Wikileaks Reveals NSA Spying On French Presidents

from the is-that-really-a-big-deal? dept

Wikileaks has released some new documents showing that the NSA spied on the communications of a bunch of French Presidents.

The top secret documents derive from directly targeted NSA surveillance of the communications of French Presidents Francois Hollande (2012–present), Nicolas Sarkozy (2007–2012), and Jacques Chirac (1995–2007), as well as French cabinet ministers and the French Ambassador to the United States. The documents also contain the "selectors" from the target list, detailing the cell phone numbers of numerous officials in the Elysee up to and including the direct cell phone of the President.

Prominent within the top secret cache of documents are intelligence summaries of conversations between French government officials concerning some of the most pressing issues facing France and the international community, including the global financial crisis, the Greek debt crisis, the leadership and future of the European Union, the relationship between the Hollande administration and the German government of Angela Merkel, French efforts to determine the make-up of the executive staff of the United Nations, French involvement in the conflict in Palestine and a dispute between the French and US governments over US spying on France.

To be honest, as with the spying on leadership of other allies like Germany, I really don't think this is that big of a deal in reality. This is what intelligence services are supposed to be doing: spying on foreign governments. The revelations may make for some awkward diplomatic conversations, but you can bet that pretty much everyone knew this was going on already.

But, where this has the potential to get interesting is in the public perception. If the public gets angry about it, it can create international tensions, or lead to various other issues. But, on the whole, compared to spying on private citizens, it's difficult to get too outraged over spying on other governments -- even those deemed "friendly." You can bet the French are doing everything they can to spy back on the US as well.

Filed Under: france, francois hollande, french presidents, jacques chirac, nicolas sarkozy, nsa, privacy, surveillance, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

What Does The Election Of France's New President Mean For European Copyright?

from the keeping-everyone-happy dept

Whatever you might have thought of his policies, Nicolas Sarkozy probably had more impact on European copyright policy than any other EU politician. He consciously tried to the lead the way in bringing in more extreme copyright enforcement, most notably with the "three strikes" HADOPI law.

That alone makes his defeat in the recent French presidential elections significant: there are no signs that his successor, François Hollande, will take anything like the personal interest in copyright that Sarkozy did. But that also makes it very hard to predict what effect Hollande's election will have on the French and European copyright scene. Nonetheless, the French site Numerama has published an early attempt to lay down some rough ideas of what happens next (original in French.)

Things are complicated by Hollande's shifts in position on this issue. That's because in the run-up to the election he attempted to sweep up the anti-Sarkozy voters who hated HADOPI without alienating the creative industries who were all for strict enforcement of copyright. The result is a series of vague promises and pronouncements without much in the way of concrete plans.

For example, as Numerama explains, starting on 3 July there will be a "post-HADOPI reflection," led by a government commission that will draw up new measures forming what Hollande has termed "Act 2" for French culture. That commission will have the unenviable task of trying to keep everyone happy -- and probably end up pleasing no one. Meanwhile, it seems, the HADOPI machine will rumble on: Hollande has not announced any plans to suspend the system while the commission draws up its response. That's regrettable, since it implicitly accepts the validity of the "three strikes" punishment system.

However disappointing Hollande's vague policies may be for those looking for a clean break with the past, there is always the hope that now that he is elected, he may bring in bolder measures that restore some balance to copyright in his country. In any case, the fact that France is now taking its time to re-consider copyright and creativity altogether, rather than simply continuing to charge down the road of harsh enforcement, is likely to have a positive knock-on effect in the European Union. With Sarkozy gone, the copyright maximalists there have undoubtedly lost their most outspoken and powerful ally.

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Filed Under: europe, france, francois hollande, hadopi, nicolas sarkozy

Sarkozy Seeks To Criminalize 'Habitually Visiting' Websites About Violence

from the thought-police dept

Wizz points us to a speech that French President Nicolas Sarkozy recently gave in response to the death of the suspect in the Toulouse murders after the police shot him as he tried to escape, when they raided his apartment after a 32-hour standoff. As part of the speech, Sarkozy decided to use it as an opportunity to push for more anti-internet legislation, including a plan to criminalize visiting certain websites too often. Here's the video in French, with his comments coming around 2:20. Translating the key line, he says:

Anyone who habitually visits Internet sites that advocate terrorism or carrying calls for hate or violence will be punished under criminal law.

