The internet is a perfect surveillance machine. It is irresistible to those in power. I believe it shifts the balance of power towards the center more than it empowers distributed forces. For example, protesters have more tools to organize but governments have more tools to know what protesters are up to, they know where protesters will show up, how many and who they are. So there are no surprises. Overall advantage…
More importantly, modern telecommunications (internet etc.) are government/military infrastructure under government control and surveillance. Just like GPS etc. It's often hard to remember this and sometimes we even pretend that the internet is a place free of government control, which is delusional. The wires, cables and radio towers are under military control in any kind of crisis. It boils down to this: If you're…
In most democracies, the state cannot open your mail or tap your phone without a warrant. But for some reason it's fair game to tap all your electronic communications. The sort of things that this law enables is nothing short of forcing all libraries, bookshops and newsagents to ask your ID when you pick a book or newspaper, keep records of what you read and send them to the state. Imagine how this would have gone in the sixties when you had strong political clashes in the society, whether it was leftists or social rights movements.
I think the issue is that the cynicism and short-termism of French politicians is combined with a lack of understanding of the technology (even today that generation and social group barely uses internet) to form a perfect storm.