[pp.int.general] Terrorism, and you

[Valentin Villenave]

2008/9/12 Amelia Andersdotter <teirdes at gmail.com>:
> For Europe that'd be pretty nifty anyway.

Maybe it would made us laugh if it wasn't actually *completely* true...

While the US are getting ready to elect GW Bush 2.0, while the
Italians have strangely felt the need for Berlusconi to come back,
we're slowly drifting towards dictature here in France...

Perhaps you've heard about the EDVIGE polemics here: this summer,
while everyone was on vacation and didn't care, the government took
this as an opportunity to create a huge citizen-spying database, where
they have the ability to store any data about you (including medical
informations, whether you're gay or not, if you've been involved in
any organization of any kind, etc). -- that is, without any legal
control of course.

President Sarkozy's favorite motto is: let's not deal with
crimes/riots/protests *after* they've happened, but let's prevent
these from ever happening in the first place. He's already stated that
in his opinion pedophilia, homosexuality and criminal behaviors (sic)
were driven by genetic factors, and therefore he's allowed to track
children from the age of THREE on suspicion of "possible antisocial
behavior".

More recently, he's made a law that allows people who've been
convicted for, say, 10 years of jail, to be locked down _ad vitam
aeternam_ without any trial if the department of justice thinks
they're likely to commit any new crime once they're out. This law was
forbidden by the Constitutional Council (highest authority in France),
but President Sarkozy stated that it just didn't matter, and the law
is now VALID.

Frankly, I fully share Glenn's "cry for awareness". Except that such
things don't make us want to be "nifty" anymore, Amelia:  we're just
pissed. Desperate and pissed.

Cheers,
Valentin