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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On June 14 2017 02:08 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 02:03 Nyxisto wrote:On June 14 2017 01:01 Gorsameth wrote:
Note, I disagree with making state of emergency measures permanent law fixtures. Well the state of emergency has been going on for like two years or something, so it would probably be better to at least at some point have it go through the legislation instead of just continuing it indefinitely Or maybe we could simply stop it because it's useless? You're aware that passing SoE stuff under common law means that the political power can basically decide to lock you up in your own home based on nothing but presumptions? In good English that's the end of rule of law. Your legitimism is really scary, man. We're talking about Erdogan-like stuff here. Would you like having your home searched because your neighboor thought your beard was a bit too long and called the police? Would you like quasi-administrative detention at your own home because you were seen in a demonstration?!
Those who benefit from emergency powers tend to be incentivized to prolong the emergency. And it's standard practice for overreaching intelligence efforts to point to the "attacks that didn't happen" as an unquantifiable measure of success, so no surprise there.
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On June 14 2017 02:31 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 02:08 TheDwf wrote:On June 14 2017 02:03 Nyxisto wrote:On June 14 2017 01:01 Gorsameth wrote:
Note, I disagree with making state of emergency measures permanent law fixtures. Well the state of emergency has been going on for like two years or something, so it would probably be better to at least at some point have it go through the legislation instead of just continuing it indefinitely Or maybe we could simply stop it because it's useless? You're aware that passing SoE stuff under common law means that the political power can basically decide to lock you up in your own home based on nothing but presumptions? In good English that's the end of rule of law. Your legitimism is really scary, man. We're talking about Erdogan-like stuff here. Would you like having your home searched because your neighboor thought your beard was a bit too long and called the police? Would you like quasi-administrative detention at your own home because you were seen in a demonstration?! Those who benefit from emergency powers tend to be incentivized to prolong the emergency. And it's standard practice for overreaching intelligence efforts to point to the "attacks that didn't happen" as an unquantifiable measure of success, so no surprise there.
Yeah, but the abuse clearly comes from the political side here, I don't remember intel services asking for permanent SoE.
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On June 14 2017 02:29 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 02:17 Nyxisto wrote:On June 14 2017 02:08 TheDwf wrote:On June 14 2017 02:03 Nyxisto wrote:On June 14 2017 01:01 Gorsameth wrote:
Note, I disagree with making state of emergency measures permanent law fixtures. Well the state of emergency has been going on for like two years or something, so it would probably be better to at least at some point have it go through the legislation instead of just continuing it indefinitely Or maybe we could simply stop it because it's useless? You're aware that passing SoE stuff under common law means that the political power can basically decide to lock you up in your own home based on nothing but presumptions? In good English that's the end of rule of law. Your legitimism is really scary, man. We're talking about Erdogan-like stuff here. Would you like having your home searched because your neighboor thought your beard was a bit too long and called the police? Would you like quasi-administrative detention at your own home because you were seen in a demonstration?! It's hard to evaluate whether it is useless or not because I assume nobody here has actual numbers. Whenever a terrorist attack happens it's easy to say that security has failed, but we don't know how many attacks have been prevented. The measures are also important to give the population a degree of perceived security, a weak state in such a situation could easily increase political extremism. I am absolutely speechless. We should terminate rule of law simply for the supposed psychological effect on the population of something that security services themselves deem useless?! Terminating rule of law literally for a placebo... I don't know what to say anymore, really.
You're not terminating the rule of law because of harsher security measures. France is not going to turn into Erdogan's Turkey all of the sudden. And of course perceived security is important, it is no placebo. After all the terrorist threat for the most part is psychological in nature.
For terrorists the killing is a means to destabilise the political and social spheres and create a permanent fear. If security measures can counter this they are not worthless. If you leave these policies to the demagogues you'll end up with a security state in much worse hands.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
On June 14 2017 02:34 TheDwf wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 02:31 LegalLord wrote:On June 14 2017 02:08 TheDwf wrote:On June 14 2017 02:03 Nyxisto wrote:On June 14 2017 01:01 Gorsameth wrote:
Note, I disagree with making state of emergency measures permanent law fixtures. Well the state of emergency has been going on for like two years or something, so it would probably be better to at least at some point have it go through the legislation instead of just continuing it indefinitely Or maybe we could simply stop it because it's useless? You're aware that passing SoE stuff under common law means that the political power can basically decide to lock you up in your own home based on nothing but presumptions? In good English that's the end of rule of law. Your legitimism is really scary, man. We're talking about Erdogan-like stuff here. Would you like having your home searched because your neighboor thought your beard was a bit too long and called the police? Would you like quasi-administrative detention at your own home because you were seen in a demonstration?! Those who benefit from emergency powers tend to be incentivized to prolong the emergency. And it's standard practice for overreaching intelligence efforts to point to the "attacks that didn't happen" as an unquantifiable measure of success, so no surprise there. Yeah, but the abuse clearly comes from the political side here, I don't remember intel services asking for permanent SoE.
