 It's going to be a reflection about the decline of the civil liberties in France and really the very sad and dramatic year that France has experienced from the start of the year in 2015 with the attacks on Charlie Hebdo to the recent attacks in Paris this November. All of that is tragic as it is but sadly this has also had the effect of increasing push by the French government to put legal frameworks in place to not really make things easier or better for citizens but for the secret services in France and that is what the two speakers in this talk will be addressing right now as well as attempts of French NGOs to push against this kind of legislation. So I'd like you to give a really really big warm and respectful welcome to our next two speakers. Tazie Den who is the co-founder of a non-profit ISP in France and also the member of a Federation of non-profit ISPs and Adrien Charmet who's the campaign coordinator at La Croix d'Azur du Net. Applause please. Hello everyone so I have to warn you I have to do a little disclaimer this talk will be very depressing so keep calm please keep calm hug your neighbor everything will be okay and let's go. So we wanted to give this talk because as you have seen a lot of things has happened in France all this year Geraldine said it and so we wanted to share this with you and to give you an insight on what's going on. So yeah let's start sorry with 2015 in a match show. Yes 2015 was a very black here in France for freedom and marked by terrorist attacks on security and measure voting permanent atmosphere of terror. It began with the Charlie's attacks in January followed by the intelligence law in March then by an international servants law in September then by November attacks and now the state of emergency and new threats about liberties. Yeah so the thing is not just 2015 it started a whiteback and since 2013 actually there have been several measures and laws put in place and one of the first is a military planning act so it was kind of the first reaction to the post to the Snowden revelations in France and so this this general law on military planning included a measure about giving an administrative access for the police to the ISP networks giving them access to metadata in real time. Yes and this measure was voted to protect fundamental interest of France against economic espionage and terrorism and it was for us the beginning of the of the problem. Then in 2014 we had a new law about terrorism voted in an emergency process because your jeans apartment is a new new way of democracy in France when you talk about terrorism and there were several measures mostly inefficient to prevent people from becoming terrorists and one of them was the vote of a provision to allow police to block websites for apologia and glorification of terrorism very strange formulation and police can directly ask the ISP to block by DNS access to websites and of course it is with no control by judge the list of blocked websites remain secret and you have no information to citizens and to the owners of the websites. Yeah and that's not all for this law also a glorification of terrorism was removed from the the only low framing freedom of speech in France and so it was put into the penal code and the effect of this is that is like is that glorifying terrorism is now judged like an act of terrorism itself like it's ruled by the same judges and so on and also the sanctions if this glorification is made using the internet are increased and after Charlie attacks in January this year many people were judged for glorification of terrorists and a lot of them were drunk people or very young people and it shows the problem to define exactly what is glorification of terrorism so that was for 2014 and then came 2015 and the intelligence law it was a law prepared since two years approximately and the January attacks offered a window open the window for the government to push the law and more easily and during two months between the Charlie attacks in January and the presentation of the law in March it was an intense debate in France about must we have our French Patriot act or not and internet was always presented as responsible for radicalization or and terrorism and encryption was targeted in France and in other countries like United Kingdom for example even even if nothing proved that encryption was used by terrorists and even the news cartoonist the famous cartoonist from Charlie Hebdo was not a fool about all this and he made this wonderful cartoon about the situation and I think it's very it's based by by itself so what were the arguments for the law yes you are the government's arguments and the reality and the first arguments were that the objective of the law is to create a legal framework for intelligent services but in fact France was under the threat to be condemned by the European Court of Human Rights so it was a very complicated for the government and then also one argument of the government was we needed to replace the only law on the matter on surveillance it dated back to 1999 1991 but in fact it was only a question of extending the surveillance to internet and mobile communication which was not previously in the in the law the third arguments was that the government wanted to legalize existing practice and needs of the service which were in a gray zone they call it a legal practices not not black not white but a gray zone but it was just illegal practices and use probably since many years by other services one other argument was that well you see this law is bringing an independent control on the on the surveillance activities and the intelligence activities but in fact there was the real control is still in the power in the hands of the prime minister and the commission but the commission has just a consultative advice yeah and so one of the argument is that I was that you see it's giving the citizen a way to challenge the surveillance now that it's framed and so on but actually yes in fact different secrecy can be opposed at each step of the citizen challenge and the process is not under and duty under judiciary court so you cannot challenge the state so here for the arguments that we heard during the debate but what is the scope of this intelligence law that's something very interesting because obviously its scope for the it was sold in the in the media as something targeting targeting terrorism but actually there are all sorts of categories of people or actions that are concerned by the law like collective violence likely to seriously harm public peace that's something very broad and very vague and so there are also economic and and scientific strategic interest of France and international commitments and basically everything and everyone is concerned and for example a potester against nuclear power can even fit in several of these categories and the law legalize offensive and defensive espionage yeah and we don't have the time to cover