It appears that there is already a law in France that similarly makes it a criminal offense to "habitually" visit child porn sites, and this is a push to expand that same law to terrorism, hate and violence sites (original French). Of course, there are all sorts of problems with this. Obviously, accessing child porn is a strict liability kind of thing, where it's clearly illegal. Merely reading about terrorism, hate or violence is not.

Also, there's a question of how do you know if someone "habitually" visits such sites, raising fears that Sarkozy wants to implement a pretty broad deep packet inspection spying system to make this work. This has, quite reasonably, raised significant concerns among human rights/free speech activists (original French) about just what Sarkozy is actually planning. Others point out that such a law almost certainly wouldn't pass French constitutional scrutiny.

Either way, just the idea is quite a dangerous leap. Criminalizing the visiting of websites because they contain information? If the content itself is illegal, go after those who create the website. Going after people for reading it reaches towards the level of establishing thought police. It also seems to greatly overestimate (as many politicians do) the power of a simple website to convince people of certain things. We see the same thing in the US with Senator Lieberman's grandstanding against terrorist content, which he wants banned and blocked in the US as well. It seems to assume that people are all complete suckers who, as soon as they read a terrorist pitch, automatically become terrorists. In reality, all they're really doing is legitimizing much of this ridiculous content, by suggesting that it really is "dangerous" and somehow must be criminalized.

Filed Under: censorship, dpi, france, hate speech, nicolas sarkozy, surveillance, terrorism, violence, visits, web sites

Recording Industry Can't Wait To Start Kicking People Offline In France For Listening To Their Favorite Songs

from the yeah-that'll-work dept

As we reported last week, the French agency in charge of scaring internet users with the threat of potentially losing their internet connections based on accusations (not convictions) of copyright infringement has finally started passing on "third strike" notices to prosecutors, to see if they choose to start kicking people offline. The NY Times has an article discussing this latest step in a manner that repeats a bunch of the record labels' favorite talking points, and seems to accept a number of the industry's claims without question (a practice that is becoming way too common in the pages of the NY Times lately).

Studies show that the appeal of piracy has waned in France since the so-called three-strikes law, hailed by the music and movie industries and hated by advocates of an open Internet, went into effect. Digital sales, which were slow to get started in France, are growing. Music industry revenues are starting to stabilize.

These are all stated as if it's clear that the three things are connected, even though the evidence there is lacking.

“I think more and more French people understand that artists should get paid for their work,” said Pascal Negre, president of Universal Music France. “I think everybody has a friend who has received an e-mail. This creates a buzz. There is an educational effect.”

This is wishful thinking on the part of Negre. Multiple studies have shown that piracy is almost never an educational issue. It's not about people needing to "understand that artists should get paid for their work." As we've seen time and time again, if you give fans a good reason to buy, fans have no problem spending (and spending big) on artists. As for "the buzz" created by Hadopi emails, from what the various reports we've heard out of France are saying, much of that "buzz" is around how to make use of VPNs and other tools... as well as how to use cyberlockers and such tools that are not (yet) covered by Hadopi.

Eric Walter, the secretary general of Hadopi, said that the relatively low number of third-stage offenders showed that the system had succeeded.

“Our work is to explain to people why piracy is a bad thing and why they should stop,” he said during an interview in the agency’s nondescript headquarters behind the Montparnasse train station in Paris. “When the people understand that, they stop. Of course, some people don’t want to understand. Then we have to transfer their dossiers to the justice system.”

Again, this assumes that piracy is merely an educational issue, and people would just stop infringing if they only knew that it was illegal. Yet there's little evidence to support that claim. Most kids understand that it's illegal, but it doesn't make a difference to them.

