
So there were Muslims, anarchists,
climate conference activists.
And also there have been
during the conference, uh, the
climate conference, there have been
demonstration prohibited and
people were also arrested.
So this was not just about
terrorism.
It was very broad and very
far. And there is clearly a logic
going on throughout all
the laws we have been discussing since
the beginning of this talk.
And it's clearly a Menary minority
report, uh,
kind of a way of thinking like
they want to prevent the crime before
they happen. And so there they are
willing to do whatever they want to avoid
justice and to do people
jianmin genuinely sort of way through the
police and and so on.
And what's next?
We we are afraid to be
targeting in the next day or
a month, for example, when
the provision about association and
organization targets, facilitation
or encouragement and committing dangerous
acts.
And we ask ourselves,
um, providing a
did not promote encryption,
is it encouraging,
facilitating or facilitating?
So we don't know.
And that is a part
of the problem.
When the police can
decide for the the society
who is dangerous or not,
you don't have as a rule, you cannot,
uh, know if you are targeted
or not.
Yeah. And so this is pretty bad, but
that's not enough.
That's not finished.
There is a constitutional reform that
has been announced a few days ago.
It was announced since the attacks, but
the details were published a few days
ago. And what has been announced
is mainly two things.
Uh, the first is that the state
of emergency will be written directly
into the Constitution if it's it's very
important to be not attacked
by a judgment later.
Yeah. So it's kind of protected.
And also it's
starting and that's starting now in
France, that there is a huge debate over
the second measure, which is the
provision of nationality, which should
be, uh, uh, major change
of policy in France.
And it's, uh, an idea coming from the far
right.
Uh, and so this is
sparking a debate right now.
And.
Yes, and the debate
takes place under the threat of
new terrorist attacks
used by the government to force the
parliament into putting the reform.
And probably the the
constitutional reform will be brought
under the state of emergency.
And two new bills have been announced
for a few days ago about, again,
terrorism and organized
crime. And that will probably
be discussed in January or February.
And we foresee new attacks
on encryption, privacy, citizen
rights, especially online,
because politicians don't want to
understand what what is
privacy online.
It's more easy for them to not
know what the what it means.
So what is at stake?
Clearly, what's going on there is the
shock doctrine implementing a permanent
state of exception in France.
We are saying that.
There is definitely some
that the willing to avoid the judiciary
powers that any will like to put
more powers into the police and
intelligence services
and more and more pressure put on the
Internet.
It's like, yes, it's always presented
by the government as a propaganda
tool for terrorists.
And we think that counter
terrorism seems to be
the new policy of the French government.
And it's a symbol
of the general crisis of democracy in
France.
Yeah, we think
so.
We have to adapt and to
find the counterstrategy.
At first, you have to acknowledge that
digital freedom is a lie.
There is just freedom,
plain and simple.
You need to refuse the shock doctrine,
stay alert and protect yourself, help
people to understand the situation, gives
them tools to to protect themselves
against surveillance and bad policy.
Um, and you have to anticipate
the threat and be careful about the
disclosure of future governments.
And for us, since the
beginning of this year, it means,
unlike what I do, other NGOs,
systematic public campaign, even
if we know that we will lose because it's
very important to document the facts.
It requires building our story,
telling about the
events and not just
of the government storytelling
to prepare and conduct
legal action every time and everywhere
before the French justice and
the European justice.
It also means that something very
important that we must document the
disaster that we read.
We assume that document
a disaster like we did with the
wiki page.
And more than anything,
it means taking part and building
coalitions with groups and organizations
that we are not used to work with
because we must enlarge the basis
of the opposition.
Well, not alone. It's not just a digital
thing. It's we are all concerned.
So one very
last important thing is we
spoke about France, but it can
be in your country very soon, I
don't hope. But you should stay alert.
As I said, even as we
speak, there are countries like Tunisia
that are using what is going on
in France to promote the same schemes,
in the same shock doctrine and so
on. They are saying, hey, it's the
country of human rights.
Why can't we do the same thing?
And so.
Well, I'm sorry, but even the country of
human rights can turn into a police
state.
So as a few words of advice
to come, conclude this talk, stay safe,
help others and encrypt all the things.
Thank you.
Very much to the two of you, I'm going to
check my we have four
minutes left, but I know that you're also
going to do an extended Q&A
because there's not that much time now.
Do you want to announce that quickly?
Yes, we are.
It was very short slots.
30 minutes is very short to talk
about all the details of what was shown.
So we felt that it would be good to have,
uh, more, uh,
more time to to elaborate on that
if you're interested. So please join us
in the all eight one
in 30 minutes.
Uh, so we will discuss about
going beyond the State Department with
all of the other people from Leopardi
to the French.
Yes, sure. And if you cannot come join
us at the Charles, have some tea and
you're welcome.