WORLD WORLDWIDE FRANCE News Journal Update - (en) France, OCL CA #334 - Big Brother (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 

A media that disturbs the French state, but not only... ---- Disclose is

a French investigative website created in November 2018 by two
journalists. A crowdfunding operation reached its goal of 81,999 euros
in December 2018. Disclose's model involves financing investigative
journalism through philanthropy, from individuals and patrons to the
exclusion of any corporate foundation. This non-profit media outlet
investigates topics of public interest. An editorial committee of around
fifteen people determines the subjects of investigation, chosen from six
themes: environmental crimes, energy issues, financial delinquency,
public health, agri-food industries and fundamental freedoms. Disclose
enters into partnerships with Mediapart, Konbini, Marsactu, Arte, the
investigation unit of Radio France, Rue 89 Bordeaux, Strasbourg and
Lyon, and The Intercept. These partner media receive the Disclose
surveys and undertake to distribute them free of charge.
The first investigation, published in April 2019, is based on a note
from French military intelligence, which indicates that weapons supplied
by France to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates can, in
contradiction with the official discourse, be used in in the context of
the conflict in Yemen, causing the death of civilian populations and
serving a "starvation strategy". The weapons targeted by this
investigation include the Caesar cannons which, although used
"defensively", have such a range that they threaten more than 400,000
Yemeni civilians. After a complaint was filed by the Ministry of the
Armed Forces, the Paris prosecutor's office opened a preliminary
investigation and two journalists, co-founders of Disclose, as well as
one of their colleagues from the Radio France investigation unit, were
summoned by the General Directorate of Internal Security (DGSI) as free
suspects for "compromising national defense secrets". These journalists
will receive the support of numerous journalist companies and important
NGOs (International Federation for Human Rights, Action Against Hunger,
Human Rights Watch, etc.). In January 2020, the Paris prosecutor's
office issued a reminder of the law to journalists, without initiating
prosecution.
In May 2019, French arms exports to Saudi Arabia continued2, departing
from the port of Le Havre, with the support of Macron.
Disclose will then publish various investigations on pedophilia in sport
in France, on the Lactalis group and its milk wetting practices, on the
role played by the Carrefour group in the deforestation of the Amazon in
Brazil, on the serious consequences of atmospheric tests in French
Polynesia...
Source: Wikipedia

Surveillance with artificial intelligence maintained after the Olympics

So-called "automated" or "algorithmic" surveillance is software that
continuously analyzes thousands of surveillance images and sends an
alert to the police if it detects "suspicious behavior". An individual
or a group can be identified, traced; his actions and gestures can be
automatically analyzed in public space. Ultimately, these technologies
will allow, for example, identification by instant facial recognition
and the massification of video verbalization.
The law already authorized "on an experimental basis" the real-time use
of artificial intelligence systems to analyze images from drones and
surveillance cameras. It is confirmed by the Minister of Sports, the
Olympic Games will indeed be a gigantic experiment in this liberticidal
technology, which will then be generalized after an evaluation under the
control of the CNIL.
Source: Counterattack

"The Attestation - An Experience in Mass Obedience,
Spring 2020"

This study by Théo Boulakia and Nicolas Mariot, published by Anamosa,
recalls the scale of the figures: in 55 days of confinement linked to
the Covid-19 pandemic, there were 21 million checks and more than 1
million cases in France. verbalizations, particularly affecting
populations who are usually subject to very little control (elderly
people, women, rural people, etc.).
The three poorest departments in France (Mayotte, Guyana and
Seine-Saint-Denis) appear in the top 5 of the most fined departments:
areas as different as Paris and the Alpes-Maritimes complete the list.
The Alpes-Maritimes, which holds the record for fines per adult
inhabitant in mainland France, holds two other records: the number of
municipal police officers per inhabitant and the number of towns
equipped with surveillance cameras. So it's not a coincidence.
Significant differences exist between gendarmerie zones and police zones
(municipal and national). Departments such as Sarthe or Lot are among
the most heavily controlled by intense gendarmerie activity, but where
only a tiny part of the checks give rise to fines. On the other hand, in
Seine-Saint-Denis (93), checks are proportionally rarer but the rate of
fines is much higher: 17% in 93 compared to 2% in Lot.
The authors also highlight the extent to which confinement was not
homogeneous across the planet. Some governments have chosen generalized
confinement, while others have energetically refused. For what results?
Asking from their globalized data the provocative question of knowing
where to "spend the next confinement", the authors conclude that the
countries which experienced a mortality deficit in 2020 compared to
previous years while having experienced "no assignment general home",
namely Denmark, Latvia, Japan, Taiwan, Mongolia, Germany, Finland, South
Korea, Iceland and Slovakia, would be "highly recommendable
destinations". And that on the contrary we should avoid "countries with
strict confinement and catastrophic health situations" such as Kuwait,
Ecuador and Peru, and France, Spain and Italy do not come far behind!
France was part of a very small group of countries which had implemented
a system of mass surveillance of a rather particular type. Of course, in
countries like China, mass surveillance was much more equipped. But
France was among the nations where what was monitored was not the health
status of people, but the reason for their exit. The conclusion of this
study is interesting: "Conclusion is less the product of good intentions
than of old habits.» In Denmark, there are 190 police officers per
100,000 inhabitants, in France 320!
Sources: Politis and Mediapart

