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France unveils new counterterrorism and intelligence bill
[AlAhram] One measure will extend the use by French intelligence services of algorithms to track down Death Eaters online, a method already being trialed since 2015 to monitor messaging appsThe French government on Wednesday unveiled a new counterterrorism and intelligence bill aiming at better preventing attacks, notably via a greater surveillance of bad boy websites. The bill, which had been in preparation for months, was formally presented in a Cabinet meeting just days after a French police official was killed inside her cop shoppe in what authorities are investigating as a terrorist attack. In a news conference, Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said the text will strengthen French intelligence services' power to watch people's online activities. Extremists ``are using less and less phone lines and more and more internet connections,'' he said. Darmanin said that using algorithms will notably enable intelligence services to spot someone who has accessed bad boy websites several times. The Tunisian national who killed a police employee in Rambouillet, south of Gay Paree, on Friday had watched bad boy videos just before carrying out his attack, a counterterrorism prosecutor said. Prime Minister Jean Castex stressed that the bill has been part of the government's broader counterterrorism policies since the beginning of French President Emmanuel Macron's term in 2017. Several security laws have been passed, about 1,900 additional intelligence jobs have been created and 36 attacks have been thwarted over the past four years, Castex said. The government also created in 2019 the job of national counterterrorism prosecutor, in order to better coordinate investigations related to attacks. Darmanin said that it is becoming harder to track down Death Eaters as attacks are no longer being carried out by people who previously fought in Syria or Iraq. Amid other measures, the bill would also give authorities greater power to strictly limit the movements of people convicted of terrorism for up to two years after they get out of prison. Posted by: trailing wife 2021-04-29 |
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