A report commissioned by Hadopi, which has a budget of €11 million and employs 70 people, showed a sharp decline in file-sharing since the system was put in place.

A separate study by researchers at Wellesley College in Massachusetts and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh suggests that Hadopi has given a lift to legal downloads via the Apple iTunes music store. Since the spring of 2009, when the debate over the measure was raging, through mid-2011, iTunes sales rose much more strongly in France than in other European countries.

Oddly, the NY Times fails to name the study or its authors, or link to the actual study. But we will. It's The Effect of Graduated Response Anti-Piracy Laws on Music Sales: Evidence from an Event Study in France, by Brett Danaher, Michael D. Smith, Rahul Telang and Siwen Chen. If this study sounds familiar, it's because it's the one the IFPI has been hyping in support of similar laws. It's also the report that isn't nearly as strong as the IFPI (or the NY Times) insists and has been pretty thoroughly debunked for anyone who uses it to claim that Hadopi's notice system educated people into buying from iTunes. As some have pointed out, the actual data shows the "change" in sales behavior (relative to other countries) happened way before Hadopi came into effect. And... when Hadopi actually started sending out its notices? No noticeable impact.

That kind of takes the wind out of the sales of the two folks quoted above who insist that it's the educational nature of the notices that leads to the increase in sales. And, as we reported last month, when Le Monde took the same data and plotted it against announcements about new iPhones or Christmas, it found a much stronger connection, suggesting the increase in sales had little to do with Hadopi and much more to do with more people having iPhones.

These are the kinds of things that you would think the NY Times might note. But it does not.

There is other evidence in Europe that tougher online copyright enforcement can lift media industry revenues, at least briefly. Music sales rose 10 percent in Sweden in 2009, for example, after the country tightened up its copyright laws, bringing previously lax standards into line with E.U. norms.

Mr. Negre, at Universal Music, said it was probably no coincidence that Sweden and France had produced the two big European success stories in the legitimate digital music market: the streaming services Spotify and Deezer. These companies — the former was founded in Sweden, the latter in France — resemble pirate sites in that they give users access to millions of songs free, at least for their basic services.

This may be the most ridiculous claim of all. First off, Deezer, in France, launched back in 2007, or about four years before Hadopi went into effect. Similarly, Spotify launched in Sweden in 2008. The IPRED law in Sweden? Went into effect in 2009. In other words, both of these services pre-dated the laws, rather than post-dated them as Negre from Universal Music implies. And, perhaps that also has a lot more to do with the rebound of some parts of the recording business in both of those countries. After finally allowing services to offer fans what they wanted, should it be any surprise that they actually are happy with that? Oh, as for the claim that IPRED reduced file sharing in Sweden? Reports had the amount of sharing traffic surprassing pre-IPRED numbers within months. It may have suppressed infringement briefly, but not for long. Of course, it's worth noting that much of the effort has been focused on movies. With music, thanks to Spotify, the reasons to infringe are almost gone.

And, really, that should be the key lesson we're talking about here. If the industry stops meddling and starts letting companies treat their customers right and provide them with more and better ways to consume, they will do so. Playing wac-a-mole, kicking people offline and scaring them is no way to build a long term business.

There are two other really interesting bits later down in the article. The first is that Sarkozy's opponents in the upcoming election all seem to want to dump Hadopi, demonstrating just how unpopular the law really is in France. Then there's the fact that Hadopi appears to have been caught sending notices to the wrong people:

Mr. Thollot argued that someone had pirated his log-on to a nationwide Wi-Fi network and downloaded the material while he was in class. After interviewing him, Hadopi dropped his case.

“It’s like when someone steals your bank card number,” said Renaud Veeckman, co-founder of SOS Hadopi, an organization that offers legal help to people who have received warnings from the anti-piracy agency. “Are you responsible, or are you the victim?”

SOS Hadopi has worked with five people whose dossiers have reached the third stage, including Mr. Thollot; all five have been cleared before going to court. This suggests that the actual number of cases that have been forwarded to the justice system may be considerably lower than the 165 third-strike offenders cited by Hadopi. Mr. Walter at Hadopi declined to provide a specific figure.