all this and there is also immunity for the intelligence services in the law but let's see some of the measures the concrete measures that are included in it so obviously there is targeted surveillance like kilo girls geolocation microphone cameras are included in the law allowed by the law there are also MC catchers and one of the thing that crystallized the debate was black boxes that were to be put into ISP networks hosting providers and access providers so that these black boxes can detect weak signals and I'll go I'll go to me clearly and yes put it into the law in France and into the law that's crazy so obviously we were against the law yeah we were not very happy with this we start the campaign against the surveillance law immediately and coordinate large coalition of opponents and our slogan was everyone can be under surveillance and was detailed on a community website you are here sous surveillance that effort it means under surveillance that effort so yeah the mobilization was really broad and it came up very fast with not just activists but also NGOs lawyers judges journalists trade unions digital economy also and yes and we started with a by a press conference in like what are your office and it was not by the newspaper at the as the beginning of opponents campaign and we were surprised to be at the at the center of the coalition but I think we are used to be faster than all the NGOs because we know how to mobilize to analyze and to campaign and that give us more experience at internet ways to organize yeah so the organization other than the opposition grew all around the debate at first at the very beginning very few member of parliament who are against the law it was really something that was going to pass it was a lost battle but a very large citizen mobilization has been organized through LQ liquid ultra internet tools yes we use for example the Pifon with which is a website to facilitate calls to member of parliament the missing unit is a phone number and we just had five weeks to convince member of parliament that it was a very very rude campaign but at the day of the vote in the national assembly 20% of member of parliament's vote against the law and for us it was it was very it was like a little victory and three weeks later we have the same progress in the Senate with at the beginning nobody nobody against the law and at the end 20% of the senators against the law and during all the campaign we provided legal amendments and explanation to the member of parliament we explain again and again the law to politicians to the media in order to change the public and political view on the law and it worked because despite the bad result we are proud to have forced the government to justify himself every time about freedom and now the law was called the intelligence law at the beginning in media and at the end was called the surveillance law and for us it was very important to change the world yeah so this is not all we decided to also take the legal fight and so we there was a small group of people who decided to write an amicus curiae it's a document that you can provide that you can contribute to a judiciary debate and so 122 pages were written describing what was wrong in the law and comparing with the European commitments of France and the European Court of Justice case law and trust to to sustain the appeal launched by 60 members of the parliament to to before the constitutional council to asking the law to be censored and that's something like this you can read it on our website yeah and so this was written not just by lawyers but also by with a team of lawyers and activists that is very interesting and we put it online so that people can review it and every people can review it and and give us feedbacks and comments and fixes and so it worked very well like very very well we had 500 modifications in 24 hours we were like the first surprise to have so many comments and so this is proof that hackers and lawyers can work together and do a pretty cool stuff and July the constitutional council validated the law except one small part nothing small part all the provision about international surveillance it's not to say that international surveillance is prohibited of course just to for the parliament to vote explicitly the measure and not just vote for a future secret decree to organize international surveillance so the law was reintroduced before the parliament in September it's a it has been a nightmare like liquid nitrogen in it was alone on this yes the most NGOs in France it was too fast only three weeks to campaign so we were alone and the law legalized surveillance and all traffic going in and out of France this is obviously mass surveillance and has been clearly as such it's written in the law no targeted surveillance so it's the mass surveillance was voted and the law state that authorization to spy are given for entire countries for companies or for geographical zone so we without any prior control and the law was has been voted in three weeks without any serious debate presented just at the patch to the intelligence law yeah yeah I would say traffic going out in in and out of France it's nothing like well this is a map of cable cables are going in and out of France so this is pretty scary and so at this very moment we were like okay the battle is lost was the end of October yeah end of October but we were like okay now it's kind of finished we are we are still we have still a word to change yes it's the end of a very hard period and we would continue our positive agenda and campaign for rights and freedom on the internet net neutrality data protection copyright reform some very positive things and then and then and then and immediately after the attacks the attacks took place at a Friday evening at 10 p.m. and at 11 p.m. the French president declared the state of emergency and the day after the prime minister declared that a law will be voted the next week to extend the state of emergency in its perimeter and duration for three months and the law was voted with only six votes against under a very massive pressure of the prime minister and the minister of interior affairs so let's see what is the state of emergency you have to see that it's a suspension of separation of powers it's the something very exceptional and it allows the police to do the search is 24 7 without any judiciary control there are also also rests people can be forced to stay at home 12 hours per day and not quit a specific area and also websites can be yes and I've been in new provisions yes new provision adopted last month so electronic search is allowed into any system accessible during a police search any year which means that if the police come at your place and see that you can access from your computer other computers it can also copy the data of these servers or stuff or devices yes and websites can be blocked directly by an order by decision from the minister