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Ha ha ha! I wonder what twisted definitions and logic people like Michael Hayden on the "Today" show yesterday morning use when denouncing Snowden and advocating for backdoors.
No. By all accounts the French government was already hip deep in intrusive surveillance. They apparently had ramped up surveillance twice in the last 12 months. It didn't help. So, there's some ulterior motive for wanting dragnet surveillance, and it's common to a lot of governments, including US and UK. What is that motive?
Call me crazy, but I always saw it as a way not to monitor terrorism, although that's what they use it for now, but for in the future to ensure they can thwart revolutions within the country. Take away civilian weapons, give yourself the ability to monitor, give yourself the ability to break the law when the 'county'(read governed) is threatened. Check off all of these points and in a few years when robotics capabili…
And obviously, the US the most juicy target for islamists. I'm sure if they could they would much rather blow stuff up in New York than Paris. Ergo, whatever the US is doing to combat terrorism works.
France actually is the perfect example of mass surveillance not working at all. Since the Charlie Hebdo terror attack they've introduced particularly intrusive Internet surveillance measures. I suppose those didn't work too well, did they?
If all that money and energy that's wasted on pushing and implementing surveillance agendas was actually spent on hiring more police, investment in security forces equipment, training and just good old-fashioned police work terrorist would have a much harder time.
Surveillance agendas only serve the politicians and suppliers of surveillance equipment. They're not only proven to be ineffective time and time again they're downright counterproductive because they're designed to evoke a feeling of the safety in the population but don't actually improve safety. Just take airport security theatre for example. It's a flamboyant show that's supposed to give you the impression that authorities care about your safety while in many respects it's less secure than the pre-2001 system.
European police forces have been watching those groups for quite some time now but it's only in the light of recent events they've been cracking down on them. That's exactly what's necessary to deal with this threat, not more surveillance.