This part especially should raise significant questions about the quality of the information being used. Because, so far, it sounds like a big joke... other than the fact that some people might lose their internet connections over it.

Filed Under: france, hadopi, itunes, nicolas sarkozy, sales, statistics
Companies: universal music

Twitter Suspends Four Accounts Critical of Sarkozy: Is This What He Meant By 'Civilizing' The Net?

from the what's-going-on-here? dept

Nicolas Sarkozy, who hopes to be re-elected as French President this year, seems to have little love for the Internet. At best, he regards it as a "Wild West" that needs taming. Despite that, Sarkozy joined Twitter last week -- you can follow him @NicolasSarkozy. Posts are mainly written by his re-election team, although there seem to be a handful of personal tweets (marked "NS"). But at least he's finally engaging with the new medium on its own terms.

Or maybe not:

The morning after French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced he will run for a second term, several parodic Twitter accounts have mysteriously been suspended. @_nicolassarkozy , an account created in September 2010 and clearly labeled as a satirical Sarkozy impersonation, was suspended on Feburary 16th.

The account was run by the French website kaboul.fr:

According to Kaboul.fr, which, after complaining, received an answer from Twitter, @_nicolassarkozy was "suspended after being reported." Twitter also told Kabul.fr that to be granted such priviledge, the suspension had to be made by Sarkozy, or someone acting on his authority.

Twitter's official response has been leaked:

We have received a valid report that your account, @_NicolasSarkozy, is engaged in non-parody impersonation. Although Twitter firmly believes in the freedom of expression, impersonation that misleads, confuses, or deceives others is against the Twitter Rules (http://twitter.com/rules). Your account has been temporarily suspended due to violation of our impersonation policy.

The key issue here seems to be possible confusion, since Twitter's guidelines on Parody, Commentary, and Fan Accounts state:

In order to avoid impersonation, an account's profile information should make it clear that the creator of the account is not actually the same person or entity as the subject of the parody/commentary. Here are some suggestions for marking your account:

Username: The username should not be the exact name of the subject of the parody, commentary, or fandom; to make it clearer, you should distinguish the account with a qualifier such as "not," "fake," or "fan."

Name: The profile name should not list the exact name of the subject without some other distinguishing word, such as "not," "fake," or "fan."

Maybe the account @_NicolasSarkozy has fallen foul of those rules, although it's hard to believe anyone would mistake a parody of Sarkozy for the real thing - it was not an "impersonation". But what about the other accounts that were suspended?

three other accounts, all clearly opposing Sarkozy's political views, were suspended at the same time: @mafranceforte, @fortefrance and @SarkozyCaSuffit. Those accounts where not related to Kaboul.fr, nor impersonating local politician, but straight-ahead, and recently-created, politically-oriented Twitter accounts.

"La France Forte" -- "Strong France" -- is the slogan for Sarkozy's campaign, prominently displayed on his Twitter page, so the use of the phrase for Twitter accounts might be seen as confusing. But again, the content would surely tip people off that it was a parody. The last of the four accounts that were suspended recently is @SarkozyCaSuffit -- roughly translated as "Sarkozy, That's Enough". It's clearly what Twitter calls a "Commentary" account, making a very obvious comment about a political figure - no question of "impersonation". Unless there are any other grounds for doing so (and so far there don't seem to be any), removing it looks like pure political censorship in favor of Sarkozy.

We don't know at this stage exactly who asked for these four accounts to be removed, only that according to Twitter's rules it must have been done "by Sarkozy, or someone acting on his authority". We asked Twitter about this and it refused to provide specifics on why the accounts were closed or the timing, other than to say that just because the accounts were suspended in the same general time frame, it wasn't necessarily for the same reason.

Be that as it may, the near-simultaneous closure of four accounts all critical of a powerful national politician inevitably reminds us that for many countries, "civilizing" the Internet often comes down to censoring it. It's worrying to see France apparently starting to go down that route -- and for Twitter to be helping it.

