EU capitals want media law carve-out to spy on reporters
politico.eu
politico.eu
> Paris previously pleaded — successfully — in the Council for a bigger carve-out in the media law allowing EU capitals to snoop on reporters, while European lawmakers in their version of the legislation went with stricter exemptions and stronger safeguards to protect journalists.
> In a decree made public today, French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne has extended the temporary retention of communications data of all citizens in France for another year. The blanket retention obligation concerns identity data (surname, first name, date and place of birth, postal address(es), e-mail address(es), telephone number(s)) as well as payment information, connection data (IP addresses, port numbers, identification numbers of users and their devices, date, time and duration of each communication, data on supplementary services and their providers) and also the location data of electronic communications of the entire population.
https://www.politico.eu/article/france-surveillance-cameras-... (JULY 24, 2023)
> Over two centuries, France cobbled together a surveillance apparatus capable of intercepting private communications; keeping traffic and localization data for up to a year; storing people’s fingerprints; and monitoring most of the territory with cameras.
> This system, which has faced pushback from digital rights organizations and United Nations experts, will get its spotlight moment at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics. In July next year, France will deploy large-scale, real-time, algorithm-supported video surveillance cameras — a first in Europe. (Not included in the plan: facial recognition.)
That's a fat lot of good, given that the EU seems to be incapable of forcing member states [<cough> Hungary] to implement rule-of-law and judicial independence.
German prosecutors are not able to issue European arrest warrants due to their lack of independence. The Ministry of Justice can just order them what to prosecute and what to drop.
Relevant ruling from the European court of justice https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/201...
There was talk of changing this after the ruling, but the German government decided it would rather not.
But I'm not surprised to learn that German prosecutors are under the control of the Ministry of Justice; bringing a prosecution is normally a prerogative of the government. It's direct control of the judiciary that I find scary.
Does Germany have an inquisitorial judicial system like France? In France, AIUI they use "Investigating Magistrates", who are both prosecutor and judge, and who direct police investigations. Acquittal seems improbable in such circumstances. Resistance is useless!
Secondly, there are two main kinds of legal systems with respect to the separation of powers. Ones in which prosecutors are part of the executive branch, and those in which prosecutors are part of the judicial branch. In Germany, they are part of the government. In France, they are part of the judiciary.
However, in the aligned EU wide system, warrants are only recognized if they are emitted by an authority in the judiciary branch. So, it's OK for French prosecutors to issue warrants (they are independent from the President), but not for German ones (the Chancellor can order them to emit one, or at least punish them if they don't).
And related to the French "Investigating Magistrates", they fulfill the role of prosecutors. They do have some of the powers that judges have in the Common law system, but only some like emitting warrants (which is fine, because they are independent from the government). They do not preside over the criminal trial - there are separate judges who do that. At least that is my understanding.
Correct, mostly. They're not prosecutors. Prosecutors are controlled by the State and can't oversee an investigation. They instead ask a 'juge d'instruction' To do it. Those can be also called against the state (or on a specific investigation) and governmental bodies, by NGOs or local government. They cannot start an investigation by themselves. It's usually better for both the victims and suspects that the investigation is supervised by such magistrates, but it also have limits. Overall I'd rather have them independent like now (and have their pairs judge them _after_ issues with an investigation) than add oversight that could become political pressure.
> The European Arrest Warrant is just a technical means.
I'm reminded of a story about a British man who was sent to Romania on an EU Warrant, and languished in jail for two years awaiting trial, on a charge that was not a crime in the UK (don't remember all the details).
> Part of the point of the EU is to align the legal systems of its member countries
That's EU over-reach, and one of the reasons I supported Brexit. The fact is that any attempt to align the UK legal system with (e.g.) the French system is doomed; the British legal system was established about 800 years ago, and people have relied on it over civil matters (wills, property, contracts) and criminal matters (juries, police conduct etc.) ever since. Even the way that laws are drafted is very different.
I appreciate that Free Movement assumes some level of judicial interchangeability; but in fact UK and EU judicial rules are not interchangeable, and can't be made so. And yet, prior to Brexit, Free Movement was a thing; so apparently judicial uniformity wasn't really needed to make Free Movement work.
