| Of course they do. Every modern nation does. Question is, do the French turn it on their own citizens (answer: yes), and do they tap-dance around their own laws (answer: of course). Hat tip to the Volokh Conspiracy. |
An investigation by the French daily found that the DGSE, France's external intelligence agency, had spied on the French public's phone calls, emails and internet activity. The agency intercepted signals from computers and phones in France as well as between France and other countries, looking not so much at content but to create a map of "who is talking to whom", the paper said.
Le Monde said data from emails, text messages, phone records, accessing of Facebook and Twitter, and internet activity going through sites such as Google, Microsoft or Yahoo! was stocked for years on vast servers on three different floors in the basement of the DGSE headquarters.
The paper described the vast spying programme as secret, "outside any serious control" and illegal.
| Illegal according to whom? |
The paper said Bernard Barbier, technical director of the DGSE, had previously described the system as "probably the biggest information centre in Europe after the English".
Referring to the system as a "French Big Brother", Le Monde said the French state was able to use the surveillance "to spy on anybody at any time". The paper wrote: "All of our communications are spied on."
Le Monde said that after Snowden's revelations about the NSA's Prism surveillance programme prompted indignation in Europe, France "only weakly protested, for two excellent reasons: Paris already knew about it, and it was doing the same thing".
| Again, every modern state has a surveillance system to look evidence of major threats to the country, including terrorism. The issue is where you draw the line. |
| Sure buddy. Then again, we'll want an explanation from you about yours... |
| She's a politician, she's paid to be shocked... |