Update @_NicolasSarkozy has been unblocked, but the other three are still suspended.

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Filed Under: france, free speech, nicolas sarkozy, satire, terms of service, twitter
Companies: twitter

Sarkozy Worried About The Internet 'Stealing Audience Share' From 'Regulated' TV Services

from the a-series-of-tubes dept

Earlier this week Techdirt reported on the surprisingly forthright statements of Neelie Kroes concerning the failure of the copyright system in the digital world. She made her remarks at the Forum d'Avignon in France, which was about "strengthening the links between culture and the economy".

Of course, Kroes was not the only speaker there. Another participant was the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, who used the occasion to present his by-now familiar tirade against the "lawless" Internet and its dire effects on creativity. His speech was a classic compilation of his greatest hits in this respect, as captured in the impressive live-blogging of the English translation by David Weinberger.

Early on, Sarkozy states one of his chief concerns about culture in the age of the Internet:

all cultural protagonists are facing a crisis of distribution. This is a matter of extreme seriousness, if we consider — as I consider — it is no service to culture to say that it is free for all. The disappearance of traditional distribution methods threatens traditional culture itself.

Sarkozy seems to believe that without traditional distribution methods, there is no traditional culture, and that a means of controlling and selling culture is essential for culture to exist. The implication being that the best way to provide both is to allow the traditional media companies to preserve their stranglehold - and with it, their existing business models. No wonder that he can't quite understand the point of the Internet and its new approaches that help artists profit from their work more directly - for example, without the need for distribution companies. And no surprise either that he goes on to say:

I have always believed that there would be no form of creation if there were no longer to be respect for upholding and respect for copyright and author’s rights.

Unfortunately for Monsieur le Président, a couple of thousand years of cultural history disagrees. The vast majority of art we regard today as forming the cultural heritage of humanity was produced around the world before copyright existed. It is simply a myth that copyright is needed for creation: artists have always created, whether or not they were given legal monopolies for their works, because that's what artists do.

Sarkozy also asks the usual rhetorical question, responding to which is left as an exercise to the reader :

Who would buy the film or music if you can access it free of charge?

On the subject of getting stuff for free, he has this to say about free access to museums:

I don’t think that’s the ultimate response because you don’t respect what is free. Everything has a price. Everything has a value. There has to be a bit of an effort for there to be pleasure. But we have for 18-25 and teachers access to museums should be free.

So let's get this straight: if you have free access to anything, you don't respect it, but in France access to museums "should be free" for students and teachers according to Sarkozy. So from that must we deduce that he wants those groups to disrespect culture? Probably not, but at the very least it shows how confused his thinking here is.

Unfortunately, there can be no doubt about his thinking when it comes to regulation:

We are indeed facing challenges. E.g., digital TV that puts on the same screen the traditional, regulated services and the Internet world, which is not regulated and that does not contribute to the film industry the way the traditional services do. The latter will be stealing audience share. So we are going to have to work on how to regulate digital, connected TV era.

That sums up Sarkozy's mindset perfectly: that the Internet should be regulated like traditional TV services, because otherwise it would be "stealing audience share" - that crisis of distribution, again. Indeed this reveals that in Sarkozy's view, the main problem with the Internet is that it isn't a traditional TV service – and suggests that he aims to do everything in his power to rectify that dreadful state of affairs.

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Filed Under: censorship, copyright, culture, france, nicolas sarkozy

Sarkozy Routes Around Parliament, Ditches Net Neutrality, Forces Copyright Clauses Into All ISP Terms Of Service

from the but-of-course dept

This is hardly a surprise, given that the Sarkozy administration appears to believe that copyright is more important than all other human rights but apparently, as part of a telecom bill in France, the administration added a clause that forces all French ISPs to have clauses concerning copyright infringement in their terms of service, which also force ISPs to ignore some basic principles of net neutrality. What's interesting here is that Sarkozy didn't even go through Parliament to do this, but rather made use of some process called "transposition" that allowed him to add certain clauses to the Telecoms Act, outside of the Parliamentary process.