The secrecy of journalistic sources undermined

In 2021, Disclose published an investigation based on several hundred
documents provided by an anonymous informant who decided to "break the
silence" in order to denounce a potential state scandal, and which
constitutes an unprecedented leak of confidential documents from the
Directorate of military intelligence of the general staff and the French
Ministry of the Armed Forces. These documents concern Operation Sirli,
an intelligence mission carried out by the French army for the Egyptian
army, with the aim of combating terrorism; they reveal that the
information provided by France actually led to Egyptian strikes against
civilians, i.e. extrajudicial executions carried out by the dictatorship
led by General Al-Sissi, a drift against which the soldiers on the
ground have warned even the most high levels of the State and the
military hierarchy. It was the lack of response to these concerns that
allegedly pushed the anonymous source to break confidentiality and
provide the documents to Disclose. On September 19, 2023, the home of
journalist Ariane Lavrilleux was searched by the DGSI. She will be held
in police custody for 39 hours, then released without prosecution for
the moment. We will know the purpose of this DGSI operation very
quickly. Two days later, on September 21, a former official of the
Ministry of the Armed Forces, whom the courts seem to consider as one of
the sources of articles published by Disclose, was indicted for
misappropriation and disclosure of national defense secrets by its
custodian. , two offenses punishable by imprisonment of seven years and
a fine of 1 million euros. He was placed under judicial supervision. The
objective of the French state via its political police (the DGSI) is to
intimidate, but also and above all to track down the confidentiality of
sources.
Sources... diverse and multiple

The great works of the Council of State

At the request of associations (LDH, Christian Associations, etc.) and
unions (French Lawyers' Union, Magistrates' Union), Amnesty
International, etc., the Council of State rendered two decisions on
public freedoms on October 11.
The first concerns the obligation for the police to carry their
registration number in their interventions, which allows their
identification by the police and judicial authorities in the event of a
complaint. This number is the RIO (identity and organization
repository); it is made up of seven numbers printed on a scratch strip
that the police officer or gendarme must stick to the front of his
jacket. This strip is 50 mm long by 12 mm wide for police officers, and
45 mm by 12 mm for gendarmes. The characters are only 7.6 mm high -
illegible for any victim of police violence (unless they are lucky
enough to have obtained a photo), without forgetting that one in two the
cop or gendarme was careful not to wear the RIO. Note that its wearing
is obligatory under the Internal Security Code passed around ten years
ago, but that there has never been the slightest sanction inflicted on
offenders who forgot to put it on. This is why many investigations
cannot succeed due to the impossibility of identifying the person in
violation. Finally, the Council of State gives the Ministry of the
Interior one year to enforce this obligation to wear the RIO.
The second decision concerns facial identity checks. There, no surprise,
the Council of State refused to order the State to put an end to this
police practice. For him, facial checks are not systemic or generalized.
Note that a study by the Defender of Rights established, in 2017, that a
young Black person or of Arab origin was 20 times more likely to be
stopped than another young person!
Source: Mediapart

"The Dark Side of the Force"

This book by a journalist, Vincent Nouzille, published by Flammarion
(512 pages, EUR23) on October 11, is a very in-depth investigation into
what he calls "the excesses of the Ministry of the Interior and its
police" .
In the midst of the "yellow vest" crisis, French intelligence services
wiretapped and geolocated thousands of demonstrators. Never before has
such massive surveillance been deployed. Never before have so many
individuals been affected at the same time. Never before have such
technical means been combined to know where citizens were going to go,
and to try to arrest in advance those who were suspected of preparing to
commit violence.
According to the testimonies of several police and intelligence
officials, if the legal framework was formally respected, some of these
surveillances were decided and approved on the basis of vague criteria
and in haste. "There was panic at the top of power and in the services,"
explains a source at the Ministry of the Interior. The "yellow vest"
movement transformed into an insurrection every Saturday. The Republic
had to be saved..."
The use of intelligence techniques can only be justified for national
defense, the protection of the country's major interests, the fight
against economic and scientific espionage, the prevention of terrorism
and organized crime. and the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. But these techniques are also authorized for the prevention
of "attacks on the republican form of institutions", the "reconstitution
of dissolved groups" or "collective violence likely to seriously
undermine public peace". It is mainly this last reason - called "5-C",
and already used during the evacuation of the ZAD of
Notre-Dame-des-Landes (Loire-Atlantique) in spring 2018 - which will be
used on a large scale. during the "yellow vest" crisis.
In detail, the "geolocation" counter, already growing strongly in
previous years, is panicking, going from 3,751 requests in 2017 to 5,191
in 2018, then to 7,601 in 2019, a doubling in two years.
As for listenings, they also multiplied over the same period, going from
8,758 in 2017 to 12,574 in 2019, an increase of 43% in two years.
Overall, this surveillance concerned at least 2,000 people between the
end of 2018 and the end of 2019.
The end of the "yellow vest" movement in 2020, followed by the long
health crisis, did not stop this targeted surveillance. On the contrary:
according to data from the CNCTR (National Commission for the Control of
Intelligence Techniques), responsible for filtering requests from
services, requests to listen and install beacons for all types of
reasons have remained stable at a high level. since 2020. Those relating
to intrusions into private places have increased significantly, as have
those relating to the capture of computer data. As for requests for
real-time geolocation, very popular during demonstrations, they
continued their irresistible rise, from 7,601 in 2019 to 10,901 in 2022,
a new record.
Source: Excerpts from a text by Vincent Nouzille published in Le Monde.

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