this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023

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France passes bill to allow police to remotely activate phone camera and microphone to spy on people (gazettengr.com)

submitted 2 years ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] [email protected] 132 points 2 years ago (3 children)

... wtf is going on over there... What kind of douchebags did you guys elect? I mean, I'm American, I know I can't throw stones here, but y'alls were better than that. You like, wisely stood against our 9/11 invasion and we probably should've listened.

But, wtf?

btw, if anyone was too lazy to dig, this publication is a nigerian newspaper that actually seems legit. Founded in 2020, so pretty new still. Looking at their front page they mostly just do local reporting. Has had run-ins with local power.

[–] [email protected] 87 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

We elected him as the "last rempart to the extreme right". Turns out he and his cronies are corrupted authoritarian fucks. Their shit social and economic policies are opening a highway to the actual far right in the near future, most likely 2027.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Lmao bait and switch

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago (2 children)

More like shitty electoral system that facilitates the choice of a lesser evil instead of the choice for the best candidate.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Sounds like the United States.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

They have proportional representation and a ton of parties. It's a completely different kind of suck. Although I guess they also are presidential.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

Definitely less worse but still shitty indeed

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

So what would be a good system? FPTP also sucks, or at least does for local minority voters like me, or if both parties become weak for whatever reason like in the US.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Sinemaed.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 2 years ago (6 children)

You know that America just... does this, right? No bill, no law... In fact it was the first to do this at all. It's why in crime shows they remove the battery (from phone where you still can, of course.)

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago

No, the "Patriot" Act did authorize stuff like this in the US. There was also the "Freedom" Act, and generally this is all FISA stuff that has very low standards for what's allowed.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago (1 children)

It is not legal for police to spy on citizens via their phone cameras in the US…

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Police, no. Homeland security? crickets

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Still no. Do they do it anyway? Probably, but that doesn't make it legal.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 2 years ago

If I do something, people find out about it, and I don’t get arrested, it’s defacto legal

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago

The movie citizen four did an excellent job detailing different ways a government (in this case the united states) can do this.

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

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

I mean, I’m American, I know I can’t throw stones here

Right? I'm wary of chastising any first world country at the moment. The past 7 years in particular have been especially WTF

[–] [email protected] 115 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Wouldn't this breach multiple EU privacy laws?

[–] [email protected] 22 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is what I'm wondering.

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[–] [email protected] 51 points 2 years ago (3 children)

This will definitely not be misused by anyone in the government. How on the earth did such blatantly dystopian law get passed?

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 2 years ago

How to make your country burn faster 101

[–] [email protected] 39 points 2 years ago

It’s almost like Macron wants to be decapitated.

[–] [email protected] 32 points 2 years ago

While people in the west have been smugly pointing fingers at China, their own governments did everything they've been denouncing in China and worse. Congratulations.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 2 years ago (1 children)

1984 - George Orwell tried to warn us.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago (1 children)

This is bad, but that's such an overused comparison. It can even be counterproductive because the Oceania from the books is so obviously different from the real world.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 years ago

I’m talking about the wall in their rooms though that they can use to listen in when they want, you have no private conversations.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 2 years ago (2 children)

The article does not mention, how will this be achieved technology wise? I don't know of any universal way that a government might activate these features on a person's phone. Unless network operators/phone manufacturers start installing backdoors. This does not bode well.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 years ago (3 children)

Cell carriers can already push apps to your device.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/matthickey/2014/12/01/carriers-can-now-install-apps-on-android-handsets-without-customers-permission/?sh=2f169ccc5dde

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 2 years ago (3 children)

The US has exported it's police brutality and police state to France. They even have the similar right wing news apperatice to convince the populace it's all good. Making Uncle Sam proud 🇺🇸🇫🇷🍟🥖

[–] [email protected] 15 points 2 years ago

Not every bad thing people do is the fault of the US.

The French can be proper assholes. Look up the history of Haiti and which European colonies purchased the most African slaves.

Then ask. Where did all they go?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

France has been burning itself to the ground longer than the US has even been a thing.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

Recently the French police seem to be worse.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 2 years ago

The Patriot Act took care of that for us in the US!

[–] [email protected] 18 points 2 years ago

I am Indian. Even our douche bag of politicians will think twice before passing such legislation. Of course they will spy illegally on us but they won't pass such obvious fascist legislation.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Do they like, want the protests to continue on our something? They can't be that stupid.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 years ago

The protests are for police brutality against Minorities. Apparently the shot 17 years old kid was repeatedly hit with back of the gun which made him moves his leg away from the breaks and since it's an automatic the car started moving forward...the rest is history.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

...hold my sancerre!

-- Emmanuel Macron, probably

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago

At least it's happening out in the open? Other states do this without parlimentary or congressional approval.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 years ago (1 children)

A Google search for "France phone camera" only gives this posted link and dailymail.co.uk article, both of which are not really trustworthy sources, IMO.

So I'm gonna go with "this is very possibly fake news".

[–] [email protected] 6 points 2 years ago

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/france/article/2023/07/06/france-set-to-allow-police-to-spy-through-phones_6044269_7.html

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

~~LIberté~~, ~~Egalité~~, ~~Fraternité~~.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Privacy and anonymity is illusion.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Is this a legitimate source of news?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 years ago

It’s based on a syndicated news release from Agence France Presse. Here’s a direct transcription of the article from AFP: https://www.barrons.com/news/france-set-to-allow-police-to-spy-through-phones-b21f1f21

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

France always was a weird country

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 years ago

I see this going very poorly very quickly. I don't know how much longer we're going to have a France after this, but I'm interested in seeing how this unfolds.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 years ago

that'd be the point I'd forgo smartphones entirely

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