of interior affairs and there are a provision about the solution of formal groups or organization without any judgment and forever including after the end of the state of emergency and all of this is not operates with a judge advice it's just with the intelligence services information you have not true to prove something before before block a website or make an house arrest or police search yeah so let us give you some numbers of what happened so until now we have numbers given by the French National Assembly some kind of reporting and so far there as of actually the December the 17th there have been more than 2,700 police searches 368 house arrest and no websites blocked but the Internet was always the main problem yeah Internet was the main problem so and we decided to document the disaster on the on the liquid at your wiki with the help of people on the Internet and every day every article on a newspaper about the state of emergency is crowdsourced on our wiki and for us it's very important to to grow the awareness of people and politicians before voting next year so at this moment when we were documenting the disaster we were realizing that the targets of these searches and also rest were not all the time terrorists but they were like everybody that could cause danger to public peace would be considered dangerous by the police and the minister of interior affairs so there were Muslims on our case climate conference activists and also they have been during the conference the climate conference they have been demonstration prohibited and people are also rested so this was not just about terrorism it was very broad and very far and there is clearly a logic going on throughout all the laws we have been discussing since the beginning of this talk and it's clearly a minority minority reports kind of a way of thinking like they want to prevent the crime before they happen and so they are willing to do whatever they want to avoid justice and to do people the administrative way through the police and so on and with next we are afraid to be targeting in the next day or months for example one the provision about association and organization targets facilitation or encouragement and committing dangerous acts and we ask ourselves providing a tour exit node promote encryption is it to encouraging for facilitating so we don't know and that is a part of the problem when just the police can decide for the the the society who is dangerous or not you don't have the rules you cannot know if you are targeted or not yeah and so this is pretty bad but that's not enough that's not finished there is a constitutional reform that has been announced a few days ago it was an answer to the attacks but the details were published a few days ago and what has been announced is mainly two things the first is that the state of emergency will be written directly into the Constitution it's very important to be not attacked by a judgment later yes that it's kind of protected and also it's starting starting now in France there is a huge debate over the second measure which is deprivation of nationality which would be a major change of policy in France and it's an idea coming from the far right and so this is sparkling a debate right now yes and the debate takes place under the street of new terrorist attacks used by the government to force the parliament into voting the reform and probably the constitutional reform will be vote under the state of emergency and two new bills has been announced for few days ago about again terrorism and organized crime and they will probably be discussed in January or February and we foresee new attacks on encryption privacy citizen rights especially online because politicians don't want to understand what what is privacy online it's more easy for them to not know what what it means so what is at stake clearly what's going on there is a shock doctrine implementing a permanent state of exception in France we are seeing that there is definitely some the the willing to avoid the judiciary powers at any will like to put more powers into the police and intelligent intelligence services and more and more pressure put on the internet like yes it's always presented by the government as a propaganda tool for terrorists and we think that counterterrorism seems to be the new policy of the French government and it's a symbol of the general crisis of democracy in France yeah we think so we have to adapt and to find the counter strategy at first you have to acknowledge that digital freedom is a lie there is just freedom plain and simple you need to refuse the shock doctrine stay alert and protect yourself help people to understand the situation give them tools to to act to protect themselves against surveillance and bad policy and and you have to anticipate the straight and be careful about the discourse of the few governments and for us since the beginning of this year it means in la quadrature and other NGOs systematic public campaign even if we know that we will lose because it's very important to document the facts it requires building our story telling about the events and not just have the government storytelling to prepare and conduct legal action every time and everywhere before the French justice and the European justice it also means and that's something very important that we must document the disaster we we document the disaster like we did with the wiki page and more than anything it means taking part and building coalition with groups and organizations that we are not used to work with because we must enlarge the basis of the opposition yeah well not alone it's not just the digital thing it's we are all concerned so one very last important thing is we spoke about France but it can be in your country very soon I don't hope but you should stay alert as I said even as we speak there are countries like Tunisia that are using what is going on in France to promote the same schemes in the same shock doctrine and so on they are saying hey it's the country of human rights why can't we do the same thing and so well I'm sorry but even the country of human rights can turn into a police state so as a few words of advice to conclude this talk stay safe help others and encrypt all the things thank you very much to the two of you I'm gonna check my we have four minutes left but I know that you're also gonna do an extended Q&A because there's not that much time now do you want to announce that quickly yeah so we are it was very short slots a certain minutes is very short to talk about all the details of what we shown so we thought that it would be good to have a more more time to to elaborate on that if you're interested so please join us in in the all a1 in 30 minutes so we will discuss about going beyond the state with all other people from like what at your and French and Geos yeah sure and if you cannot come join us at the T house have some see and be welcome thank you