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French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

laquadrature.net

421–430 of 553 posts

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#421
post #318
post #212

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> This is authoritarian pandering 101. No, this is matter-of-fact anti-terrorism.

Anti-terrorism and authoritarianism go hand in hand, that's been clear since 9/11. The problem is that government us terrorism scaremongering to justify erasing citizens rights. It's completely valid to be anti-terrorist and prefer alternative choices to fight it. For example, in my country, both polices and tribunals are severely under provisioned. I'd start with imroofijg those budgets before passing surveillance l…

> It's completely valid to be anti-terrorist and prefer alternative choices to fight it.

What alternative choices? France suffered multiple highly deadly attacks on it's soil, including two with 100+ graphic and violent dead. What alternative choices are there to prevent them outside of mass surveillance, infiltrating potentially radicalising religious institutions and shutting them down, arresting members of outwardly radical groups stockpiling weapons and materials for explosives (all things the French government is doing).

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#422

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> “members” of this movement are alledgedly showing “a great culture of secrecy […] and a certain reserve towards technology”. So caring about one's human right to privacy is a "culture of secrecy" now

The desire to be alone has been scientifically proven to be a disease of the mind and a sure sign of antisocial tendencies. (s,lr,d)

Ah yes, because Signal is famously the app you use to be alone and not interact with anyone else

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#423
post #6

The key is that, while there is suspicion (the people arrested have a far left ideology, have been to Syria to fight against the Islamic state, own weapons and encrypt all of their communications), there is no crime nor proof of an intent to commit a crime . These people have been sent to prison because they are suspicious, not because of an action they have done (something made possible as a special case of an older…

> the people arrested have a far left ideology, have been to Syria to fight against the Islamic state, own weapons and encrypt all of their communications Is there a place where we can read more about this? The article seems to explain none of that context, it only purports that people are suspicious and can be arrested for simply having good 'digital hygiene'. Edit: Some relevant passages from TFA > Likewise, the cr…

I believe the French Wikipedia page[0] is the most comprehensive place to get information on the subject. There is also a, much shorter, English page[1].

[0]: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affaire_du_8_d%C3%A9cembre_202... [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_December_2020_incident

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#424

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I am not French but my opinion of the current government is at rock bottom after how Macron recently went to China to basically suck up to Xi Jinping, completely ignoring human rights violations and all. And for what?

You criticise Macron for visiting a „dictator“ but not for being dictator himself? Macrons pushing of retirement law change against both public and parliament is definitely not democratic.

as not French I'm not very aware of his internal policies in France, but the news of that visit got to me. In my eyes it concerns EU and the world too

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#425

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The desire to be alone has been scientifically proven to be a disease of the mind and a sure sign of antisocial tendencies. (s,lr,d)

Ah yes, because Signal is famously the app you use to be alone and not interact with anyone else

Well the intelligence community certainly is feeling snubbed.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very interesting; it looks like these people went to Syria to fight ISIS, and got this ill treatment when they returned. Why does it seem like the French government is always supporting the worst actors in any conflict? ISIS is (was) so evil and barbaric, they make Putin seem like a great guy. Why would volunteering to fight them ever be seen in a bad light?

Do you really think France supports ISIS ? Did you live in a cave in 2015 ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_2015_Île-de-France_att... Fighting for a foreign nation or mercenaries is illegal, no matter if you're fighting the "bad guys"

Hmm, let me check in again with France… Oh, what, they have a thing called the Foreign Legion, where they want foreigners to fight for them? It seems like actually France wants people to fight for nations that aren’t their own.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The law, as it's written down, often fails to match closely the particular circumstances of a specific case. Maybe it never gives an exact match. So judges and juries have to interpret the law. That's the reality, whatever legal system you have. "Precedent" is a way of saving the time of courts and lawyers, by not having to argue the same details every time they come up. And it's not as if every court judgement becom…

All of that is easy to contemplate. You have extenuating and aggravating circumstances (things that make the situation worse or better for the defendant) And on top of that you have a window for sentencing. So if murder is lets say 4-20 years in jail. And you were drunk, that makes it worse, but it was not premeditated, and this and that it all adds up and you might 6 years or you might get 18 depending on the circum…

> You have extenuating and aggravating circumstances

You do; but that's not actually what I was thinking about. That's just about sentencing, and here (the UK) sentencing doesn't fall within the purview of precedent; there are sentencing guidelines set by senior members of the judiciary.

I was thinking of actual points of law, such as what constitutes unreasonable behaviour, or whether possession of some quantity X of illegal drugs is conclusive evidence of intent to supply.

> whatever higher court thought in the 1800s

It's open to higher courts to overturn precedents, if they've become outdated to the extent they no longer make sense. The very old precedents are presumably precedents that make so much sense that nobody has successfully challenged them. If someone runs into an adverse judgement based on an ancient precedent that is unsupportable, no doubt there's some barrister that would like to make their case (and their reputation) at appeal, by overturning it.

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#428
post #407

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> 2/3rds of AfD supporters claim to be doing it as a protest vote. And that they don't support the AfD. Just like with brexit. > There's still time for an alternative before all of Europe goes in with fascism again. AfD => fascism. Argumentum ad Hitlerum basically. Does Germany really need more migration? More identity kamikaze? More publicly financed propaganda (ARD, ZDF, DW, plenty "N"GOs)? More provocation towards…

The AfD may not be literally a fascist party, but it does have a prominent right-wing extremist faction that includes several of its most widely known members such as this man: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rn_H%C3%B6cke I think arguing about the accuracy of labels like "nazi" or "fascist" is a bit beside the point. You and I both know the people calling the AfD fascist or nazi won't suddenly like it better i…

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Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#429
post #265

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> At best we'd've had a civil war. The best part of that January was that a coup and/or civil war did not happen. The US got on with business. It could have went bad, but it did not do so.

> The best part ... was that a coup ... did not happen

Strong disagree: a half-assed, incompetently executed, failed bank robbery is still classed as and prosecuted as "bank robbery", there is no separate legal category for "attempted bank robbery".

It's the same with a failed coup. "the coup failed pathetically" is categorically different from "a coup did not happen".

Re: French govt. says users of uBlock Origin, Signal etc. are potential terrorists

#430
post #413
post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Will you be celebrating the 14th of July buddy? Or will you be condemning the act of 633 angry French citizens "storming the Bastille in Paris, capturing its munitions, releasing its seven prisoners, lynching the governor and demolishing the fortress". After all, they broke the law and since it's the law then clearly the government had full legitimacy... right? Next, you should be defending the "Code Noir" https://en…

Your examples do not involve people living in a democracy with universal right to vote.

And your definition of democracy is nothing more than electing a master to rule over you for 5 years. As long as his actions are legal, you consider them legitimate despite being highly unpopular and imposed on people through police violence.

There is more to democracy than a vote every 5 years.

Consent of the governed: "Government's legitimacy and moral right to use state power is justified and lawful only when consented to by the people or society over which that political power is exercised."

The founders of the United States believed that the government of Great Britain should rest on the principle that government depended on the consent of the governed and that any government not based on that consent could be justifiably overthrown and replaced.

Pretty sure revolutionary France abides by the same principles.

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