I suppose it's a good place to ask, what exactly does the SoE entail, and who is pushing for it? Wiki and the like give a little too... generic a perspective.
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On June 14 2017 02:52 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 02:34 TheDwf wrote:On June 14 2017 02:31 LegalLord wrote:On June 14 2017 02:08 TheDwf wrote:On June 14 2017 02:03 Nyxisto wrote:On June 14 2017 01:01 Gorsameth wrote:
Note, I disagree with making state of emergency measures permanent law fixtures. Well the state of emergency has been going on for like two years or something, so it would probably be better to at least at some point have it go through the legislation instead of just continuing it indefinitely Or maybe we could simply stop it because it's useless? You're aware that passing SoE stuff under common law means that the political power can basically decide to lock you up in your own home based on nothing but presumptions? In good English that's the end of rule of law. Your legitimism is really scary, man. We're talking about Erdogan-like stuff here. Would you like having your home searched because your neighboor thought your beard was a bit too long and called the police? Would you like quasi-administrative detention at your own home because you were seen in a demonstration?! Those who benefit from emergency powers tend to be incentivized to prolong the emergency. And it's standard practice for overreaching intelligence efforts to point to the "attacks that didn't happen" as an unquantifiable measure of success, so no surprise there. Yeah, but the abuse clearly comes from the political side here, I don't remember intel services asking for permanent SoE. I suppose it's a good place to ask, what exactly does the SoE entail, and who is pushing for it? Wiki and the like give a little too... generic a perspective.
Prefects (administrative authority) can impose a curfew, forbid individuals to go to such or such area (recently declared unconstitutional, so should be dropped out), authorize vehicle searches, demand that certain weapons are temporarily given to the authorities, close meeting places or various rooms, forbid demonstrations, decide house arrests (home confinement + you have to go 2 times per day to some police station), order home searches. All of this while bypassing the judiciary order.
Government can dissolve associations or block some Internet sites.
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On June 13 2017 20:35 bardtown wrote:
Even if you're right, what you're saying has nothing to do with the conversation at hand. So I don't think it's me missing the point. Yet again.
Sorry, I misinterpreted your post.
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On June 14 2017 02:40 Nyxisto wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 02:29 TheDwf wrote:On June 14 2017 02:17 Nyxisto wrote:On June 14 2017 02:08 TheDwf wrote:On June 14 2017 02:03 Nyxisto wrote:On June 14 2017 01:01 Gorsameth wrote:
Note, I disagree with making state of emergency measures permanent law fixtures. Well the state of emergency has been going on for like two years or something, so it would probably be better to at least at some point have it go through the legislation instead of just continuing it indefinitely Or maybe we could simply stop it because it's useless? You're aware that passing SoE stuff under common law means that the political power can basically decide to lock you up in your own home based on nothing but presumptions? In good English that's the end of rule of law. Your legitimism is really scary, man. We're talking about Erdogan-like stuff here. Would you like having your home searched because your neighboor thought your beard was a bit too long and called the police? Would you like quasi-administrative detention at your own home because you were seen in a demonstration?! It's hard to evaluate whether it is useless or not because I assume nobody here has actual numbers. Whenever a terrorist attack happens it's easy to say that security has failed, but we don't know how many attacks have been prevented. The measures are also important to give the population a degree of perceived security, a weak state in such a situation could easily increase political extremism. I am absolutely speechless. We should terminate rule of law simply for the supposed psychological effect on the population of something that security services themselves deem useless?! Terminating rule of law literally for a placebo... I don't know what to say anymore, really. You're not terminating the rule of law because of harsher security measures. France is not going to turn into Erdogan's Turkey all of the sudden. And of course perceived security is important, it is no placebo. After all the terrorist threat for the most part is psychological in nature. For terrorists the killing is a means to destabilise the political and social spheres and create a permanent fear. If security measures can counter this they are not worthless. If you leave these policies to the demagogues you'll end up with a security state in much worse hands.
Can't you justify literally every freedom-limiting measure by that logic ? Like, why not declare all Muslims as Enemies of the Nation and then lock them up in concentration camps ? I'm sure our fellow countrymen who seem to think we walk over dead bodies to get to work everyday would feel much more secure. I mean, I thought the fact that what terrorists want is precisely more restrictions on freedom was well-accepted by now.
