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State of emergency in France

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Re: State of emergency in France

#121

Post by vlehto »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #78
scrollaway wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Best thing to mitigate the problem would be a knee-jerk reaction that does least amount of damage. Because in democracy you will have that knee-jerk, sooner or later. That's an interesting take on it, and I don't really disagree with it. Maybe I hate that I don't disagree with it though. I hate having to settle for something. :/

I hate it too :/. But it makes sense. A valve to relieve pressure - in some direction that isn't destructive, or doesn't contribute to further radicalization, creating a feedback loop.

I'd like to be wrong on this one too.

Functional democracy is as intelligent as average voter is. Hopefully education can make the world better place. But it's going to take a long time to do it.

Re: State of emergency in France

#122

Post by gizi »

A great part of the native French has always been openly or covertly racist towards the North African immigrants in France. I am not surprised by the presence of feelings of hatred amongst the North Africans. This event will make the native French even more racist and the North Africans even more filled with hate. Then, you also have the aspect of religion. The native French like to make derogatory remarks about Islam, while the Muslims may badly overreact. As outsiders, we can only watch how all of this will unfold ...

Re: State of emergency in France

#123

Post by CuriousSkeptic »

mercer wrote: post #87
aw3c2 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every person has the potential to be radicalised. You are suggesting surveillance to target thoughtcrime.

While I agree that everyone has that potential in theory , it is much more likely for radicalization to occur among certain groups, third-generation muslim immigrants in particular. And perhaps in a broader sense targeting people in particular socio-economic groups might also be useful (jobless, young, low education,etc.). The way I see it, targeted surveillance of these at-risk groups should be possible, and specifi…

Maybe it's the same gut feeling I have.

It's not the targeted survielence as such, but the consequences of institutionalize the process by which you select who should be monitored.

It's one thing to monitor an individual you have good reasons to suspect are involved with a serious crime. Another to start monitoring people based on some vague selection criteria based on probability.

I see two scary implementations of such a process

1. Machine Learning. Some algorithm monitoring as much data as possible ("it's not survielence no human is watching...") will select people to suspect. Lots of hard to diagnose false positives will get their life's destroyed.

2. Some arbitration process where people decide who to suspect. Even more false positives, and frankly miss use of power for political reasons.

In both scenarios people will also start to become very anxious about having dissenting opinions, or non standard interests in fear of getting "flagged" by one of the above mechanisms.

In the end the system won't be used to create a free world but as another weapon to wield by those happen to have the most influence at any given moment.

Re: State of emergency in France

#124

Post by cromulent »

mercer wrote: post #107
tomp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was quoting the relevant part. Or rather, the irrelevant part. I don't see why only Muslims that have the potential to be radicalized should be monitored.

Because so far it's primarily been radicalized muslims that have been involved in acts of terrorism?

Is that right? I would have said the Irish. According to Wikipedia, over 10000 bombings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bombings_during_the_No...

Re: State of emergency in France

#125

Post by nommm-nommm »

junto wrote: post #28
tomp wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> is to monitor all Muslims living in Europe And Christians, of course (Brevik). Probably atheists and Jews as well, just in case.

Please don't partially quote me as it alters the meaning: > is to monitor all Muslims living in Europe who have the potential to be radicalised The last part of that is important. I'm talked about targeted surveillance.

Please note: Radicalization is not a unique trait to Islam or even religion.

Also see: Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols, and Ted Kaczynski. (American examples because that's what I'm most familiar with)

It makes no sense whatsoever to concentrate on Muslims over every other group on the planet. And no, it isn't more likely for radicalization to occur among Muslims.

Re: State of emergency in France

#126

Post by nothrabannosir »

gizi wrote: post #122

A great part of the native French has always been openly or covertly racist towards the North African immigrants in France. I am not surprised by the presence of feelings of hatred amongst the North Africans. This event will make the native French even more racist and the North Africans even more filled with hate. Then, you also have the aspect of religion. The native French like to make derogatory remarks about Isla…

The native French like to make derogatory remarks about Islam, while the Muslims may badly overreact.

It is a bit flippant to put those two so close. The point is not who is right and who is wrong, he said she said---the point is that some people went objectively too far. We draw the line at physical violence.

Unless, of course, you actually believe that making derogatory remarks about Islam is comparable to what happened. It's not exactly clear from your comment; do you?

Re: State of emergency in France

#127

Post by DanBC »

mercer wrote: post #107
tomp wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was quoting the relevant part. Or rather, the irrelevant part. I don't see why only Muslims that have the potential to be radicalized should be monitored.

Because so far it's primarily been radicalized muslims that have been involved in acts of terrorism?

You ignore the long history of terrorist actions in Europe, with some animal rights groups, some left wing groups, some extreme right wing individuals, some nationalist / separatist groups, etc etc.

Re: State of emergency in France

#128

Post by SolaceQuantum »

junto wrote: post #102
gnaritas wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or societies are desperately trying not to impose draconian rules of monitoring on a religious group, but as it stands I see little choice in the matter. Try harder. You don't maintain liberty by destroying it. > is to monitor all Muslims No, that is not a solution. You are responding with fear to the fact that the world is a dangerous place. Fear is not a place from which to make decisions. Terrorist attacks are b…

You're the second person to misquote me. > is to monitor all Muslims living in Europe who have the potential to be radicalised This is about targeting those who are becoming radicalised, not monitoring every single Muslim in Europe.

Remember when the FBI in America tried to do this and more or less failed in many respects?

Re: State of emergency in France

#129

Post by junto »

oldmanjay wrote: post #112
junto wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're the second person to misquote me. > is to monitor all Muslims living in Europe who have the potential to be radicalised This is about targeting those who are becoming radicalised, not monitoring every single Muslim in Europe.

is there some way you've imagined to pull that off without monitoring everybody? perhaps a survey where people can indicate how likely they are to follow radical Islam on a scale of 1-5.

No, quite simply it's called intelligence gathering. Old fashioned hard work, informant networks and Intel analysis.

Reliance on pure bulk surveillance is part of the problem. It's seen as a panacea but it just creates more noise.

Re: State of emergency in France

#130

Post by EGreg »

junto wrote: post #18
Luker88 wrote: post #5

Didn't France approve sweeping surveillance laws back in July? And they even were on high alert due to international talks happening in Paris... Italy and Spain also stopped terrorist cells this month, but they don't seem to have such laws... Guess they need more unwarranted power, uh?

We need targeted surveillance and by that I mean something that many will vehemently disagree with. Before you down vote, please make the effort to read to the end and then down vote! If I was a doctor and my patient had cancer in his foot, then if try to treat the foot to get rid of the cancer. I would also pay particularly close attention to the leg connected to that foot, to make sure that the cancer did not sprea…

I have argued since 2000 that terrorism is a problem of TECHNOLOGY. Technology enables small groups of people that previously were unable to do much damage to do a lot more. And that will only increasez

If you read what I said back then, I said that I see mass surveillance as the inevitable outcome of that. All the political correctness in our countries isn't going to stop this reaction, and its attendant overreactiona, like McCarthy era anticommunist activities.

What I didn't realize back then was the role of computers to sift through massive stores of data, and identify patterns that may or may not be true. The computers will then be used by the few to control the many, using existing systems like voting and jury trials by using parallel construction and reputational attacks (see the revealed NSA slide about that).

We are constructing a zoo in which we humans will live, let's hope the computers running it are programmed to give us enough freedom to enjoy our lives. However, just like a zoo animal can't cause a lot of damage, so each individual human will be watched in the future. The right to privacy is not going to be killed by facebook, but by responses to terrorism.

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