For what it's worth, I'm not opposed to Free Movement; that's not at all why I supported Brexit.
where Putin can then kidnap them or put something in their food
I dont think so. The closest thing is probably the shenanigans going on with anti terror trials (§ 129b). While there is the problem of sentencing being only possible with an authorization to prosecute for said group from the ministry of justice, the really dangerous part is it being possible to read in stuff that is "known to the court" (gerichtsbekannt) at the start of the trial. So for example the court declares that its a known fact that the not illegal group xyz is a "cover organization" (tarnorganisation) for the banned organization zyx. A fact that is not part of the evidence gathering procedure and as a result cant be challenged. Which makes the rest of the trial pointless, you are already guilty.
Historically its a concept first used for membership in the German communist party that found its way into anti terror trials later.
> talks haven't finished [...] Nothing is set in stone. Once the Council has agreed on its mandate, it will have to negotiate with the Parliament — which has yet to reach its position — and the Commission before the new rules can enter into force.
(Even the "enter into force" is debatable, should really read "be approved" - enforcement might come at later date, or even never.)
And yes, the European Council sucks. It's full of these directly elected members of national parliaments, always so keen to pander to the electorate.
Compare with the US system where sovereignty comes from the US as a whole and is delegated down to the States.
Eeehh... This is an open point of law, technically. Per Maastricht treaty, the European Parliament has co-decision powers, and its consistent electoral system arguably makes it more directly representative of European people than national governments. Parliament "stared down" the Council on occasions.
The Council/Commission/Parliament setup is really not the finished article, I expect things will change again before the end of the century.
Its just framing.
France of all places.
One problem is, modern governments seem to think that any situation in which they may get voted out counts as a national security risk.
Another problem is that anything at all that can change how society operates is a national security risk. Climate change is about as big a national security risk as you could get, ironically it seems to be the only one that gets ignored.
Solar power is a national security risk because it can change the power balance between consumers and long standing utilities. Same with electric cars, consumers, and fossil fuel companies.
Any change to the balance of power / status quo is literally a threat to national security because society sits on a long established foundation of dependence upon certain utilities, companies, services, etc. Change the power dynamic and the foundation of society changes, which is a threat to national security.
The final grand irony is that threats to national security are sometimes a good thing, and indicate the healthy progress of society in integrating new technologies and schools of thought.
No national security threats is a symptom of stagnation. The ultimate victory of conservatism, the prize for which is generally losing the next war.
In France now two-thirds of staff in police/gendarmerie work in riot control service, and only one-third work in judicial police.
There may be good reasons for that, but as a Frenchman, I am unaware that French people in demonstrations are so dangerous. Why do demonstrators need to be countered by armed people trained in urban warfare and equipped with military gear?
Indeed there are also real riots with war like scenes, but it's "only" a few hours after the event that riot police arrives. In this matter, firefighters are present during the events and they are real heroes.
Les gilets jaunes were incredibly violent [1].
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_vests_protests#Fataliti...
These guys were probably 1/100 of the total number of gilets jaunes.
In contrast, the average gilet jaune were middle-aged people, often women, who feared falling into poverty. Most were unable to run quickly, even for their life.
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mouvement_des_Gilets_jaunes#Pr... (sorry it's in French)
BTW my understanding of the WP paragraph that you point out is that most of this violence, injuries, and trauma was done by police, not by these people.
This is always the case. It's why you need riot police versus ordinary cops. We've had tons of protests in New York, including ones where people are injured and looters blend in, but never (in modern times) at this scale nor intensity.
> most of this violence, injuries, and trauma was done by police
I don't think the police injured over a thousand of themselves. There were also multiple deaths where protesters used their trucks as weapons.
I am not solely indicting the protesters. Just the claim that French protests aren't notably violent.
I don't remember such an event. In some cases, other people (not demonstrators) who were trying to cross a blockade their cars.
> "Just the claim that French protests aren't notably violent."
Sorry I didn't understand that, you are indeed right.
There is often a level of violence (see farmers or docker unions) but the Gilets Jaunes were mostly ordinary people, not the smartest, not in their best health, and they were not aggressive in most cases. They were us, feeling things were falling apart and not knowing what to do.
You are confusing the giletes jaunes protests with the 2016 Nice terrorist attack.
Yes, change can coincide with unrest, but there's nothing inherently insecure about incorporating new schools of thought.
Otherwise, the US wouldn't have police be run by local governments, separate from and not answering to the national military.
France is a notorious snooping hotspot. It was common, in the noughties, to require clean laptops on visits to Paris. Their security service's had a habit of imaging machines left in hotel rooms.
The Netherlands simply don’t care about the law. They do what they want with impunity then changed the law on 2020 so that it’s not punishable for all government to lie under oath in court so they can cover up what they do. They can’t be held accountable for obstruction of then they don’t care what the wording of any laws are.