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no, I'm pretty sure you cannot go from searching houses to concentration camps. Are you serious? Not every security measure is a slippery slope to genocide, and Macron's policies are not racially motivated.
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On June 14 2017 02:31 LegalLord wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 02:08 TheDwf wrote:On June 14 2017 02:03 Nyxisto wrote:On June 14 2017 01:01 Gorsameth wrote:
Note, I disagree with making state of emergency measures permanent law fixtures. Well the state of emergency has been going on for like two years or something, so it would probably be better to at least at some point have it go through the legislation instead of just continuing it indefinitely Or maybe we could simply stop it because it's useless? You're aware that passing SoE stuff under common law means that the political power can basically decide to lock you up in your own home based on nothing but presumptions? In good English that's the end of rule of law. Your legitimism is really scary, man. We're talking about Erdogan-like stuff here. Would you like having your home searched because your neighboor thought your beard was a bit too long and called the police? Would you like quasi-administrative detention at your own home because you were seen in a demonstration?! Those who benefit from emergency powers tend to be incentivized to prolong the emergency. And it's standard practice for overreaching intelligence efforts to point to the "attacks that didn't happen" as an unquantifiable measure of success, so no surprise there.
Even though I partly agree, I would be very suprised if the agencys won't keep tabs on how many attacks they disrupted/prevented in the shadows. Even though this might never see the light of day, classified briefings do still matter after all.
Media still sometimes reports on prevented terrorist crimes, mostly as to prevent the further planning than execution.
At least in Germany what has become more dangerous for the intelligence agency is that they actively supported and turned blind eyes to a right wing terror group that murdered for a decade or so.
I agree with my fellow german that concentration camp might be a bit of a stretch here.
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The problem is that you're increasing the executives power massively without proper oversight. Macron might use it well (or maybe not) but there's no guarantee that his successors will as well. This is dangerous in the long term. The fact that institutions in France are strong now doesn't mean they will be forever. This is an obvious step in the wrong direction for me. Even though I like a lot of Macrons policies this is terrible.
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On June 14 2017 03:57 Nyxisto wrote:
no, I'm pretty sure you cannot go from searching houses to concentration camps. Are you serious? Not every security measure is a slippery slope to genocide, and Macron's policies are not racially motivated.
You said security measures were justified because of their psychological effect. My question is thus : where do you draw the line ? If searching houses without judiciary mandate is OK (which is really not), because that would make people feel secure, then is locking people up in their own home OK on the same justification ? Is going to war with another country OK, because that makes people feel more secure, even though the casus belli is a lie ? etc
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On June 14 2017 15:35 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 03:57 Nyxisto wrote:
no, I'm pretty sure you cannot go from searching houses to concentration camps. Are you serious? Not every security measure is a slippery slope to genocide, and Macron's policies are not racially motivated. You said security measures were justified because of their psychological effect. My question is thus : where do you draw the line ? If searching houses without judiciary mandate is OK (which is really not), because that would make people feel secure, then is locking people up in their own home OK on the same justification ? Is going to war with another country OK, because that makes people feel more secure, even though the casus belli is a lie ? etc
The problem is that there is a huge political pressure to keep the foot on the gas when it comes to terrorism, coming from the right wing mainly. Hollande government has been accused of doing nothing despite reinforcing vigipirate, starting operation sentinelle and instating a years long state of emergency. If anything, the government response to terrorism has been for the least robust, probably way too much, but you'll always have frontists, sarkozists and other hard liners to use the image of the soft left to argue they haven't done enough.
The government that dares to lift the state of emergency will have Le Pen, Morano and all those clowns who use fear and anger as a political tool to accuse them of being basically murderers the next time a lunatic blows himself up.
The problem is not the state of emergency. The problem is that people are scared. Democracy suffers or even perishes out of fear, not because institutions erode by themselves.
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I think we should all start threatening violence to get our governments and media to change their behaviour. It seems to be the most effective way to get what you want.
Don't like secular democracies built around individual freedoms? Start a few tiny terrorist cells that threaten with random violence, and the government responds by removing freedoms and increasing surveillance levels to authoritarian levels.
Don't like pictures of Muhammed in the media? All you need is a few tiny terrorist cells that threaten with violence targeted at said media, and they respond by censoring themselves.
I know what I'll be teaching my kids. If you want something, just threaten with violence!
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Changing the law is cheap. You can always demand changes in law and still demand less money to be spent, pretending that changing the law is all that is needed while vigourously demanding government cuts all across the board.
