French lawmakers have approved a bill to let intelligence services deploy fly-on-the-wall spying devices more easily against suspected terrorists after Islamist militant attacks killed 17 people in January.
The bill, opposed by civil rights groups, some leftists and some members of President Francois Hollande's ruling Socialists, waives the need for judicial warrants to deploy phone taps, hidden microphones, cameras and other devices such as keypad communications readers.
Despite vocal opposition from critics who fear it will lead to mass-scale surveillance, the bill was approved by the lower house of parliament by a wide margin, with 438 votes in favour and 86 against.
Under the new law, instead of requiring a judge's approval, security officials can order surveillance after advice by a newly created supervisory body specifically dedicated to this.
In exceptional cases, surveillance agencies will be able to use so-called IMSI Catcher spy devices that record all types of phone, internet or text messaging conversation in an area.
Prime Minister Manuel Valls has defended the law as vital to counter-terrorism activities and denied it was a French variant of the US Patriot Act passed in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the US.
Nor was it similar, he said, to the widespread intelligence gathering exposed by former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, sparking an international outcry.
"This bill, which provides a framework to the work of intelligence services, gives them more powers to be more efficient in the fight against terrorism and serious crime," he said.
One of the leading worries for critics is a clause requiring web providers to automatically track suspicious behaviour, relying on metadata rather than the content of communications.
Government agencies could then demand access to personal web information in cases of particular suspicion.
"Some of us are really worried about a piece of legislation that is unbalanced, gives too much power to the executive branch ... and has the potential to organise a mass espionage of the entire population through modern means," conservative UMP lawmaker Pierre Lellouche said.
Most Socialist and opposition conservative lawmakers voted in favour of the text, while the Greens party voted against and center-right UDI lawmakers were split.
The upper house of parliament will vote on the bill in June.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article