Over the summer, the French government has published its transposition of the Telecoms Package. The Sarkozy regime has used a controversial manipulation of the legislative process to get the transposition into law without going through the French Parliament. It includes provisions which contradict the French government’s stated objective of protecting net neutrality. Moreover, it includes a copyright obligation on ISPs to support France’s 3-strikes law.

Sarkozy even ignored the government's advisory committee on the digital economy, which explicitly came out against some of the provisions that were added. Of major concern is the fact that the required terminology being forced into ISP contracts, says that ISPs will restrict certain services for those accused of infringement. As the article notes, this could include things like blocking Skype, something that would go against basic net neutrality principles, which the French Parliament has said it supports. So, in yet another effort to put draconian copyright law ahead of all else, it looks like Sarkozy has routed completely around Parliament, slipped some extra rules into a Telecoms Package, and in the process made it clear that France officially has no respect for the principles of net neutrality.

Filed Under: broadband, copyright, france, hadopi, net neutrality, nicolas sarkozy, three strikes

Carla Bruni Sues French Newspaper For 'Counterfeiting' After Posting Clip Of Her Singing WWII Song

from the counterfeiting dept

Eriq Gardner points our attention to the news that French first lady and singer Carla Bruni is suing a French newspaper claiming "counterfeiting," after it posted a 50-second clip of her singing Douce France, a 68-year-old song by Charles Trenet. As Gardner notes, in the US, this would almost certainly be fair use. But, in France... apparently it's considered "counterfeiting," because the snippet heard "was a simple draft version, a preparatory work and not a definitive recording." Is it any wonder that her husband, Nicolas Sarkozy, has been working hard to make sure France has the most draconian copyright laws around?

Filed Under: carla bruni, copyright, counterfeiting, france, nicolas sarkozy

Sarkozy Wants To Use Anti-Censorship Conference To Promote Censorship By Copyright

from the that-takes-gall dept

We've pointed out many times how copyright is, by its nature, a law for censorship. Now, you can argue that it's necessary or useful censorship (though, I doubt I would agree), but it cannot be denied that the basic purpose of copyright law is to stifle a form of speech. That's why I'm always amazed at the disconnect of politicians, who support anti-censorship efforts online at the same time that they promote plans to censor-via-copyright law. Of course, most haven't actually thought about it, or they insist that copyright is not censorship at all, and they can't fathom how the two are connected.

Having said all that, though, it appears that not only does French President Nicolas Sarkozy recognize that copyright law is about censorship, he actually seems proud of the fact that he's using copyright law to stifle speech. As a bunch of folks have sent in, there's a conference being held in France about freedom of expression and against internet censorship. Sarkozy has apparently decided to try to use the conference, instead, to promote his Hadopi "three strikes" copyright concept. This is pretty stunning. It's as if he's openly admitting that copyright is censorship, and he's perfectly happy with that, and wants to expand it further.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, free speech, hadopi, nicolas sarkozy

Sarkozy: We Must Regulate The Internet To Ensure Freedom

from the um,-what? dept

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has some weird ideas about the internet. The original champion of "three strikes" laws, which are now in place in France, he's defended such laws as defending freedom. That seems odd: kicking people off the internet defends freedom? It appears now that he's got "three strikes" in place, he wants to take that idea even further. He's talking up the importance of further regulating the internet, calling it a moral imperative, and that without correcting "the excesses and abuses" there is "no economy," "no life in society," and "no freedom." Yes, his message appears to be that, to give you freedom online, we must first take away your freedom online. Sarkozy has, in the past, advocated taxing Google, Yahoo and Microsoft, and giving that money directly to record labels. So, once again, it certainly appears that when Sarkozy means "freedom" he really means "freedom" for a few entrenched businesses (including one that his wife is heavily involved in) to keep their business models going "free" of competition and "free" from having to adapt to modern technologies.

Filed Under: france, internet, nicolas sarkozy, regulations