Education, police, social equality, stopping weapon exports, stopping to import oil and gas that in pretty much all cases finances terrorists or dictatorships... all of that stuff costs something. And with all that talk about values we must never forget what out biggest value is: short-term maximizing the amount of money in our hands. At this rate I wonder, when some illiterate politician will come along suggesting that we should just print the money we need and become president of the USA or something like that.
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On June 14 2017 20:24 Biff The Understudy wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 15:35 OtherWorld wrote:On June 14 2017 03:57 Nyxisto wrote:
no, I'm pretty sure you cannot go from searching houses to concentration camps. Are you serious? Not every security measure is a slippery slope to genocide, and Macron's policies are not racially motivated. You said security measures were justified because of their psychological effect. My question is thus : where do you draw the line ? If searching houses without judiciary mandate is OK (which is really not), because that would make people feel secure, then is locking people up in their own home OK on the same justification ? Is going to war with another country OK, because that makes people feel more secure, even though the casus belli is a lie ? etc The problem is that there is a huge political pressure to keep the foot on the gas when it comes to terrorism, coming from the right wing mainly. Hollande government has been accused of doing nothing despite reinforcing vigipirate, starting operation sentinelle and instating a years long state of emergency. If anything, the government response to terrorism has been for the least robust, probably way too much, but you'll always have frontists, sarkozists and other hard liners to use the image of the soft left to argue they haven't done enough. The government that dares to lift the state of emergency will have Le Pen, Morano and all those clowns who use fear and anger as a political tool to accuse them of being basically murderers the next time a lunatic blows himself up. The problem is not the state of emergency. The problem is that people are scared. Democracy suffers or even perishes out of fear, not because institutions erode by themselves.
I get all that. But continue to push the reasoning. When do we stop ? As you noted, Hollande got accused of being too weak, despite him actually being harsher than a right-wing government would probably have been. Then what's next ? Do we go with ever harsher measures, measures that will never satisfy the right anyway since all they want is not security, but to have the power themselves ? Or do we realize that surrendering to fear and political pressure is the best way to have even more fear and even more political pressure ?
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
Fuck this entire "strong leader" bluster that is all about trying to look masculine enough in the face of terrorism. What people should really worry about is effectiveness, in terms of actually being able to stop terrorism from happening. And as buff and muscular as Hollande may have appeared in the SoE, he was undeniably bad at making that happen. Manuel "France just has to get used to terrorism" Valls is just as good.
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On June 15 2017 02:14 LegalLord wrote:
Fuck this entire "strong leader" bluster that is all about trying to look masculine enough in the face of terrorism. What people should really worry about is effectiveness, in terms of actually being able to stop terrorism from happening. And as buff and muscular as Hollande may have appeared in the SoE, he was undeniably bad at making that happen. Manuel "France just has to get used to terrorism" Valls is just as good.
We don't have any real measure of effectiveness when talking about fighting against terrorism though ? I mean, a government can highly decrease the risk of attack %, yet an attack may still happen, even though it was less likely ; however, a government can just have luck and not suffer terrorist attacks despite being pretty bad at actually adressing security issues. But what people will see is that the first government fucked up because there was an attack, while the second was good because there wasn't.
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United Kingdom13775 Posts
It's one of the many issues of governance where success is invisible but failure looks quite bad.
"Rogue gunman" attacks are of course tough to prevent. Given the scale of attacks that France has faced, both in severity and quantity, that is clearly not what is going on here. But posturing is apparently better than trying to smoke out the root cause of the terrorist threat.
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Isn't the problem really simple?
The left: not willing to enforce harsh laws and no interest in making them stricter.
The right: All over harder laws and enforcing thrm but no intrest to actually spend on police oranything at all.
It would be hilarious if not so fucking dumb.
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On June 14 2017 15:35 OtherWorld wrote:Show nested quote +On June 14 2017 03:57 Nyxisto wrote:
no, I'm pretty sure you cannot go from searching houses to concentration camps. Are you serious? Not every security measure is a slippery slope to genocide, and Macron's policies are not racially motivated. You said security measures were justified because of their psychological effect. My question is thus : where do you draw the line ? If searching houses without judiciary mandate is OK (which is really not), because that would make people feel secure, then is locking people up in their own home OK on the same justification ? Is going to war with another country OK, because that makes people feel more secure, even though the casus belli is a lie ? etc
You draw the line when things stop being proportionate. Ramping up control and supervision of individuals that have already become suspects is hardly disproportionate. Invoking the Orwellian police state or promote racist measures would not only be disproportionate but also counter-productive.
But it seems pretty clear to me that an academic privacy discussion is misplaced in a situation when many people fear for their fundamental safety. This is not something that drives the political situation back to normalcy. When security threats change, political security measures should change to be able to respond.
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